THE END OF LIBERATION DAY, JULY 21, 2017. GUAM

AND EVERYONE FACES GOD...TOGETHER

GUAM: GOVERNOR CALVO NAILS IT

"I wish the political powerhouses who invested all their energy into the gambling issue could spend that much time advocating for your medical care." - Governor Eddie Calvo, statement on why he allowed Bill 19 to lapse into law, 7/8/13 

Yes, just imagine! Except all those big shots go off island for their medical care.

See Pacific News story here.

Special Address on Bill No. 19

By Eddie Baza Calvo

Good evening,

Tonight at midnight, Bill No. 19 will lapse into law without my signature. When that happens, nothing will change except that the hospital will get more money. There won't be any slot machines at the stores. There won't be casinos popping up. And bingo, cockfighting, kiddie rides, and Liberty machines will continue.

Thank you all for your phone calls, email, and Facebook comments on this issue. Thank you for calling talk radio to express your opinions. I had a decision to make. I realize with whatever decision I made, some people will be angry. The important thing was to listen to all of you, and then make the best decision I could make.

I'm quite surprised how this issue morphed into something bigger than it actually was. Two bills sought to increase taxes on existing gaming. One bill would use the taxes for sports facilities. Another to the hospital. The two bills became one...but not before some senators turned the whole debate upside down. The entire discussion became about gambling. The twisted irony is the bill finally sent to my desk did nothing to limit or expand gambling on Guam. Whether these senators meant it that way is for them to answer to you.

I'm not going to sign this bill for two reasons. The first is the way this bill was handled. The second is the amendment to ban bingo and cockfighting that didn't receive any public hearing. Fortunately, the amendment was defective because of a missing appendix. The bill doesn't have the effect of banning bingo and cockfighting because of a mistake made. That reinforces my first reason for not signing this measure.

But I'm also not going to veto this bill...and for a much-more important reason. Bill 19 sends more money to your hospital. I've been there many times, just like many of you. More of us are going there for more reasons than we want. The place needs money for the medicine in the I-V bags, and for the blood tests and X-rays we get. We need more nurses in the ER so you don't have to wait so long.

It's very simple to demand that the hospital collect more from its patients. That's impossible to do from patients who can't afford to pay. And it would be heartless and inhumane to let people die or suffer simply because they couldn't afford hospital care.

I wish the political powerhouses who invested all their energy into the gambling issue could spend that much time advocating for your medical care. Gambling addiction is a social disease that has the potential to destroy our community if casinos are allowed. But there are diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart ailments killing people now...destroying families...hurting survivors to their core. If we can get them the medical care they need in our only public hospital, then that's what we should be focusing on.

At the end of this month-long debate on gambling, what do we have to show for it? A divided community? A war of words? A shameless showdown about an issue that just popped up out of nowhere? The product of this debate was a bill that did nothing about gambling, but actually does something meaningful for anyone who ever has to go to the hospital. That's almost all of us. And so if casinos will remain illegal, and your hospital gets more money, that's a good enough reason to allow this bill to become law.

If the legislature wants to outlaw Liberty machines, bingo, cockfighting, or other forms of existing gambling, then senators should introduce a separate bill. It should be done through a transparent process, with public hearings and widespread community input. If that should ever happen, I would caution senators to act with care and not haste. And I would advise something else. The people of this island voted several times to keep casinos illegal. They have never spoken out about bingo, cockfighting, and Liberty machines.

If the AG believes these machines are illegal, then why did he drop the lawsuit and not pursue charges? It's because the AG has written that the law itself is ambiguous and conflicting. I would suggest for someone to clarify the law...and for everyone to get back to the business of running the government. Buried under all this controversy are the yet-to-be-resolved Blue House cases, Cepeda case, De Soto case, and all the burglars and robbers police officers have arrested.

This entire process has revealed some flaws in the system. Grave revelations were made about how bills are replaced with major amendments...or how things appear out of nowhere after senators vote on a certain version of a bill. This is not the first time this has happened. And there have been more important bills passed using these same tactics...from whole budget bills substituted...to abortion bills. I hope this opens a new conversation by the media about this process.

