Saturday, July 27, 2019 Good Morning, Puerto Rico!

Good morning, Puerto Rico (and the rest of the world!) -

So have you been following what's happened in PR in the last two weeks? Let's see if I can catch up up.

Early in July, a small number of messages between Gov. Rosselló and aides and Cabinet members  from a messenger app called Telegram were leaked on a local blog. On July 13, the Center for Investigative Journalism, known as CPI, published the whole trove: 889 pages of texts.

"As soon as we scrolled through the documents," CPI's executive director Carla Minet said, "we knew we had to publish."

Minet said the messages show illegal and immoral conduct.

The profane, misogynistic and homophobic messages revealed how the island's leaders were talking "during their business hours, paid by public funds," she said.

Some of the insulting comments in the private chat targeted members of the media; celebrities like Ricky Martin; San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz; and Melissa Mark-Viverito, the Puerto Rico-born former speaker of the New York City Council. - CNN Business

THIS is why a free, independent investigative media is absolutely essential to our democracy. THIS is why the Constitution guarantees freedom of the press. Free independent media is NOT the enemy of the people as the liar-in-chief so often tweets. Free independent media IS the enemy of corruption, of lies and deceit, of conspiracies, of backroom deals, and all that goes with them.

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets, first in a trickle and in local protests around the island, then in mass marches. The photo above, from the CNN Business article, show the Autopista, the main highway into San Juan. No cars, no vehicles of any kind, just thousands and thousands of people taking back the island. The largest of the demonstrations in San Juan numbered a million-and-a-half people. The island's entire population post-Maria is about 3.7 million, so nearly half the population turned out to protest.

At first, Rosselló said he wouldn't run for governor again in 2020 but he wouldn't resign. (big whoop - he wasn' going to be reelected anyway. Duh!) As the protests grew bigger and louder, in a prerecorded video released to the public and the press just before midnight on the 25th, he announced he would resign effective August 2.

This is another good article from Remezcla.com and one from the Boston Globe,

This is from a local writer, Luis Torres del Valle,

"While some believe the public outcry and subsequent resignation of the governor of Puerto Rico were due to misogynistic, homophobic and outright foul, totally inappropriate comments in a chat, they were nothing but a catalyst for the people to take to the streets.
THE PILFERING OF THE PUBLIC COFFERS AND BACKROOM SWEET DEALS FOR DONERS & FRIENDS FOR DECADES EXACERBATED BY HURRICANE MARIA, THE UNELECTED “JUNTA” IMPOSED ON US, AND THE SELECTIVE CHERRY PICKING BY US GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN ADDRESSING CORRUPTION GOING AFTER DISSENTING VOICES ARE THE REASONS FOR THE REMOVAL OF THIS GOVERNOR!
STAY TUNED: THERE’S MORE TO COME!!!"

Connect to Sr. del Valle's comments was a link an article on CPI's site, "The pillage of public funds in Puerto Rico going on behind the chat"

 Yesterday there was a "Cadena Humana"  - a human chain - organized around the island.

--Photos from Nashali Santiago via Facebook. 

We were part of the chain in Isabela.

Rosselló and many of his henchmen are gone.

"Only days earlier [before CPI release the Telegram texts], former Secretary of Education Julia Keleher, Puerto Rico Health Insurance Administration head Ángela Ávila-Marrero, two businessmen, and two education contractors were arrested by the FBI, with a total of 32 counts of fraud and related charges between them. Investigations into their departments, as well as the Treasury Department and the Puerto Rico Electric Authority, are ongoing.

The chat also points to possible conspiracies and, at the very least, reveals strategy to manipulate public opinion. In the wake of the scandal, CFO Christian Sobrino (who in the chats joked about shooting San Juan Mayor Yulín-Cruz) and secretary of state Luis G. Rivera Marín have relinquished their posts."       --Remezcla.com

Yes, we are celebrating. But now the real work begins. We must find honest and trustworthy people. We must rebuild a crumbled, stricken economy.

As discussed in the PBS video and the Remezcla article, we don't know yet who the next governor will be. According to the island Constitution, the Secretary of State is next in line (there is no vice governor), but Luis G. Rivera Marín, who was Secretary of State, resigned before Rosselló did because of the text scandal. Next in line is Wanda Vazquez, Secretary of Justice. But she's under investigation too. As pointed out in the video, Rosselló could still nominate a new Secretary of State. It would be very interesting to see who he would nominate and if that person would take the job.

One other thing about these protests: except for the police, as one writer put it, "turning Old San Juan into a Call of Duty recreation," there has been no violence. No shots fired. No burning or looting. If you saw video of fires in Old San Juan, they were actually set by the police, not the protesters. In fact there is a video of young people picking up trash in the streets of Old San Juan after the protests. And this video of one of the marches. This is how we roll - no guns, just drums and music!