Alonso Urrutia and Emir Olivares
Newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, August 10, 2022, p. eleven
It’s 5:57 in the morning. A dry presidential good morning in the General Ignacio Zaragoza room of the National Palace breaks the relaxation of his cabinet to give way to the six-year routine of evaluating the country before dawn. A patent of the personal style of governing of the president.
The site becomes solemn with his arrival. Inexpressive at that time, Andrés Manuel López Obrador is far from being the prolific speaker of the public version of himself that he displays in his conferences. He only listens to the report of murders that the Secretary of Public Security, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, gives him, a summary of the daily drama of the nation:
81 homicides, 52 percent in five entities, Baja California 11, eight in Guanajuato, 10 in the state of Mexico, seven in Michoacán and six in Guerrero… 52 percent related to organized crime
summarizes Rodríguez, who delegates the report of the relevant cases to the Secretary of National Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval.
Twenty high-ranking officials gathered at a long oval table, all without face masks, listen to the general: “In Chihuahua, actions continue to arrest the crook, who murdered the parish priests (Jesuits); Gilberto Portillo was arrested, (a) The ChaquiraCousin of the crook. He was found in flagrante delicto with 220 kilos of methamphetamine worth 1.7 million pesos and a long gun.
It is the first of several interventions by the general, a reflection of the proliferation of tasks under the responsibility of the military structure. Sandoval goes from The Chaquira to communicate the balance of a military operation based on intelligence work that allowed them to deal a blow to the Gulf cartel “with the seizure of almost a ton of marijuana; 250 magazines and 2,000 50-caliber cartridges, which is what organized crime uses…”
Unusually open cabinet meeting yesterday to some media to witness the government dynamics in these meetings, reason for the recurring presidential claim as a sign of attention to security since before the sun rises. Meeting that also serves to define the terms of the immediate morning conference.
Sandoval does not stop talking: he describes the progress in the actions of the federal government to guarantee the water supply in Nuevo León through the DN-III Plan and even offers the report on the complex tasks that are carried out to put out the fire of four tanks of fuel in Cuba, detailing the Mexican solidarity with the island to which 41,800 liters of foam, 282 rolls of hoses, 500 kilograms of food…
López Obrador led the meeting in virtual silence. He only observed the report offered by the director of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples, Adelfo Regino.
At 6:48 the security cabinet meeting concludes, the president heads to the Treasury Room, still in the dark of the night. The roar of a military bugle breaks the silence: they are the honors for the presidential investiture.
Then cross the corridors of the National Palace. Another day begins.