More importantly, I hope this whole saga is over. In my book, bingo players and cockfighters aren't causing any problems. Families and children like going to Chuck-e-Cheese and the amusement park at the mall. The carnival is doing just fine. It's really time for the legislature to move its focus back to the real issues facing all of us.

Have a good evening, and God bless you all.

MY RESPONSE TO "KILL BILL" - PACIFIC DAILY NEWS EDITORIAL 7/6/13

The editorial can be read here.

It is truly encouraging to see the PDN so vociferously demand the voice of “the people” in the making of legislation from beginning to end. This is going to come in handy the next time such legislative sausage-making occurs on an issue they don’t necessarily care about or support.

I would like to remind the PDN of their editorial silence over a legislative monstrosity that was so huge that the bill had to be jerked and given a different number - but only after desperate shouting by a very few members of the public on talk radio.

It was substitute Bill 138-30, which sought to legalize same-sex civil unions. The original Bill 138, as submitted by the Guam Youth Congress, contained glaring inequities (civil unions were denied to those who did not “have their own private residence”), and was so poorly drafted, that it never should have been introduced in its original form, but Senator B.J. Cruz introduced it anyway.

After a series of townhall meetings, the poor drafting and embarrassing inequality in a bill touting equality became glaringly obvious, so Senator Cruz decided to rewrite the bill. 

The trouble began when the public hearing for the original Bill 138, which was already scheduled and noticed, became a public hearing for - not the original bill - but the substitute bill which the public had not yet seen. In addition, Senator Cruz, as per the standing rules, had no standing to submit a substitute bill, as only the bill’s author, the Rules Chair, or the Oversight Chair, had the standing to do so and he was none of those. 

We cried “foul”. How could we testify on a bill we had never seen? This was not just some rezoning thing, this was a bill that would significantly alter a fundamental societal institution and we wanted the debate to occur in the full light of day. 

But the PDN had already taken a pro same-sex editorial position, and while - to their credit - they allowed opposing views to be printed, they took no issue with the underhanded morphing of a bill which sought to accomplish what they supported.

We (opponents) were lectured - mocked actually - in the media and made to look like we were making something out of nothing. The Oversight Chair, Senator Frank Aguon, allowed the substitution of the substitute for the hearing on the grounds that it was actually the same bill with a few changes.

We (opponents) clamored for a copy of the substitute bill which we were only able to procure after much shouting on K57 that a hearing was about to be held on a bill which the public did not have access to. 

Upon procuring a copy of the bill it was quickly evident that the new bill was substantially different from the original and not only could it not be admitted as a substitute because Senator Cruz had no authority to submit it, but - because it introduced a wholly new category of legal unions for opposite sex couples- it also failed the test of germaneness. 

After a testy exchange on K57 with Senator Aguon, who mocked the idea that the substitute bill was any different than the original, it became evident that the public’s right to know and offer informed input, was publicly being trampled on and the hearing was cancelled.

In the end, Senator Cruz had to withdraw his substitute bill, since it was not a substitute, and resubmit it at Bill 185-30, and a whole new battle began. Senator Cruz cleverly submitted Bill 185 at 4:21pm on July 20, the day before Liberation Day, and at 6:31pm sent out the first notice for the hearing, when - to be sure - no one would be paying attention - at least not for another 36 to 48 hours. 

The drama unfolds from there. But man! Could we have used the PDN’s help back then in exposing the trampling of the people’s right to know and all the other wonderful platitudes the PDN now calls for over the Bill 19 fiasco. However, the PDN wanted to see same-sex unions legalized, so....silence.

In fact, the lack of transparency in the legislative sausage making of Bill 19 pales in comparison to Bill 138-185 circus. While we may not like the way it turned out, what happened to Bill 19 was perfectly legit and it happens with many bills. Bill 19 had a hearing. It morphed on the floor. What’s new?

