The protests began early, when dozens of female teachers —accompanied by their male colleagues— marched from the former headquarters of the Ministry of Education, in the Hato Rey sector of the capital, to the building where the Fiscal Supervision Board (JSF) has its offices, in the banking area.
The purpose, said Mercedes Martínez, president of the Federation of Teachers of Puerto Rico (FMPR), was to hold an agreed meeting with the members of the organization imposed by Washington to discuss the future of teachers’ pensions.
They were afraid of you, said the union leader who is a member of the Broad Front in Defense of Public Education (Fadep), which includes other unions, when speaking to the demonstrators.
The Board, he explained, will receive them this week but on the condition that they do not arrive with a demonstration like the one held this time in tune with March 8.
The leader of Educamos, Migdalia Santiago, explained that they agreed to the request of the representatives of the Board, because “we do not want to give them a pretext so that the meeting does not take place again.”
Santiago, another of the Fadep spokespersons, explained that the claim they insist on is that pensions not be cut and that the system that prevailed when they entered the public education system be maintained.
Later, this time from the main building of the Puerto Rico Police, hundreds of women with the solidarity support of men, marched to the headquarters of the Board, previously passing through the federal building.
The March 8 Coalition, the Puerto Rican Organization of Working Women (OPMT) and other groups came together to make clear the lack of attention of the Police to their complaints, which on multiple occasions has cost the life of a woman at the hands of her partner or match.
“We live in situations of violence that are not just domestic violence, but institutional violence,” said Law professor Yanira Reyes, from the March 8 Coalition.
The coordinator of the OPTM, Josefina Pantoja-Oquendo, was in charge of the central speech in front of the headquarters of the JSF, where there was also a cultural event with around 30 women called Barrileras, who touch the barrels while interpreting songs of social denunciation.
The protest, which passed without incident despite the large number of police officers deployed, was dedicated to the recently deceased feminist and social combatant María Dolores “Tati” Fernós, who was also the first Women’s Ombudsman, when that office was created a few years ago. several years.
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