Government appeal against order to open school canteens is rejected

The spokesperson for Mesa Social, attorney Amárilis Pagán Jiménez denounced on Thursday the filing of an appeal by the government after the sentence issued by Judge Anthony Cuevas Ramos that ordered the reopening of the school canteens.

“The Government of Puerto Rico continues to refuse to feed the hungry people of our country. They insist on saying that there is no legal basis that forces them to open the dining rooms and they continue to sit idly waiting for other people to solve what is their turn. They are pettiness made bureaucracy. They want a Puerto Rico without Puerto Ricans and Puerto Ricans, ”said Pagán Jiménez in written statements.

For his part, Osvaldo Burgos Pérez, one of the lawyers in the case, explained that they not only appealed, they also asked for the effects of the lawsuit to be stopped. “The government forgets that this is an urgent case and that people eat every day. To appeal the sentence and to have let almost a week go by without opening dining rooms, is to leave in anguish and with empty tables the thousands and thousands of families in our country who have not received the PAN, have not received unemployment and have not received the help of organizations that try to alleviate hunger with the few resources they have available, “added Burgos.

Pagán insisted that to date the aid provided by organizations and some municipalities does not reach all the neighborhoods and communities of Puerto Rico. “That work would be more effective if the network of school canteens were opened throughout the country. The school canteens of the Department of Education are the only infrastructure with sufficient geographic breadth to achieve a distribution network 7 days a week, to each family that requires it. But the government refuses. And he refuses without valid reasons. They have the money, they have the dining rooms, they have the warehouses and the employees and employees. What they don’t have is love or will, ”said Pagán.

The Social Roundtable, a group of organizations across the country that advocates for food justice and other human rights in the time of COVID 19, stressed that this must go beyond the Courts. “Governor Wanda Vázquez must speak out and stop hiding behind the Secretary of Education and the lawyers of the Department of Justice. After all, she is the one who went to Congress to ask for money for food, she was the one who signed the Disaster Management Plan last August and in which the dining rooms are indicated as a tool to feed in a pandemic and she is the one responsible person to hungry families. That appeal of the sentence and that refusal to feed are hers. The others follow instructions, “added Pagán.

The Social Table also recalled that after the closure of the few dining rooms opened in the past few weeks, it was discovered that there were no positives for COVID 19 that were used as an excuse to close them. “We are facing a government that lies shamelessly,” said Janice Soliván Roig of Casa Juana Colón.

Finally, the Social Table opened an email for families and community groups in Puerto Rico to write and let them know the status of their communities. “We want to document hunger and we want the country to realize that they have a reclaimed human right against the government.” The email you can write to is [email protected]

Since Wednesday, the Social Table sent a copy of the sentence to mayors throughout the country and urged them to join the #AbranLosComedoresYa claim. No mayor who loves his people can turn his back on this. They have also been sending the translated English sentence to interest groups in the United States.

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