It didn’t even drastically morph. Bill 19 already proposed to redirect gaming revenues from the general fund to another destination. The modified bill only added another source of gaming revenues (albeit contested), and added an additional destination: the hospital. 

The version which passed is NOT “very different from the measure that was introduced and had a public hearing” as claims the PDN. Also, the PDN claims that Bill 20 “was radically altered from its original version well after its public hearing...” Yes, it was, but the “radically altered” Bill 20 had a public hearing. The PDN continues to ignore this fact. 

This is a discredit to your paper and your profession. Ignoring the calls for public transparency - as you did in the Bill 138-185 episode - is one thing. (Oh, and by the way, don’t get me going on what you did to Bill 323-31.) But distorting facts in such a critical community conversation as what Bill 19 has provoked, is another. All of us are welcome to our own opinions, but we are not welcome to our own facts. 

Please, for the sake of an honest community discussion, let’s have at least one adult in the room.

BILL 19. MEDIA ERRORS AND MY ADVICE TO THE GOVERNOR

A response to Veto it: People need to tell the governor why he must reject Bill 19, editorial, Pacific Daily News, July 4, 2013

Dear PDN. This is like the third time this week there have been blatant errors by either your editorial or reporting staff. As the central news entity on Guam, we critically need you to get things right in order for our citizenry to make the best decisions.

YOU SAY: Bill 19 -- which would tax video gaming machines in order to help pay Guam Memorial Hospital debt -- is horrible legislation...”

Bill 19 will not “tax” video gaming machines. These machines are already being taxed. Bill 19, like Bill 20 before it, seeks to redirect those tax revenues to GMH. How they are disbursed is another matter. But Bill 19 does not legalize or propose to tax gaming machines.

YOU SAY: “The gaming machines that would be taxed are illegal. Attorney General Leonardo Rapadas has made that clear.” 

The AG has issued an opinion. The Administration has issued there’s. The controversy is over a section of a previous law that was left unclear. Apparently it’s a matter for our courts to decide.  Meanwhile, our senators could resolve the controversy in one fell swoop by simply passing a bill clearly outlawing gambling, or limited forms of it. They don’t need to toy around with fixing Bill 19. But we’ve yet to see either Pangelinan or Cruz, the two most outspoken critics in the Legislature of gaming, do it. I look forward to your next editorial calling on the opponents of gambling to introduce a bill banning it.

YOU SAY: “Our island has rejected legalized gambling in many forms on five separate initiatives in recent years. 

We did not reject gaming in “many forms”, but in very limited forms: essentially a casino and certain types of gaming devices. There are far more legal forms of gaming on Guam than the ones we’ve voted against.

YOU SAY: “The bill that was passed is radically different from the one that was introduced. Senators combined two bills, effectively creating a new bill -- one the people of Guam weren't given a chance to comment on. This kind of sneaky, underhanded legislative action that arrogantly ignores and rejects public input must not be tolerated.”

I am very happy to see this concern. However, as you know, this happens all the time. I was told publicly that it is the “legislative process”. Bills morph in committee and on the floor frequently. As mentioned in a previous post, I had a meeting with you showing how Bill 54-30, a bill designed to advise women of the risks of abortion, morphed into a bill that promoted it. I thought it was a good story. You blew it off as “the legislative process.” Nothing to see here.

And in the larger scheme of things, Bill 19 only morphed slightly. It already proposed to redirect revenues from gambling activities. Cockfighting and bingo were named. The only difference to the bill now is that it added gaming devices to “gambling activities” and instead of redirecting the revenues to the mayor’s council it sends them to the hospital. In addition, Senator Rodriguez, though he was not required to do so, held a full public hearing on his amended Bill 20 and there was plenty of public input. 

You criticize the bill for not paying vendor debt. It actually does. But the fact that the majority of the revenues go to constructing an urgent care facility is a significantly responsible act that aims to get to the core of the hospital’s debt. Without an urgent care facility, the public is forced to use the emergency room, tying it up and complicating the handling of real emergencies, and incurring huge charges for care which are so big, many self-payers just blow it off.

