Ticket please

I've always thought we should cut Gov. Benigno R. Fitial some slack. It's hard to see how anybody could have done better with the horrendous economy he inherited. There have even been stabs at streamlining the government.

Sure, I don't like his tendency to sell the farm to anybody who slides down the pike. 'Never met an investor he didn't like'. His Top Secret privatization scheme for the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation raised more red flags than the Division of Environmental Quality on a Saipan beach.

Now I'm wondering if the pressure is getting to him. Case in point: his reaction to the closure of Hollywood Theaters. Just raise the ticket prices, says the Governor who bills himself as the man who understands business. Who's he hanging out with?

For a minimum wage earner, it's a day's wages to take his kid to the theater and buy some snacks. Evidently customers are staying away in droves. That's not going to be fixed by charging more. Movies are a luxury, one that people are showing they can do without when they have a hard time putting gas in their cars and paying CUC.

Spokesman and Press Secretary Charles Reyes Jr's response to Rep. Stanley "Old Faithful" Torres about gasoline prices is more what I'd expect. "We understand markets and choose to focus on market economics rather than Huey Long politics." It would be my Quote of the Week if I had one.