Santiago.-President Luis Abinader started the weekend in Santiago far from closed rooms and rigid events.
He did it among carols, neighbors and children around the Presidential House, in the La Trinitaria sector, where the Christmas spirit served as an excuse for something simpler and perhaps more powerful: direct contact.
“The important thing is that we are also neighbors,” said the president, almost in a conversational tone, while sharing songs and smiles with families in the area.
It was a simple message, one of those that connects. Christmas, he remembered, is friendship, family and closeness.
And that was exactly what was felt in the meeting animated by the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Dominican Navy, which put music to a tradition that the president has decided to repeat every year. That first gesture set the tone for an intense agenda in the province.
From the Christmas carols, Abinader moved on to concrete events. In Hato del Yaque, it delivered 180 apartments from the My Housing Plan to families who for years lived in extreme conditions, many of them on the banks of rivers and ravines in Arroyo Gurabo. With this delivery, there are now 1,320 homes built for people who previously lived in constant fear of losing everything in a flood or a storm.
“Before there was uncertainty; now there are opportunities,” summarized the Minister of Housing, Carlos Bonilla, while asking the beneficiaries to take care of the common spaces and strengthen coexistence. It wasn’t just about new walls, it was about creating community.
The director of Inapa, Wellington Arnaud, said that these families previously did not have basic services, but now they have water, order and real possibilities for development.
And the executive president of the Reserve Bank, Leonardo Aguilera, reported that the total investment is close to RD$6,000 million to create a decent habitat, with green areas, sports spaces and recreational areas.
The same day, the president inaugurated the Hato del Yaque Basic School, a historic claim of the community.
There are 26 classrooms, a dining room for 360 students, a field, kitchen and parking. More than 650 boys and girls who will no longer have to travel long distances to receive education.
The agenda continued in the area of health, another of the axes that the Government has insisted on strengthening.
Together with Vice President Raquel Peña, Abinader inaugurated the Specialized Hospital for Advanced Medicine (HEMA), a modern tertiary center that marks a before and after in the offer of highly complex services in Santiago.
With 179 beds, 80 offices and more than 1,100 direct jobs, HEMA not only expands hospital capacity, but also positions Santiago as a national and regional benchmark in health tourism. Minister Víctor Atallah spoke of the pressure that the system faces due to the demand for beds; The hospital arrives, he said, as a concrete and necessary response.
But if one thing became clear over the weekend, it was that the presidential agenda did not stay in the city. Abinader climbed the Sierra de Santiago to inaugurate 48.49 kilometers of roads and streets that for years were a promise and claim.
The investment, of RD$3.5 billion, was executed by EGEHID as part of its social commitment in the area of influence of the Tavera–Bao–López-Angostura hydroelectric complex.
Quality of life
– Development
The Minister of Public Works, Eduardo Estrella, emphasized that the intervention in La Sierra is not an exception, but part of a national infrastructure policy that seeks to balance development and resolve inequalities.