By the way, on Ray Gibson’s show yesterday, I asked him if he could recall the last time a governor vetoed a bill that had been passed unanimously by the Legislature, which means that it’s veto proof. He couldn’t recall. However, I should have recalled it myself. Bill 54-30, the bill that morphed from a pro-life bill into a pro-abortion bill, with no outcry from the PDN or any other media, passed the legislature 14-1, about as close to unanimous as you can get. We (Esperansa Project) were able to get to Governor Camacho, and he rightly vetoed it. Meanwhile, we, without the help of the PDN, were able to show the deception - mostly on radio - and it became too hot to handle and there was no vote to override. 

In any event, I am so glad to see your change of heart and your new outrage about legislation that passes without public input. I, and others, will be expecting such vigilance on every bill. 

Finally, I would like to call on the Governor to sign this bill, since it is the will of the people as represented by the unanimous vote of those whom the people elected. And then I would like to call on the Governor to challenge Senators Pangelinan, Cruz, San Nicolas and the others who so vehemently oppose gambling and think it bad for our society to immediately introduce a bill banning all gambling activities. This is not Calvo’s decision. It was the legislature’s. The bill, as it stands, is completely veto proof. Calling on him to veto it is a waste of time. Call on the legislature to introduce and pass a bill to ban gaming and gambling in all its forms if you think its so bad. 

MAYBE THERE'S SOMETHING ELSE WRONG

A comment on GOOD INTENTIONS ON BILLS NOT ENOUGH, Lee Webber, Pacific Daily News, July 4, 2013.

We are in the midst of this mess because gambling opponents have never clearly distinguished between the forms of gambling they condemn and the gambling they are willing to admit and why. Opponents have generalized the evils of the addiction. If what they say is true, it is the addictive power of gambling that is the issue and not the form of gambling. Thus, based on their own arguments, all forms of gaming would have to be considered equally dangerous and equally banned. But they contradict the central tenet of their argument by only showing up when gambling machines are the issue, compromising the integrity of their cause. The fact is that the opponents of gambling are NOT opposed to certain forms of gambling, at least not equally. They need to state this and state their reasons why. 

I would also recommend a new name for Keep Guam Good (a local anti-gambling organization). They seem to have nothing to say about:

•  1) why Guam has the most liberal abortion laws in the nation with 2/3 of aborted children being Chamorro
• 2) why Guam has the highest divorce rate in the world, 
• 3) why Guam has the highest suicide rate in the nation, 
• 4) why Guam has the highest out of wedlock pregnancy rate in the nation, 
• 5) why Guam is fourth in the nation for STD's, 
• 6) why Guam has double the rate of child abuse for the rest of the nation. 

And there's more. For documentation on any of this, message me. We seem to have descended into the moral pit quite without the help of these machines. Maybe there's something else wrong.

EASY DIVORCE, CHILD ABUSE LINKED - GUAM PDN

This was printed in the Guam Pacific Sunday News, April 21, 2013, as an entry into the Sunday Forum relative to April as Child Abuse Prevention Month. 

In 2012, Guam Child Protective Services received 4,434 referrals of child maltreatment. According to the 2010 Census, Guam has a child population of 57,727. Notwithstanding the variance in population between 2010 and 2012, Guam's child maltreatment rate as of 2012 is 76.81 per 1,000 children. 

Read more here at the online version of the PDN or here if link no longer works.

THE CRUDE FACTS ABOUT GUAM'S CRUDE DIVORCE RATE (CDR)

We don’t need studies to verify the maxim: “As marriage goes, so goes the family, and as the family goes, so goes the culture.” But there are plenty of studies which show exactly that. Broken families lie at the root of most of our societal ills simply because the family is the essential societal cell, and marriage is its nucleus. 

Guam has traditionally been a very pro-family culture, characterized by large numbers of children, commitment to the elderly, and mutual support. However, especially over the last 25 years or so, the family on Guam, like much of the western world, has been fragmenting on a frightening scale.

