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It was on the last day of the term, the Last Sunday and 90 days after his departure from the cabinet, part of the opposition -in an initiative led by the Communes party of the Broad Front- finally presented the constitutional accusation against the former Minister of Health, Jaime Mañalich.
The libel, which contains two chapters accusatory, addresses possible errors in the health strategy led -until June- by the nephrologist; also an alleged lack of probity in the data on infections and deaths.
However, and with the antecedents on the table, there are not a few who had come out to defend or clarify the relevance of a political trial in this context with the pandemic and a health and economic crisis still underway.
Monday, Mañalich’s successor, Minister Enrique Paris highlighted him as a “visionary”In pandemic planning. “A fan was never missing, an intensive care bed was never missingWe are the country in Latin America that has the most tests per million inhabitants, but by far, and those were two pillars of its health program ”, he highlighted.
The holder of the portfolio, who during Sunday only limited himself to saying that before the accusation he respected the division of powers and that the Chamber of Deputies should review the arguments, was more emphatic in his defense that day, noting: “I want to make a closed defense of what Jaime Mañalich did (…) I believe that Minister Mañalich, and I am telling all of Chile, did a commendable job with regard to the pandemic.”
However, it was the closed support of former president Ricardo Lagos to the former minister the one that ignited the controversy within the opposition, an intervention that was held within the health portfolio by those close to Mañalich who are still in the Minsal. “He is accused because we may have different political thoughts from the point of view of how to tackle the pandemic, but it is a discussion about public policy. That does not authorize a constitutional accusation, because that implies fraud of that person and Minister Mañalich played it “Lagos pointed out in “At this hour it is improvised” on Channel 13.
And this Tuesday, in the framework of a Situation Workshop of the Jaime Guzmán Foundation, it was Mañalich himself who reappeared on the scene -He had not made a public intervention since he left the portfolio in June- And he did defending his management in the months that he was in charge of the pandemic, and only hours after the opposition presented the libel against him.
“We had to ensure that the outbreak of this disease did not collapse the hospital capacity. Flatten the curve of cases and delay it in time and increase the capacity to hospitalize and treat the sick, which in reality everyone recognizes that in Chile made extraordinarily well and that what happened in Italy, Spain did not happen, that there was this dilemma of the last bed. That never happened in this country thanks to the flattening of the contagion curve and the expansion of both public and private hospitals to contain this infection “, said in the framework of an exhibition that accompanied with complementary plates.
Mañalich, who received some questions, assured that Chile was “The first country in the world to say it was wise for everyone to wear masks at all times”. Along these lines, he stressed that the record that our country keeps regarding those who have died around the virus. “We have a much more reliable registry than that of other countries,” he said.
However, he maintained that “we are in an extraordinarily dynamic process. Today accounting is extraordinarily difficult. I will use Spain as an example. In Spain the regrowth it is having means that they have more daily cases than those they had in the worst moment of winter.
Asked if, looking at the weather, something in his management would change, he said: “On January 6, perhaps 7, I met with the president and told him that we were facing a situation that could be very delicate, when the WHO He did not say anything. From that moment, we started working on a plan, with all the stages. Chile was facing a complex situation at that time, that whatever we did meant a violation of people’s constitutional rights. All the opposition, including the mayors, came to the jugular “.
“We, the reality, is that when we started talking about this in January, we were accused of being exaggerated, that we were putting together a tongo. When we went to the APS, there was no interest in collaborating on this, except for the mayors ”, he added.
Later, arguing his management, he recalled: “When we went to the Quilicura commune, Haitian immigrants, in an outbreak. You know gentlemen, 56 people live here, we have to isolate them in a hotel. (They said) no, we are not going to tell him our names, nor are we going anywhere. The Jesuit Migrant Service had to enter five days, inside, to convince them to move to a sanitary residence. Then I go to the Central Station, I get into a cité that is subdivided into rooms where 5 to 7 people live with a stove for cooking ”.
“So, when asked what they would have done from the beginning, anyone is a general after the battle, I believe that everything that was done and decided in conjunction with the President, was according to the best data that he had. The only thing we could have done more radical is to have absolutely closed the borders. No one else comes. No one arrives in Chile during the next month, not those who are on a study trip in India, nor the Chileans who are here and there, ”he closed.
