From the publisher's desk

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter,” Thomas Jefferson famously wrote to his friend.

Perhaps, the best quotes about free press being the hallmark of democracy have already been said, oft-repeated or reinvented with their core essence remaining intact. We pull them out of the quotes inventory...

   If GTA were still a government-run corporation, it would likely be among the agencies lining up at the legislature to ask for subsidy from the general fund, if not digging into the tax jars to cover the debt service for its revenue bonds. In either case, the burden would’ve been on the taxpayers, with no guarantee of efficient service. We would probably have been thrown back to the dial-up era.

  Then known as Guam Tele...

“We are only faced with the absurd when we take both our need for answers and the world's silence together.—Albert Camus

  First, Ted Lewis. The former Guam Memorial Hospital administrator was forced to resign in January 2016, amid credit card abuse investigation and sexual harassment complaint, which he believes had been fabricated by a...

All tax revenue, according to the American humorist P.J. O’Rourke, is the result of holding a gun to the taxpayer’s head. “Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don't pay your taxes, you'll be fined. If you don't pay the fine, you'll be jailed. If you try to escape from jail, you'll be shot.”

So pay, we do. In many cases, we overpay. Thus we raise our eyebrows when Adelup boasts about itself each time it releases our tax...

   The Trump administration’s fiscal 2019 budget pitched a “bold, innovative approach” to reform the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — namely, treat food stamp recipients like babies. Because welfare recipients are presumed to be unable to choose their own food, the Trump administration decided it should pick and pack the food boxes and deliver them to the households’ doorsteps.

  Under the proposed program, the...

  It was quite amusing if not woeful to watch. Gov. Eddie Calvo tried all sorts of scare contrivances to convince the skeptical senators that the sky was falling.

  First, the Guam Memorial Hospital’s accreditation was supposedly at stake — a claim that Speaker Benjamin Cruz and Sen. Dennis Rodriguez briskly whacked. The Joint Commission report “is not an issue of funding” and had “nothing to do with any infrastructure plan tha...

 Adelup has been spewing out hysterical press releases, warning of payless paydays, furloughs and possible cuts in government programs and services unless the Guam Legislature succumbs to its proposal to raise business privilege tax from 4 percent to 6 percent. It’s supposed to make up for the $67 million drop in tax revenue as a result of President Trump’s federal tax reform.

  What is more appalling other than holding public...

   China has been inching along the Pacific, one thousand yuan at a time. Since 2006, the communist state has been splashing cash around the region. According to the think tank Lowly Institute for International Policy, Chinese aid to Pacific island states including Tonga, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Cook Islands and Vanuatu is estimated to have reached $1.7 billion as of 2017. FSM alone has received $40.6 million in largess,...

This will be the year of Bitcoin explosion.  Not that it hasn’t exploded yet. The first Bitcoin ATM just opened on Guam. Autospot’s radio commercial bombards listeners with its Bitcoin packages offer. You can’t be not curious now; Bitcoin has become a household word.

 Recruiters on Guam have been hustling and the madness is growing to a tormenting level. “Do you have Bitcoin yet?” “My $1,000 Bitcoin investment is now worth $10,...

Living on Guam for almost 15 years, I have finally fulfilled my long desire to visit the cockpit in Dededo, compelled to understand cockfighting for our December cover story. Surrounded by Filipino sabungeros (gamecock owners and bettors) and kristos (bet takers), I felt at home. Itfelt nostalgic.

My recent visit to Dededo Game Club summoned up childhood memories. It brought back to my mind the image of my late grandfather, hol...