The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy indicates several meanings of the word “pasquín”. One of them describes it as “anonymous writing, of a satirical nature and political content, which is posted in a public place,” and another describes it as “a newspaper, weekly or magazine with articles and illustrations of poor quality and of a sensationalist and slanderous nature.” . In one of his recent morning sessions, President López Obrador referred to the “Report of the Independent Commission of Investigation on the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico” as a pamphlet, downplaying its importance, disqualifying its members and discarding the results. As on other occasions, López Obrador used this mechanism to discredit a detailed, objective and realistic description of what happened in Mexico due to the pandemic, which shows a tragedy of enormous proportions and exposes the government’s way of acting in an emergency situation. national, even planetary. Like the Harvard Business School exercises, the “case” method for learning, this document could well serve as a basis for that, a case study to avoid repeating the mistakes that were made.
And it is not a pasquín. This is a 400-page report, with a rigorous research methodology, which yields chilling data, some of which has been disseminated by the press and analysis by specialists outside the Commission (you can download the report from https://www.comisioncovid.mx/index). Before the arrival of the pandemic, Mexico was one of the countries in the world that faced it the worst in health, human, social and economic terms, leaving a trail of death, destruction and an uncertain and precarious future for millions of people. To cite just a few results: Mexico was the fourth country with the most excess deaths, more than 800 thousand, of which more than 500 thousand were directly related to COVID. Mexico led the countries that lost the most health personnel in the world (almost 5 thousand) and left the highest percentage of its child population orphaned (more than 215 thousand girls and boys). And we can continue with the fall of the economy that affected employment, family income and forced millions to go into debt or sell assets they had. The population became impoverished (especially the poorest), the middle classes collapsed and even high-income groups were diminished. But the trail will continue in the future due to the loss of learning of children and young people, the truncation of their studies, mental health, and institutional destruction.
This report does not only deal with health (and economic and social), which is the focus of the analysis, but also with its legal and institutional implications, whose lack of observance and follow-up of protocols also had an impact on the results. In terms of public policy and criminal responsibility, the report estimates with methodological robustness that 37% of the excess deaths in the pandemic period, around 300 thousand people, died due to failures in decision-making, due to poor communication. and for all types of health decisions that were hyper-concentrated in a single person in the Ministry of Health, Hugo López-Gatell, and in the President of the Republic himself. And on top of that, the analysis by federal entity shows that Mexico City had the highest number of excess deaths, where non-compliance with regulations and deception of the public by the authority played a predominant role.
If there is something that President López Obrador cannot stand, it is having his failure exposed. The report does so and hence his reaction. The same thing happened only with María Amparo Casar’s book “The Dots on the Is” (Debate), which recounts what happened in this six-year term and where it demonstrates with evidence that the president has betrayed, lied and stolen. The book unleashed fury against María Amparo, who enjoys a track record of honesty, consistency, professionalism and impeccable academic quality, with the aggravating circumstances of publishing personal information about her and her children, in an illegal, mean, vile and perverse manner. , related to the death of her husband 20 years ago. Faced with this attack on her person, the academic community, civil society and citizens in general have given her immediate support.
It is good that this Commission report and this book by María Amparo Casar, like those by Anabel Hernández, Pablo Hiriart, Macario Schettino and others, are coming to light at this time, before the elections. They are essential pieces of information for citizens who will go to the polls on June 2. Citizens deserve to know the facts and reality to cast a well-informed, reasoned vote on essential issues that have affected the lives of millions of Mexicans. Or, should we keep people uninformed and just stick with the president’s version of the book? These reports and books are not a media scandal. They are a scandal because of what is presented, because of the information they reveal to us. That is shocking.