The last issue addressed by the former Minsal chief was about the constitutional accusation that the opposition is pushing against him for his management in the midst of the pandemic. “We today tWe have a gigantic political vacuum, responsibility of the opposition, of the ruling party, there is a huge discredit of political dialogue. We have to recognize that we have moved to a de facto semi-presidential or parliamentary system. That is to say, laws are passed that cannot originate in Parliament without respect for the Constitution, projects are declared admissible, urgencies are not respected, within this there is a huge effort to fight for power, how we ruined the figure of the Carabineros, the President, add and continue ”, he affirmed.
Along these lines, he continued: “I was sure he was going to present himself. It strikes me that he would have taken a risk on the last day. It was difficult for them to get the tenth signature. The reason is not that they wanted to accuse me or not, but that it is less attractive to accuse me than to accuse others who are in the cabinet.
Another of the matters addressed by Mañalich was the closure of schools. On this matter, he stressed that the damage of students not having face-to-face classes is “enormous” and that there was never an agreement with the ministry team to close all educational establishments.
“This thing about children not having classes during this period, they will probably miss the entire school year, it is not free. It is a generation that, above all, for the most vulnerable, produces enormous, enormous, enormous damage. In that context, in my opinion, we never reached an agreement, despite the fact that the committee of experts of the ministry, the epidemiologists, pointed it out that way, we never agreed with a total closure of the school year everywhere. If at one point, for weeks and months, we don’t have a case in Aysén, why don’t they have to go to classes? What is the meaning? In whose care? Who is going to give him Junaeb’s food? Who is going to guarantee that they are not abused or abused? In the end, the school is a place of protection, it is not a place of harm, it is a place of care: where they have lunch, they interact with their peers ”, she stated.
Along these lines, he stated that he was in favor of the fact that, in places where there is little illness, children should return to schools “as soon as possible.
“I believe that indeed, in places where there is little disease, in rural schools, in places where they need more protection, they should return to classes, to school, with all the protective measures. We must also recognize that we were not prepared for tele-education and we probably will not be there for a long time. Those who have a good computer, a good platform, teachers who have been trained, are a tiny minority. That as an adverse affect, increases distance, social inequity from the perspective of education, which I consider very serious, “he said, adding:” Children can get sick just like adults, contract the virus, like adults, they can spread it the same as adults, but the vast majority of children who contract the virus will have a very mild illness or will not have any symptoms (…). In places where there is little disease, I would be frank in favor of trying with all measures to get some children back to school as soon as possible ”.
Meanwhile, the former Secretary of State referred to the extensive quarantines and their repercussions on the most vulnerable population. “I am convinced that the prolonged quarantines in Vulnerable places, that is to say where there is overcrowding, where the family lives off what someone, a family member, contributes every day, because they are going to beg, sell things at retail, or whatever, quarantine is impossible. It is a complete utopia. In the end the dilemma is: either I am starving, as is happening in many parts of the world, or I risk getting sick “.
Along with this, he addressed the social crisis that was registered in the country as of October 18 and the scope it has had during the pandemic. “The measures that a government can take in the midst of a panic produced or even increased by disease are truly implausible. Think about you: October 18 and today, we have a curfew. We are in the second renewal of a State of Exception, identical to the State of Siege. Without a ruling from Parliament on the subject, with a citizen agreement, with the possibility that they ask you for documents, take prisoner, pass fines. Today in Chile we are living in a health dictatorship. In other countries it is being used for political purposes: Venezuela, Cuba, China, Belarus, Russia. Places where limited freedoms are taken by governments for political control. I have a panic that these measures that are completely rare, no one would think a year ago that we would have been in that. However, we are in this. Once the measures are installed it is very difficult to remove them. “
In the previous days, in addition to Paris, other government authorities had shielded Mañalich. He Undersecretary of Assistance Networks -and former chief of Mañalich’s cabinet during Piñera’s first government- Arturo Zúñiga, responded via Twitter to the arguments detailed in the document presented by the opposition over the weekend.
Zúñiga stated that he was “convinced” that the doctor Mañalich “made the best decisions thinking about the health of Chileans,” and concluded that the appeal presented is being used to attack the government.
“This is an accusation that lacks foundation and that is why it is no coincidence that they have waited until the last day to present it,” concluded the undersecretary.
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