Guest Columnist

Funding activity asks how much money was appropriated, how many employees were hired, or how many programs were created. Funding results ask whether children are learning, patients are receiving better care, neighborhoods are safer, permits are issued faster, infrastructure is working, and local businesses are creating jobs.

There is generally very little risk if citizens, corporations and other governments know key facts about the FSM population. For example, about a third of Micronesians have high blood pressure or diabetes, the bulk of Micronesians living in Iowa work in the meat-packing industry and Micronesians emigrate because it is literally better to slave yourself at an Ohio warehouse than to subsist on $1.75 an hour in the FSM.

A long-time but now former employee of the FSM Cyber Security & Intelligence Bureau, Stephen holds the view that by using Microsoft 365 across the FSM government, and given that the 2018 U.S. Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act, or CLOUD Act, compels U.S.-based providers to grant U.S. agencies access to data stored on their platforms, the FSM is contravening Article IV Section 5 of the FSM Constitution.

The war has disrupted global supply chains, destabilized international energy markets, threatened critical maritime shipping routes and generated widespread uncertainty across an already fragile global economy.

Over the past 39 years, I’ve had the privilege of working with thousands of Guam businesses. Some were family-owned companies employing only a handful of people. Others were among the largest employers on our island. I’ve seen businesses succeed and I’ve seen businesses fail.

Despite everything we claim to know about our planet, there remains an unknown world beneath the ocean’s surface. We observed species rarely seen before. We also encountered plastic waste, proof that destructive human activity has reached even this remote landscape.

When Secretary of War Pete Hegseth addressed the Shangri‑La Dialogue in Singapore this May, he delivered a message that resonated across the Indo‑Pacific: the region is now the world’s strategic center of gravity, and the United States intends to remain its stabilizing force.

By strengthening cooperation in technology, trade, education, and innovation, Taiwan, Guam, and the United States can continue working together to support a secure, prosperous, and open Indo-Pacific region.

At the World Health Assembly in Geneva, health diplomacy often speaks in the polished grammar of resolutions, annexes, budget lines and technical reports. Yet, for Pacific island countries, the issues on the WHA79 agenda are not abstract items in a multilateral calendar. They are questions of physical survival, fiscal resilience and political agency.

We have been this way before. As an island culture, we have collectively stared down the eye of a dysfunctional government of Guam and marveled at its tempestuous incompetence.

The neglected, unsafe and pothole-plagued motorway is the main entry point for student drop-off and pick-up as well as for students driving themselves to school.

Patients on Guam are often seen in one facility and then transferred to another. When that happens, responsibility for care should remain clear and consistent. Patients should not feel like they are entering a different system with different rules.

The Jones Act has now been in force for over a century. In that time, the fleet it governs has contracted from around 250 ships in the 1980s to fewer than 100 today. The American commercial shipbuilding industry now accounts for approximately 0.2 percent of worldwide ship production.

Guam Memorial Hospital has long struggled with financial instability, recurring deficits and persistent challenges in billing accuracy and revenue collection.

By Samuel S. Kim It begins with a small, almost imperceptible pause. You've just ordered a coffee at a counter. The barista spins the tablet toward you, and there it is—a tipping screen. Twenty percent. Twenty-five percent. Thirty percent. Custom amount. The barista hasn't walked away. They're watching. The line behind you is growing. Your finger hovers, and for a few seconds that feel considerably longer, you are no longer a customer. You are a person being quietly judged. Y

Guam is not the only U.S. territory on the front line of U.S. national security. There persists the historical irony of national defense's dependence on patriotic Americans in the unincorporated territories.

By Howard Hills A recent Wall Street Journal report echoed the curiosity among experts and diplomats on whether a U.S. deal on Greenland could be modeled on three successful U.S. free association pacts with strategically located Pacific island nations. The United States’ mutual security alliance with Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia provides far more binding defense powers and commitments than the NATO treaty. Contrary to some low-informati

By Michael Lujan Bevacqua (First of a two-part series) Sen. Shelly Calvo has introduced Bill 218-38, which would mandate all government of Guam agencies to use the spelling “CHamoru” in all official documents, government publications and public educational materials. Bill 218-38 is a proposed addendum to Public Law 33-236, enacted in 2017, which re-established Kumisión i Fino' CHamoru, also known as the CHamoru Language Commission. For those familiar with the history of the

When traditional employment disappoints, entrepreneurship is the classic American alternative. On Guam, that path is significantly harder to walk. Guam’s business privilege tax is levied on gross receipts—not profits—at rates of 3 to 5 percent. A business pays tax before it knows whether it has turned a profit.

In recent years, several undersea cables and key energy pipelines across Europe and the North Atlantic region have sustained man-made damage, putting governments on high alert. Frequent incidents involving broken cables have also occurred in Asia and Pacific island nations, prompting the launch of local emergency backup and risk response mechanisms.

The terms “nationality” and “citizenship” are generally used interchangeably. For example, the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause is codified in the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act as the status of “national and citizen.”

Two smart analyses. Two different readings of what’s at stake. Yet both share the same omission: neither spends any time on the places that would feel the first shockwaves—Guam, the freely associated states and their Pacific neighbors.

