The government’s social army operates like the blue helmets of the UN: Ariadna Montiel

Carolina Gomez and Alma E. Muñoz

Newspaper La Jornada
Thursday March 2, 2023, p. eleven

The Welfare Secretary, Ariadna Montiel Reyes, assures that the federal government has a social armywhich operates “as the blue helmets” of the United Nations Organization (UN), made up of 20,000 national servers who travel throughout the territory to register the beneficiaries of the programs and pensions, and when it comes to the most remote communities in the region, they deliver money in own hand.

In interview with the dayrejects that this work has an electoral purpose. They walk the towns, they don’t have a schedule, and sometimes they leave their homes for a month to go community by community.because in this way it is guaranteed that the resources reach those most in need.

The official acknowledges that there are still great pending issues, such as an inclusion policy for people with disabilities, with whom the purpose is that achieve autonomy, can work, study and have access to all rights. Today we give them an income for their subsistence (2,950 pesos every two months), but (for this sector) there is still a long way to go.

Montiel Reyes promotes that the beneficiaries of the programs and pensions enter the IMSS Well-being and, in this way, the right to health becomes a reality, as established in the fourth article of the Constitution. Recently, the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Policy (Coneval) reported that more than half of the elderly in poverty never contributed to obtain a pension.

The head of Well-being narrates that she knew poverty in its crudest stage by living two years in the Sierra Tarahumara, where he supported the construction of the movement that led Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the Presidency. In that region, he says, he witnessed how organized crime took advantage of the poorest for illicit crops.

With other members of the movement, we learned to survive in extreme climates. In the orography (of the mountains) and in the midst of organized crime groups, we understood the difficulty of people to move. We had to camp because we were eight to 10 hours away. from where we stayed. We understood what deep poverty is, and that corruption cannot continue with a reality of this magnitude.

The former deputy highlights the construction of rural roads among the most effective strategies. “The municipal president of the Tarahumara told me: ‘I bought a partition for a construction in 9 thousand pesos, but moving them cost me 17 thousand.’ Everything is more expensive for those furthest away, who are the poorest, and that increases inequalities”.

Beneficiaries, 13 million

The Secretary of Well-being, documents, attends to 13 million people and we’ve got the life cycle coveredbecause there are programs from childhood to the elderly, although this is the only scheme that reaches the entire country.

He admits that one of the obstacles they face to disperse resources through bank cards is the lack of Internet in marginalized areas. We have reached everywhere, but there is a struggle with the functioning of the Banco del Bienestar because there are places where there is no signal and it is a challenge to install fiber optics. The goal is to have at least one branch in each municipal seat, because this institution is the articulating strategy of the welfare policy.

account that was an achievement the branch in the municipality of Urique, in the Tarahumara, because some inhabitants they were afraid to go collect because of the conditions in which they live. A farmer recently told me that now he can even save part of his salary, 6 thousand pesos per month.

–However, they still continue to deliver cash support.

–About 90,000 towns, and few people live in some. With the Banco del Bienestar we will reduce the number of beneficiaries to whom cash is delivered from 4 to 3 million. Only in Montaña de Guerrero there are already 10 branches in operation, and a few days ago 60,000 cards were delivered to the area, which is a lot.

– Is the social army that you speak of the one that operates this whole scheme?

– There are the servants of the nation and there are brigades from other schemes, but they are the least. The servers are in charge of distributing the wellness programs, registering people, uploading the information to various platforms; deliver cards, dispel doubts. They are women and men with deep conviction, who are not moved by the pay (11 thousand pesos a month, plus benefits), because if it were for that, there would be a lot of desertion.

Lack of materializing projects

“Sometimes, when it rains, they get locked up. Two years ago, a group of colleagues was trapped for eight days in some communities in Tlapa (Guerrero) by a tropical storm. As they carry the supports, people love and welcome them.

For the payment in operation (cash), they are always accompanied by elements of the National Guard or state or municipal police. We have no problem in any territory; we are like the blue helmets.

The nation’s servers will also be in charge of the integration centers that will be installed in the branches of the Banco de Bienestar to guide the beneficiaries of the programs, he added.

Despite the progress made in these four years of government, he insists, the universalization of the pension for people with disabilities is still pending, since 17 entities are missing to release the resources or sign the agreement with the federation to materialize this project.

However, he stresses, for the first time, 22,000 free therapies are provided at Teletón Child Rehabilitation and Inclusion Centers and the government contributes to the construction of more facilities in municipalities with high rates of marginalization and poverty. For the first time, he adds, those who live in these communities, mostly indigenous, are being diagnosed, which makes it possible to provide them with adequate care.

– You talk about all beneficiaries of social programs having access to an IMSS pension.

–I am going to inform the director of the IMSS about the beneficiaries of the welfare pension who do not have social security so that, in the states where the IMSS Well-being is advancing, we can coordinate.

What universe are we talking about?

–Of all the rightful claimants and beneficiaries of the secretariat, which are 13 million. I don’t think it’s more than 2 million from the senior program; people with disabilities surely have less social protection and, in the case of Sembrando Vida, practically all those registered (450,000), as well as the technicians who operate in the field. Let’s remember that in Chiapas a pilot scheme was recently announced and they pay.

Regarding the planters, he announced that a census of 1,139 million plants, including timber and fruit trees, was registered before the Departments of Agriculture and the Environment to prevent their illegal logging. In this way, each tree has a record and guide. And so, precisely we shield the program and guarantee the heritage of the growers and their families.