Everyone seems to be aware that “something bad is happening” to Guam’s families, but  few seem to understand the cause, its proportions, or what to do to turn it around. Obviously, blaming outside influence and asking for more money for more failed social programs is not the answer. 

This report is an attempt to shed some light on the issue in the hopes that we might stop this monster before it stops us. As we might suppose, divorce is at the root of most family fragmentation, and on Guam, as we shall see, divorce is a much bigger problem than what many might imagine.

Before we begin, I want to say that I have several friends who have suffered through divorce and I am entirely sympathetic to their struggles, and am certain they will appreciate the intent of this essay.

First, a look at the numbers. A 2008 United Nations report shows Russia, the nation with the world’s highest incidence of divorce, with a Crude Divorce Rate (number of divorces per 1000 population) of 5.0. (1)The report does not have current data for Guam, however, our divorce rate can be found in the 2010 Guam Statistical Yearbook which shows a Guam CDR of 4.7. (2)

However, the 4.7 number was based on a higher than actual projection of total population, which the 2010 census eventually reported as 159,358. (3) Given the 849 divorces reported in 2010, Guam’s actual CDR is 5.3, which puts Guam on top of the world in the number of divorces granted by our courts relative to the population.

This is, no doubt, a rather dubious distinction. Guam: the divorce capital of the world? The picture darkens further when we consider that Russia was for the better part of a century under atheistic communistic domination, and Guam, for the better part of half a millennium has been predominantly Catholic.

What has happened on Guam is a classic illustration of “Lex Magister” (the law teaches), or, as it has also been expressed: “the law shapes the culture.” It is also an illustration of the consequence of our careless choices in electing the people who make those laws which “shape the culture”.

About 25 years ago, our divorce laws were relaxed to provide a loophole in the residency requirement - effectively allowing “mail order” divorces. The divorce rate did not change noticeably at first because Guam had not yet allowed no-fault divorce. However, we took care of that in 1998 (4).

Again, the divorce rate did not change right away, and in fact, in 2002, had dropped to a low of 3.0. However, it was the calm before the storm. The combination of an intended loophole in the residency requirement and no-fault divorce was an opportunity just waiting to be exploited. And as one Guam attorney said “I picked up and ran with this.” (5)

And run he did, as did many other Guam attorneys. In 2003, Guam’s CDR almost doubled to 5.4. In 2004 it more than doubled to 11.8. And by 2005 it reached a staggering 14.1, a feat which motivated another attorney to testify proudly: “Guam is the only U.S. jurisdiction that provides for these types of consent to jurisdiction divorces.”

Guam Statistical Yearbook 2001 Table PO17, 2005 Table 11-97, 2008 Table 11-05, 2010 Table 12-09, published by Bureau of Statistics and Plans, Office of the Governor

By 2005, not only was Guam averaging a scandalous 9.25 divorces per working day, other U.S. jurisdictions had begun to question the validity of Guam divorces given that jurisdiction to grant divorces is based on domicile, and Guam’s courts required no proof of it.

In other words, not only had Guam debased itself morally with its shameful shingle “Get Your Divorce Here”, we had also discredited ourselves by projecting the image that Guam was a judicial banana republic, granting divorces - as one attorney said - that were “not worth the paper they were printed on.” (6)

In an attempt to salvage Guam from this moral, ethical, and legal mess, a bill was introduced in 2005 which “would have” eliminated non-resident divorces entirely by restoring enforcement of the 90-day residency requirement (though even that requirement is still liberal by most state and national standards). (7)

“Would have” is in quotes because, pro-divorce senators who wanted to keep Guam’s divorce mill humming with revenue (which is why the residency requirements were relaxed in the first place) replaced the bill’s 90-day residency requirement with a vacation length “stay” of a mere seven days. (8)

Though the seven-day requirement did eliminate the ethical and judicial scandal of mail-order divorces, it created an opportunity to prostitute Guam anew as a divorce destination, an opportunity many Guam law offices, once again, “picked up and ran with.”