By James Espinosa, . When I first saw the name “Rosa Gumataotao Rios” on U.S. currency, pointed out by a fellow Guamanian, I felt a profound sense of pride. The name Gumataotao, which she shares with her husband, Jose Diaz Gumataotao Jr., is familiar to anyone from Guam and the Marianas Islands. Mrs. Gumataotao Rios, who served as the 43rd Treasurer of the United States in 2009, left her mark on our nation’s money and an indelible impression on the hearts of those from our is

Our islands are sinking. The ocean creeps closer each year, swallowing beaches where children once played, contaminating wells where families drank, and destroying the gardens that feed us.

For the ocean-dependent island countries, Trump's executive order is undoubtedly a disaster. The ocean is our home, and engaging in deep-sea mining operations without mature technology is dangerous.

By Aldwin Fajardo It never sits right with me when people question the American-ness of naturalized citizens, as if we’re somehow wearing a knock-off version of patriotism. You know, the kind that looks fine from afar but supposedly falls apart after a few washes. It’s as if the moment you weren’t born within these borders, your allegiance automatically comes with an asterisk: “subject to verification.” Here’s the thing: becoming an American by choice isn’t some impulsive d

When Vice Speaker Tony Ada announced his run for governor with EJ Calvo as his running mate, his first theme was one every family recognizes: the rising cost of living. Speaker Frank Blas Jr. and other contenders are echoing the same promise.

By Mukhtar Babayev The world arrives in Belém for COP30 at a moment of profound division. The international system is being tested in ways we have not seen in decades. Yet the climate crisis does not wait for stability. It touches every community on Earth, from small islands in the Pacific to farming heartlands on every continent. It demands that, even in a fractured world, we still find common purpose. Over the past year, too many environmental negotiations have fallen...

By Dr. Michael Cruz As a surgeon who has devoted much of my career to breast oncologic surgery, I have stood beside hundreds of women and families facing one of life’s most difficult diagnoses — breast cancer. My decision to specialize in this field was deeply personal. My own mother was diagnosed at an early age with aggressive Stage III breast cancer. She fought bravely and survived, reminding me — and all who knew her — that breast cancer is not automatically a death sente

When President Donald Trump directed the Pentagon to rebrand itself as the “Department of War,” many in Washington dismissed the move as symbolic political theater.

Proponents of deep-sea mining have long evoked the principle of self-determination to argue in favor of seabed extraction.

We’re told to fear the likes of China, Russia and North Korea. We imagine cyberattacks, spies and invasions. But while we brace for threats from abroad, we ignore the damage we’re doing right here at home, damage that’s deeper, more personal, and far more dangerous.

I had just joined GMH as interim CEO when GRMC opened its doors in July 2015. I remember the opening ceremony as if it were yesterday.

Inside the Reef By Joyce McClure In Washington, a government shutdown is often framed as political theater. But on Guam and across...

View from the West By James C. Pearce Republicans of old are all a little perplexed about something lately: national defense. It was...

By Christopher Duenas The 38 th Guam Legislature has spoken. By overriding the Governor’s veto, we ended the chapter of one-party...

oliticians make up the vast majority of our political system. But there were aberrations, like the late former Sen. Bob Klitzkie, Joe Ada and others who cared deeply about our island and its people.

Recently, there’s been discussion about the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act and whether Guam will finally be included.

By Sen. Jesse Lujan The crisis facing Guam Memorial Hospital has been debated in hearings, dissected in reports and litigated in the...

By Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero Dr. Mike Cruz and I agree on more than many might expect. Like him, I believe a strong public-private...

More than a few women—educators, community and church organizers, business owners and political pioneers—played a significant role in advancing the drive for some semblance of self-government for the people of Guam after liberation from wartime occupation.

This crisis is largely of the public sector’s own making, centered on GMH and the Department of Public Health and Social Services. Meanwhile, the private sector continues to deliver quality care despite chronic neglect and a lack of meaningful government support.

Too often on Guam, I’ve heard professionals and policymakers reduced to labels, called “too white” in one room and “too brown” in another. Whether in meetings or over the airwaves, these aren’t descriptions; they’re put-downs.

The elected officials in the government of Guam are always saying that the children are our future, health care and education are their priorities and that honesty in government is what they believe should be the hallmark of elected and appointed officials.

Gov. Palacios’ own words tell his story. In a presentation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington in 2024, he described how, when he came into office, he tried to find out what happened to around $1.6 billion in federal funding (CARES, ARPA, etc.) that had been given to the CNMI, (population around 45,000) during the pandemic era.

By Frank Blas Jr. On Aug. 1, Guam marks a profound milestone—75 years since the passage of the Organic Act of 1950. This landmark...

Are popular people who are elected or appointed to office actually leaders, or are they simply well-known people who fit into your familial chart?

Because U.S. “nationals” and “citizens” have the same legal duty of “allegiance” to America, some American Samoans may have thought there was no need to pay fees for reclassification as both nationals and citizens in order to vote.

As Guam marks the 75th anniversary of the Organic Act, we are called to more than remembrance—we are called to revival.

By Patricia L. Diego I recently had the chance to attend Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan. It’s not just an expo; it’s a global showcase, a...