When everything fails, the status quo is no longer acceptable

By Vincent Akimoto

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.

In the past several weeks, we have witnessed the Department of Education admit that it has squandered millions of federal dollars, cheated Guam’s kids out of an adequate education, prioritized nonessential personnel salaries over student safety and failed to rebuild Simon Sanchez High School yet another year.

Almost shamelessly, Guam’s public education agency now wants an obscene $307 million budget for fiscal year 2027—a 15 percent increase—to support 3,245 employees and 39 schools, despite a 26 percent decline in student enrollment.

Approximately 86.5 percent, or $259.1 million, of this requested budget is designated for personnel expenses, too much of which is spent on people who don’t take their jobs seriously and who don’t show up to work a full, honest day of service.

Neither DOE superintendent Judy Won Pat, Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero, nor Guam’s purse-string senators have successfully reduced nonessential employees at this education agency that has chronically failed for the past eight years to keep Guam’s schools clean or sanitary.

Meanwhile, in the mean village streets of Guam, ChatGPT reports that Guam's public safety system is facing a severe crisis, manifested by an overflowing prison system, high crime rates and strained police resources.

The Department of Corrections is at a "breaking point," with overcrowding in the temporary Mangilao tent domes causing violent disturbances and forcing federal detainees to be removed due to "inhumane conditions."

Major drug busts inside DOC have occurred, with ongoing scrutiny into how methamphetamines and other contraband are being smuggled into the facility.

The jail is severely over capacity, with at least 70 pretrial detainees confined in a single unit designed for far fewer and supervised by limited staff.

In February, an uprising broke out in the Mangilao tent domes, resulting in multiple injuries and a high-security lockdown. Only two guards were reportedly assigned to manage 70 detainees in a violent riot, which could have resulted in a bloody massacre, according to Siri.

As if matters couldn’t be worse, prior to Supertyphoon Sinlaku, GMH CEO Joleen Aguon declared that no one trusts GMH anymore.

In a hastily organized, chaotic leadership transition, Dr. Aguon emphasized that she took the interim hospital role specifically to "stabilize and triage" the hospital’s acute, critical issues, such as its pyrogenic electrical systems, failing patient safety infrastructure, and crippling multi-million-dollar financial shortfalls.

Taking over from long-time GMH apologist and failed hospital administrator Lillian Perez-Posadas, Dr. Aguon acknowledged that the public currently has "zero trust" in the institution's leadership position and noted that the community's mistrust is "valid" given the hospital's history.

According to AI, Guam’s only public hospital for pregnant women and sick children has historically let everyone down while simultaneously allowing nonessential GovGuam employees to literally steal medicine from GMH babies.

Sen. Will Parkinson called GMH one of the dirtiest and most septic hospitals in America and then went and had his baby born off-island.

The truth is that neither Gov. Lou nor the Guam legislature has ever made safe patient care or critical medical service the first priority for Guam’s public hospital.

As in the Bazaars of the Sons of Annas, Guam’s senators, along with the governor, have shamelessly pandered to nonessential GovGuam employees for unholy selfish political profit.

Politicians have perverted the common good for their own gain. In the temple of public service, citizens are being cheated and oppressed through exorbitant taxes and incompetent government services. 

To their eternal dishonor and damnation, every elected Guam politician I have ever met said it would be political suicide to reduce GMH payroll to only mission-essential employees.

Thus, GMH, like every other failing GovGuam agency, is directly the product of Guam voters who repeatedly and knowingly elect morally and ethically corrupt island politicians. In these evil times, Guam’s duplicitous legacy politicians sell their souls to maintain electoral power.

The legacy of failure in GovGuam stems from the primacy of patronage politics over public service. By doling out nonessential GovGuam jobs as if they were candy, Guam’s corrupt governors and senators perpetuate indentured servitude and neo-colonial slavery.

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No matter how fawning and earnest GovGuam politicians seem to be during funerals and typhoon emergencies, the fact is that they have been stealing your security and your tax money, as did the Temple priests in the time of Jesus.

Rather than right-size GovGuam, our island’s legacy politicians perpetuate the embezzlement of taxpayer dollars in the name of patronage votes. In return, Gov Lou and Speaker Frank Blas, Jr give you public education, public safety and public health services that suck.

But you, dear citizen-voter, are not helpless. Your voice matters. You do have a say!

This is your time to overturn the tables of the GovGuam money-changers. Like crooked temple thieves, Gov. Lou and the Guam legislature have desecrated the house of the people and turned GovGuam into a den of robbers.

Create a whip with your votes. Act physically to protect your home and the taxes that you pay. Chase out the politicians who are crooked, cowardly and corrupt.

Overturn the status quo of a bloated, lazy, incompetent government of Guam. Reduce GovGuam to 5,000 essential workers, hold them accountable to public service and pay them well.

Let the other 4,000 nonessential GovGuam employees seek work in Chris Barnett’s “big, bad businesses” that comprise the taxpaying private sector of our island. Quit coddling people who have to kiss-ass to get a job.

Guam must overcome this great storm of political corruption. It has become our badge of honor to persevere, to rebuild, to thrive in the face of the planet’s most severe super typhoons. With your vote, you have the power to choose darkness or to choose light.

God is not sleeping.

Dr. Vincent Akimoto is a Guam physician and co-owner of American Medical Clinic.

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