On February 22, 2017 during the UPRM’s 24-hour strike, Dr. Marta Quiñones, professor at the University of Puerto Rico-Arecibo campus, spoke at the La Vita gate to students about Puerto Rico’s 70 billion-dollar debt. The workshop, titled “Auditing the Debt,” lasted about an hour, during which Dr. Quiñones talked about a myriad of topics: from supporting the UPR’s battle against the proposed $300 million budget cuts to how the media misleads Puerto Ricans into demonizing UPR students for standing up against these cuts, which could potentially close down 8 of the 11 UPR campuses across the island.
Dr. Quiñones argued that “the media is determined to spread a false discourse in order to undermine student activism.” In Puerto Rico, there is a common misconception that UPR students, and especially students who receive Pell Grants, are ungrateful, lazy criminals who would rather skip class and spend their money on alcohol or drugs than pay more money for registration fees. However, as Dr. Quiñones maintained, “approximately 70 percent of UPR students receive Pell Grants…many of these students need to take out additional federal loans in order to cover their expenses.” Budget cuts, she argued, “should be directed towards UPR’s Central Administration” and not towards students.
Dr. Marta Quiñones spoke for over an hour to students at La Vita under the hot midday sun.
“We all have to pay the debt, but we don’t know where it came from”
Puerto Rico’s 70 billion dollar debt has been in the making for over thirty years. As Dr. Quiñones explained to students, the public debt problem began when Puerto Rico decided to privatize its public health system. “We had an effective public health system in Puerto Rico. It was not perfect, but many countries across Latin and South America modeled their health plans after ours. The ideology that Puerto Rico’s government was somehow inferior to the private sector became dominant during the 1970s and 1980s. The private sector, driven by corruption and greed, began to exert its influence over the government through public auctions of construction and service projects. As citizens, our tax dollars are paying off public debts of projects that provide no benefits to our government.” According to Dr. Quiñones, an example of this is “the Coliseo de Puerto Rico, known as the Choliseo, which was built with public funds but is currently administered by a private entity. The government does not profit from this project.”
“That debt is illegal, not in health or education will we pay for it.” The Governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Roselló, has received harsh criticism over the past few days over his ultimatum regarding the UPR crisis. “We’ll either cut $300 million off the Health System or the UPR–you decide,” threatened the Governor earlier this week.
“An estimated 30 to 50 percent of Puerto Rico’s debt is illegal”
A country’s debt is considered illegal if it “not does comply with certain parameters that measure its benefit to large sectors of the general population.” For example, the UPR’s public hospital in Carolina was built with public funds but its construction constitutes legal public debt, as “the hospital serves a large sector of the population that does not have the economic means to receive medical services at private healthcare facilities.” On the other hand, the Coliseo de Puerto Rico would constitute an illegal public debt, as it neither provides services to the community or benefits society.
Puerto Rico is not the only country that has had to audit its debt in order to identify possible illegalities within its government. “Only a couple of years ago, Iceland had to audit their debt and its people voted to criminalize corruption. They restructured the debt, refused to pay the debt that had been incurred illegally, and jailed the people responsible,” explained Quiñones. Other countries, like Argentina and Ecuador, have also audited their debt to vulture fund capitalists.
A debt is illegal:
-
If it does not provide a social benefit to large sectors of the population;
-
If it involves privatizing a resource or service that was funded with public debt;
-
If it involves illegally transferring funds designed for a specific project to another unapproved project;
-
If it benefited private sectors (if a service contract was knowingly signed for $50 million when it would only cost $30 million to complete–the remaining money would be then split between the private sector and the government official who approved the contract, for example).
“The debt does not belong to the people.” Quiñones passionately stated that “the UPR student body represents Puerto Rico’s working class. Where are students supposed to study in order to have professional careers if we take away their right to public education?”
“What’s next?”
Quiñones stressed the importance of “demanding that the government of Puerto Rico order an external audit of the debt… it is of no use if the government internally audits the debt, as they would cover up any irregularities that might negatively impact any politicians and political investors.” The first step would be to “default on payments. Then, we must demand an external audit in order to identify and discard any debt that was incurred illegally by former politicians and private corporations. After we refuse to pay any illegal public debt, we then proceed to restructure our payment plans to vulture fund capitalists.”
So, what can we, as college students, do in order to address this issue?
“Call your Senate representative. Call your district Senator. Have your parents, your grandparents, your cousins, and your neighbors call their representatives and senators as well. Demand that they approve an external audit to look into the illegalities within Puerto Rico’s debt. Demand that they do not close down any UPR campuses. If we join forces, we can pressure our government officials to do the right thing.”
A plea for future generations– “if our children and our grandchildren are to pay off the horrific public debt, it must be audited.”
To view a video summary of the pros and cons of auditing Puerto Rico’s debt, you can check out De La Nada‘s video featurette here.
Author’s note: A special thank you to Alina G. Cruz, student at the UPR-RP, who gracefully allowed the use of these pictures. All photos, except the second picture, were taken during Thursday’s march against the $300 million UPR budget cut hosted at the Statehouse and the Governor’s Mansion in San Juan.