The new law had the comical effect of immediately turning some law office websites into vacation blogs, such as GuamDivorces.com which gushes about all the wonderful things you can do on Guam while waiting for your marriage to be dissolved:

"Guam offers an amazing variety of leisure activities as well as historical and cultural attractions. In addition to its beaches, duty free shopping, and varied nightlife, Guam boasts seven world-class golf courses, some of the best scuba diving and snorkeling in the world, underwater parks and submarine tours, sunset dinner cruises, jet skiing, wind surfing, kayaking, parasailing, sky diving, and deep-sea fishing." (9)

Of course, Divorce Tourism would not be possible without those Guam lawmakers who saw nothing wrong with growing such an industry. During the debate, one senator commented: "I don't see the detriment to our island. I don't see that this causes any harm.” (10)

In attempting to rationalize the damning divorce numbers, some argue that because of our playing host to “mail-order divorces” and Divorce Tourism, the divorce statistics do not reflect the real state of things on Guam.

True, but prostituting ourselves to divorce dollars has come with a cost, a big one. How else to explain the massive number of fractured local families and the abuse and neglect of the 3294 children reported by CPS in just 2011 alone? (11)

Already in 2010, Guam’s child abuse rate was nearly twice that of Washington D.C., the worst place in the nation for children excluding the territories. And when compared to the national average of 10.22 maltreated children per 1000 child population , our figure of 72.80 for 2011 is scandalous to a monstrous degree. (12)

National statistics derived from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau. (2011). Child Maltreatment 2010, Table 3-6. Guam statistics derived from Guam Statistical Yearbook 2010, Child Abuse rate: Table 12-27, total child population: Table 14-03

So Senator(s), do you now see the “detriment to our island”?

Some will contest the connection between lax divorce laws and child abuse. However, there is simply no doubt about the societal impact of family breakdown, and our lawmakers have enabled the engine of that breakdown, i.e. divorce, to a radical, world-leading degree. And since the children are always the first to suffer, the rate of child abuse is a reliable measure of family fragmentation. (13)

Divorce is better for children?

It is indeed a curious thing to listen to endless talk about Guam’s social ills when most of the time the people doing the talking are the people who legislated the mess in the first place.

The testimony in support of the 1998 no-fault divorce bill contains the standard claims that divorce is better for the children of parents who no longer want to stay married. (14)

Not only is there absolutely no evidence for this position, there is massive evidence to the contrary: wherever states have implemented no-fault divorce, the family has imploded and child abuse has exploded (at least 67% of sexually abused children come from broken families). (15)

The burden of caring for the women and children from those broken families almost always falls to the government. And 40 years later, we are seeing states like California, which pioneered no-fault divorce, slipping headlong into bankruptcy.

Yet, Guam bought into this drivel in the name of compassion for unhappy spouses.

A note from the governor who signed Guam’s no-fault divorce bill into law states: “The aim of this legislation is not to encourage divorces or make it easier...The aim of this legislation is to reduce the hostility between married persons who are already embroiled in differences.” (16)

But now, with fourteen year hindsight, we can clearly see that not only did Guam’s divorce rate skyrocket to a world record high, so did “hostility between married persons” as evidenced by the still soaring rates of family violence. Except now it’s not the husband who beats the woman’s head in with a baseball bat, it’s her boyfriend, or her “ex”.

Perhaps the most ironic testimony in support of the legislation came from the then-Chief of Police, who wrote of his hopes that no-fault divorce would provide a “safeguard against violence occurring.”

The irony of course is that the CPS report alone would show that the opposite has occurred. In fact, as revealed in a 2011 report, as many as 28 victims of domestic violence and their children receive life-saving services daily from local domestic violence organizations. And of course, those are only the ones which were reported and responded to. (17)

What to do?

Sadly, there was no opposing testimony to the no-fault divorce legislation, no Marine Corps Drive “waves”, no signs on churches, no “just say no to divorce” t-shirt campaign, no announcements from the pulpit decrying the projected effects of the legislation even though by 1998 we had more than three decades of stateside evidence of the havoc wrought by no-fault divorce upon the family and the damage done to children.

