In the meeting with CFE workers, he asked them to move quickly in the installation of 2,800 antennas, in order to reach the established 80%, and if there is time, he said, it could reach 82%.
TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Chiapas.– President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reiterated today in Chiapas that energy resources belong to Mexicans and that they will in no way be placed on the market, at the service of foreign companies and interests.
He said today that Mexico is a free, independent and sovereign country, which will always manage its energy policy at the service of all Mexicans, for which the laws were modified so as not to put the Federal Electricity Commission at the level of other private companies.
That the CFE is a public company of all Mexicans: “It is not Iberdrola, these corrupt technocrats modified the laws to give Iberdrola the same treatment as the CFE. That is why they are angry, because we modified the laws to give the CFE the place it deserves,” said the president in the framework of the meeting with CFE electrical workers and the presentation of the Internet for Everyone program.
Before hundreds of CFE workers, López Obrador recalled today that one of the arguments for nationalizing the CFE in 1960 was to bring this electricity service to all Mexicans, because in the hands of private companies it would never reach the remote corners of the country, since it was not a business for foreign entrepreneurs.
That is why now, he said, 99.6% of Mexicans have electricity service, the towns are electrified. “That is why the existence of the State is important. Not with the purpose of crushing the initiative of individuals or civil society, but the State cannot disappear, it cannot be diluted and leave everything to the market”, stated the president.
He said that “the technocrats wanted to put health, education, on the market, so that whoever got sick would be cured by paying, and the same to be able to study or enter a university.”
“They invented entrance exams. And then they didn’t pass the entrance exams. Of course they passed it, but there was no quota. It was a pretext they used to reject young people, thinking that this would open the market for private schools, and if the enrollment for private universities grew, but they reached a limit, because where will a family of peasants and workers get to send their children to a private school. Where will he get the tuition from?” said the president.
And that the same thing happened with the health system in Mexico, that the public system of the State was deteriorating to expand the service in private companies.
He recalled that in the campaign he promised that there would be free internet in all schools, in health centers, in squares and in all public spaces, even in the most marginalized corners of Mexico.
“If the CFE workers electrified all of Mexico? Why can’t we bring the internet to the whole country?” asked the president.
The president said that the CFE is a public company whose purpose is to serve the people of Mexico, it is not for profit.
López Obrador recalled that “we have a request for clarification from the United States and Canadian governments. When it was our turn to renegotiate the treaty, an entire chapter had already been handed over to manage energy in function of foreign interests. I was president-elect and now the talks broke down for about 15 days.”
But that on that occasion, no one wanted to tell President Donald Trump that there was no longer talk because he, as president-elect, did not accept that chapter of the treaty.
“So they went to tell President Trump and asked what the president-elect is proposing? Well, he proposes what the Constitution proposes, that the energy belongs to Mexicans, it belongs to the nation”,
And that contrary to what one might think, President Trump is pragmatic, he is a tough people but agreements could be reached with him, as President Joe Biden is doing now, of whom he said: “he is very respectful of our sovereignty ”.
He explained that many think “that Mexico is a colony, that it is a protectorate, but no, Mexico is a free, independent and sovereign country.”
“Then we already understood that we are going to manage our energy policy. So I need the support of all of you so that we can install all the antennas and bring the internet to all the towns. I ask that we apply ourselves. There are 2,800 antennas, but if we advance quickly, the better”.
And if there is time, he asked them to advance with more antennas and that if they continue advancing, they could reach 82% coverage in the entire population, although their objective is to reach 100%.
He pointed out that Chiapas is the state with the least communication in the country, not only lagging behind in terms of internet but even cell phones.
“So we are going forward and it is to make a country, it is to help others, it is love for others. I trust you,” he told the CFE workers.
He reiterated his support to them in the same way as he had done since the beginning of his six-year term, when he restored to them a claim from the collective labor contract that they had mutilated in the past six-year term.
“The workers asked me to modify the collective contract, because they had mutilated it during the past administration. Their retirement age had been raised. And I said – to Bartlett – that’s the first thing to change in the collective bargaining agreement and it went back to the way it was. We are not going to fail them, there will be no layoffs, that there is always a wage increase above inflation, that they do not lack their benefits, that they always have benefits, and that they remember it is not an employer relationship, and that as Morelos said, we are servants of the nation”, affirmed the president before the applause of the crowd.
In turn, Governor Rutilio Escandón Cadenas thanked President López Obrador for his support for the people of Chiapas, as he said that Chiapas is the state that is furthest behind in terms of access to technology and Internet access.
“Chiapas had been abandoned, just like the south-southeast. You said that you were going to move forward and develop the states of the Mexican southeast. It is doing it with the Dos Bocas refinery, with the emblematic Mayan Train and now in terms of communication with the internet for everyone. And with that, he does justice,” said Escandón Cadenas.
CFE Internet and Telecommunications for All, a subsidiary of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), unveiled its plan to bring internet and mobile phone services to all regions of the country with the installation of 2,800 antennas with which it seeks to serve 6.4 million inhabitants of the country in 18 thousand 634 communities.
In the southeast, efforts will be made to reach the most marginalized communities in the country, since forgotten communities will be visited, such as in the Lacandona region, in Chiapas; the Mixe region, in Oaxaca, and the Los Ríos region, in Tabasco.
Source: proceso.com.mx
