the retired general John Manuel Mendez has recently flirted with his departure from Emergency Operations Center (COE), an institution he has directed for 17 years. He finally told Free Journal that he does not resign and that he stays there if President Abinader leaves him. After all, all non-elected government posts are at the disposal of the president.
In a conversation with Méndez, it is not necessary for him to talk about the pride he feels for the COE. As it also becomes evident that there is a disagreement with decision makers in the public administration of Abinader; and there are also other matters of a personal and family nature.
—When people talk about retirement, the first thing they tell you is: You’re still young!
After 35 years of uninterrupted service to the country, 34 in the Army and a year and a half after military retirement, I feel a bit exhausted.
I am 55 years old, well worked. Let me tell you something: when I agreed to stay in the Emergency Operations Center I did it because of many factors and because of many things that were happening at that time.
First because I love the country, I love to serve. I remember that days before, the Diario Libre had come and made me a report in which I said that I understood that I had fulfilled the country and that I had requested my retirement. But I requested my retirement in 2018, and it came out in 2020, before President Medina left, and I did so because I understood that my military cycle had ended. Not because I understood that I was going to stop working, because I have to continue working.
What happen with me? For many years I have had to sacrifice many things. My family, holidays, rest. The time comes when you get overwhelmed. And there are situations that because of work, because of responsibility, one does not speak, nor does one say, one only works. And it’s because you have to work, even if sometimes you don’t get the support you need.
I earn a salary from the military pension, which is not bad, but I have to provide for my parents who are over eighty years old, I provide for my siblings because you know that those of us who come from the countryside have that situation a lot, and I have seven children that although only two are minors, whoever has children knows that he does not stop having them. So at my age, still at a productive age, I also need to save bread for May, as they say. But I understand that this cycle is already over at the end of this four-year term…
—This four-year period 2020 to 2024?
At the end of this term, yes. I have already decided that I am going to accompany the president to finish these four years, of course if he decides that I should accompany him. But I’m exhausted…
—Then you are not leaving the COE now.
I would leave if the president so decided. But I cannot abandon either the population or President Luis Abinader, who has respected me in this position. I have simply said that I want a break on these issues. Dedicate myself to other things, to spend more time with the family. Because I love the people very much, the people have distinguished me wherever they see me. What happens is that the family also demands a lot; and you spend your life working on these issues, you realize that your children have grown up. The older ones are already 32 years old and I left them when I was 14 years old when I started working here.
So at Christmas, for one to see each other, it has to be when one finishes here and has to come back here. At Easter, never. Never on vacation because then there is the cyclonic season and those are the most critical months.
The time comes when all this lacerates your family relationship. And as a human being you feel nostalgia, so it’s difficult. That is what I mean when I talk about overwhelm. This is only compared to the priesthood and with the seven children that I have, I cannot be a priest (laughs).
It is not that there is an upset on my part that forces me to leave, but there are certain situations that one sees. And looking at what your life has been like on a scale, and what it has in store for you… There are many people who say no, what you want is to be a politician. No, I’m not interested in being a politician because in politics you have to lie and, if I have to lie, I’m not interested.
—And what interests you then general…
Work and live. In the end, what you should do is live because if you spend your life accumulating and no matter how much you want to store, when you leave (from this world) everything stays. So people tell me Méndez: ‘you upload video on the networks singing’ and I answer because that’s what I like and I sing when it’s not raining (laughs).
Situation of COE
—General, a few years ago I came here and this was a small dark room with a canvas background that said COE. Now you see this room (the Willy Rodríguez conference room) and there is a breakthrough.
But I have done it with my effort. I did not receive the resources from the Government to do it. It was asking and with my savings.
“With the savings of the institution?”
The institution has invested very little here. The resources of the institution do not give for savings.
—Then with what savings.
From friends who contributed, Banco Popular helped me a lot. The BHD as well. The Southern Command of the United States and some friends to whom one asks for donations. The tables that you see here were the tables that we had in other areas and I found a cabinetmaker friend who worked with me and he made the tables for me. The screens were donated by USAID, the air conditioners here were donated by Banco Popular, the air conditioners in the other area were donated by Alejandro Herrera when he was at Idac, and thus the entity was renewed. It wasn’t that they gave me the money to renovate it.
“Weight is a show of confidence.
We receive many donations here as a platform to donate to other entities, but we do not manage resources because we are not interested in that part of receiving money. For example, what we have received as a donation here we have received in teams. Even the power plant we have here was donated by Banco Popular through a request we made to it.
And another thing that helps them donate to us is that when the donor passes through our facilities and finds the equipment in good condition, they are motivated.
—You have already become a figure of Holy Week and December and that is why many memes have been made of you.
I love memes.
—But at the same time it is a recognition.
One of the memes that have been made to me and that I have saved is one in which they take me out with a face like a maco and this person says, like all maco pempén, he appears seasonally. I have them, I have them all framed and I like the humor of the Dominican.
—Beyond memes, people have learned to prepare for emergencies.
Yes, but it’s not for me. It’s because of the media. We have learned a lot from the synergy that we have created with the media. But those of us who have traveled have seen that in all parts of the world people are very attached to material things. What happened in Katrina?
-Devastation
It devastated but people refused to leave their houses. With Mesopotamia, people closed at the front but entered from behind. It is a matter of the human being, when people say that you achieve things with a lot of sacrifice, losing them is not easy.
—It seems that over time it has been possible to set up an emergency structure with the COE.
Yes. For many years we have been working on this issue but it has become institutionalized and there is respect on the part of the population towards these entities, the Operations Center. What happens is that regardless of whether you do a job of this style, it will depend a lot on managing people. And for this past week we can see it because the institutions integrated quite well, with magnificent work; but when people decide to go out into the streets under the influence of alcohol, on a motorcycle, which you know is the big headache of these operatives, without a protective helmet and that is why they are 72% of fatalities.
Holy Week with the most deaths
-During Holy Week that just happened we saw an increase in deaths. What is your observation?
You have to assess the situation based on statistics. The greater the displacement, the greater the probability of accidents. Without lying to you, this has been the 17th operation and it is the one in which the most people have been displaced during the 17 years. From Thursday to Sunday, more than 1,025,000 vehicles passed through the tolls, if you double it by five. By five, because it is the average number of people who go in a vehicle without calculating the minibuses and buses that carry 20 and 25 passengers. Nor am I calculating those who travel without going through the toll. That is why I say, and I was conservative, that more than five million people traveled this Easter. At Easter I had not seen that displacement. He had seen 3.7 million, more than four million, but not that scroll.
The number of vehicles on the streets can cause more accidents than before, but looking back from the previous year, we are practically the same.