Also, there has been no noticeable protest from Christians, Catholics or otherwise, over the promotion of Guam as a Divorce Destination, which as we have demonstrated, has produced the highest rates of divorce in the world, and has infected the local population of Guam with a divorce, if not an anti-marriage, culture of its own. (18)

It is not too late. It is never too late for a Church which has as its foundation the promise of Christ that “the gates of hell will not prevail.” But will we respond?

The quote from the senator who did not see how “this could be detrimental to Guam” is a classic illustration of why the government can’t fix this and why only the Church can. Without an understanding of the “Mystical Body of Christ” - of how the wound of sin in one part of the body affects the whole, the problem can neither be seen nor solved.

Marriage, and the promotion and protection of it, is the proper domain of the Church. Not only did Christ elevate the one man-one woman, life-long, life-giving relationship to  a Sacrament - a path to Heaven, but marriage itself prefigures the eternal wedding feast that IS Heaven. Thus, it is our duty to announce Heaven in and through our marriages, and in so doing, bring about the Kingdom of God on earth.

It is time for the Church to move beyond Pre-Cana classes and start doing some Post-Cana training, combat training, spiritual combat. It is time for the Church to go beyond its ministry to “the youth” and start doing something (consistently) for their parents. And for the laity, it is time to stop talking about family and start holding accountable those lawmakers whose policies dismantle it.

1. United Nations Statistics Division, Demographic Yearbook, Table 25, Divorces and crude divorce rates by urban/rural residence: 2004-2008 (here)

2. Guam Statistical Yearbook 2010, Table 12-09, Vital Statistics Summary, Guam: Calendar Years 2006 to 2010 (here)

3. 2010.census.gov., "U.S. Census Bureau Releases 2010 Census Population Counts for Guam" (here)

4. Public Law 23-134, An Act relative to establishing "irreconcilable differences" as a ground for the dissolution or marriages. (here)

5. Bill 138-28, Committee Report, November 5, 2008 (here)

6. ibid

7. ibid

8. Public Law 28-93, An act to require court findings as to the residency of any party to a divorce (here)

9. GuamDivorces.com, FAQ's (here)

10. "Guam no longer a divorce mill", by Steve Limtiaco, Pacific Daily News, found reposted at international-divorce.com (here)

11. Guam DPHSS Division of Public Welfare, Bureau of Social Services Administration, Child Protective Services (here)

12. National statistics derived from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children's Bureau, Child Maltreatment 2010, Table 3-6 (here). Guam statistics derived from Guam Statistical Yearbook 2010, Child Abuse rate: Table 12-27, and total child population: Table 14-03 (here)

13. "Re-examining the impact of no-fault divorce", Emory Report, April 22, 1996, Volume 48, No. 30 (here)

14. Public Law 24-134 (here)

15. Wilson, Robin, "Children at Risk: the sexual exploitation of female children after divorce," Cornell Law Review, Jan 2001 v86 i2 p251 (here)

16. Public Law 24-134

17. Pacific News Center, "Survey Reveals Troubling Rate of Domestic Violence on Guam", March 3, 2011 (here)

18. Guam’s Crude Marriage Rate (marriages per 1000 population) has declined from 10.5 in 1991 to 7.8 in 2009. Data derived from Guam Statistical Yearbooks, 2001, 2008 and 2010.

Guam's Demographic Demise

Printed in the Umatuna, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of Agana, Guam, 9/4/11.

A recent local online poll asked: “The 2010 Census counted 154,805 people on Guam. Surprised?” Most of the respondents voted “yes”. Perhaps they were reacting to time stuck in traffic as a population indicator, but, yes, the population is well below the 2010 U.N. estimate of 179,693.

While some are blaming the low number on the “exodus” from Guam that began with the economic downturn in the late 90‘s, a more likely culprit can be found in an analysis of the data from the 2000 census.

In 2000, there were 35,599 women  of childbearing age (15-44) who had given birth to total of 55,196 children. This equates to a fertility rate of 1.5 children per woman which is far below the population replacement rate of  2.1.

We can also assume that fertility has continued to decline. Vital Statistics reported 3,421 births in 2010 versus 3787 in 2000, a 10% decline. Interestingly Guam’s abortion rate is also 10% with one out of every ten pregnancies ending in abortion. This means that our 2010 fertility rate is probably closer 1.3.

Of course, Guam is very transient which makes it difficult to use such numbers to decipher deeper social issues. But a decline in Guam’s fertility rate was noted as far back as 1984 in the Journal of Biosocial Science (16:231-239 Cambridge University Press):

"Since the end of World War II, the Guam native population, who are mostly Roman Catholics, has undergone one of the most dramatic socioeconomic developments ever recorded. They have rapidly become incorporated into the dominant American culture and economy. This accelerated process of modernization has been accompanied by a very sharp fertility decline. One reason for this decline has been the increasing defection of Guam Roman Catholic women from the traditional teaching of their Church on the subject of birth control. This trend of fertility decline, although at higher levels, resembles that of East Asian countries with rapid fertility decline." 

The countries referred to in the report are Japan,Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore. Japan, the country most economically connected with Guam, is now the “oldest” country in the world with nearly a quarter of its population over 65, and with a fertility rater of only 1.25, is already in the throes of demographic meltdown.

The U.N. Population Division predicts that Japan, as well as other countries with similar fertility rates (and that includes Guam) will have two seniors for every one child by 2050.The economic consequences of such a forecast shouldn’t take much number crunching. Business guru Peter Drucker has noted, “The dominant factor for business in the next two decades...is not going to be economics or technology. It will be demographics.”

The above mentioned countries became post-war powerhouses as their populations boomed and human capital became abundant. However, the anti-natal attitudes and policies that began creeping into most industrialized nations in the 70’s is now showing its gray head, and the prospect of economic collapse has caused the governments of Japan, Singapore, Sweden, Australia, Russia, Czechoslovakia, and others to begin paying parents to have children.  

The irony of course is that we have been duped for decades into believing that fewer children meant greater prosperity, and it seems to be true since the world’s wealthiest countries are currently those with the lowest fertility rates. However, the fact that many of those countries are now frantically trying to increase their birthrates should tell us that something has gone terribly wrong.

Most industrialized societies have created social safety nets that depend on taxing the current work force. Because that work force has decreased by half over the last 40 years while the number of pensioners has more than doubled, the whole system is beginning to collapse. There simply isn’t the work force/tax base to sustain the bloated entitlement state. Can anybody say “Greece”?

History has witnessed periods of low fertility before but the current population implosion is a different sort of animal. Whereas past low fertility periods were normally connected to war, famine, and pestilence, the current birth dearth is due primarily to voluntary childlessness, something unknown to history, at least on the massive scale we are now witnessing.

That “Catholic” Guam is in the same pack as Japan and the others in this race towards collective societal suicide is more than just an economic concern. Since God’s first command was to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth”... it is an eternal concern as well.

For an in-depth expose on what demographers are calling “one of the most ominous events of modern history” watch the DVD “Demographic Winter” which can be ordered from www.demographicwinter.com (or found at the Cathedral Gift Shop). 

THE CLERGY SEX ABUSE SCANDAL AND THE ASSAULT ON GUAM

As you know the Catholic Church on Guam is under attack from an organization that calls itself SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). For most of us, our Faith will not be shaken by whatever allegations they may bring to the public since our Faith is not in men, not even in the priesthood, but in Jesus Christ himself who promised us that the "gates of hell would not prevail" (Mt. 16:18).

And for some of us, our faith will even be strengthened. We will become all the more adamant and motivated to defend our Catholic Faith because of these attacks. However, others, sadly, will allow their faith to be weakened, and some will use it as an excuse to leave The Faith. Thus, I would like to share, simply as a lay person, with no "letters before or after my name" a few thoughts in the hopes that this little episode will be seen as an invitation from Our Lord to become even more militant in our war against Satan on all fronts.

This article continues here.