The Ombudsman is an embarrassment

The matter of public security in the platforms of the FMLN-USC and of ARENA

Concerning the privatization of the companies which generate energy

News Briefs

THE OMBUDSMAN IS AN EMBARRASSMENT 

The Ombudsman for the Defense of Human Rights is an embarrassment. As he has no good works to show for the six months he has been in office in order to confirm that he is the ideal person to hold the office, his advisor has begun to use personal attacks against his detractors in a futile effort to deflect attention from himself. The Ombudsman does not even have the capacity to defend himself, rather it is the case that the person who raised him up to such an elevated and uncomfortable position has had to assume his defense. As opposed to the calculations of his mentor —that attack is the best defense—, it would be better for the Ombudsman to place himself at the service of the population whose rights are the most vulnerable.

But his great weakness is that he has nothing to show. Denunciations and resolutions have fallen sharply from the moment he assumed the position. The confidence of the population in the office of the Ombudsman for the Defense of Human Rights has also fallen sharply. The international cooperation agencies are more and more uncomfortable with the administration of the donated funds and the implementation of the diverse projects. Meanwhile, the Ombudsman maintains his silence when faced with the assassinations of a series of young people and homosexuals. The reappearance of death squads who take a species of "social cleansing" upon themselves does not appear to worry him. He also has nothing to say with regard to the public dispute between the public ministry and the leadership of the police and public security.

Instead of applying himself diligently to the defense of human rights, the Ombudsman and his pals have dedicated themselves to sowing fear and trembling wherever militants of the political party of which his mentor is the leader —as indicated on the payroll sheet of the institution— which his mentor leads unjustified high salaries, unjustified firings, the contracting of persons who are not the ideal persons for the position, etc. One of his "persons of confidence" is implicated in the kidnapping of a minor in Honduras. And upon the Ombudsman himself observations calling attention to errors have accumulated, including those of malpractice when he was a judge. In order to prove this, it would be sufficient to simply review the documentation of his actions in the files of the courts.

Given this accumulation of evidence, the saying that the best defense is a good offense does not apply. In the first place because it is inconsistent and, in the second place, because the goal is to defend what cannot be defended. The recourse to insult and personal attack is nothing more than palpable demonstration of the desperation of the Ombudsman’s mentor. The documents that he has circulated —in select institutional circles— which, in his opinion, are irrefutable, that some people and institutions —concretely, IDHUCA— lived off of the Ombudsman’s Office for the Defense of Human Rights when this institutions was directed by the previous Ombudsman only proves that the offering of specific services, established by contract, by means of which an agreement was established to pay a certain amount of money —and these funds did not always come for the Ombudsman’s office itself, but rather from international cooperation agencies—, established also in the contract. Only a twisted and ill-intentioned mind could see opportunism and taking advantage where there is nothing more than a professional relationship. It is ingenious to think that the quantity committed to in the contract for services rendered by IDHUCA represented such an elevated income of funds as to be able to take advantage of it. IDHUCA’s budget is greater than this amount.

The only thing the Ombudsman’s mentor can say is that there is non-existent service and deficient or incorrect administration of the funds committed. But he has not problems with this. On the contrary, the accounting documentation as much as the report on the development of the project are in order. This is true to such an extent that the full information is not published, only that information which he considers opportune to defend his protégé, attempting, thereby, to give the impression that IDHUCA as taken advantage of the Ombudsman’s Office. He is not aware, however, that IDHUCA is collaborating at present with some of the departmental delegations of the Ombudsman’s Office for the Defense of Human Rights. If the IDHUCA’s reputation is so doubtful or his work so deficient, how is it that its work is so deficient, in what way is its work so deficient? And How is it that his protégé tolerates the professional relationship to continue, this time without receiving a cent in compensation?

The Telecorporación Salvadoreña, the newspaper Más (the appendage of El Diario de Hoy), and other lesser media have taken advantage of the opportunity to call in the accounts of his political adversaries and of his competition in the field of television. All of this in the name of truth when, in reality, they are merchants of communication. They are intolerant of different thinking and, from a business point of view, intolerant of the competition. They speak of a free market, but they reject real competition. They support themselves mutually in the government in order to conspire about their fears. They conceive of the communications media as an enterprise and the enterprise as a monopoly. While they fill their mouths with words about the freedom of the market and the importance of competition, even of bids and auctions, in practice they do not believe in freedom and impose monopoly with the support of the government.

It is embarrassing that a functionary who is not even able to speak for himself is destroying one of the most important institutions for counterbalancing the power of the state in El Salvador, is acting in an exaggeratedly presidential manner which is, therefore, authoritarian and arbitrary. But more embarrassing still are those who placed him in the post and now, confronted with their error, do not have the courage to recognize it and straighten it out. For the good and welfare of the weakest and most vulnerable part of the population, the only alternative is his removal and the naming of a new, more appropriate Ombudsman.

Those who elected him and who maintain him in his post are the very deputies who, rending their garments and tearing their hair, have just reformed the first article of the Constitution in order to broaden the competence of the state on the matter of the protection of life. While on the one hand, they declare themselves to be firm supporters of life from the moment of its conception, on the other it does not seem important to them that one of the most important institutions in the country charged with the defense of the right to life is in the hands of a person who is inept and who is, moreover, supported by a corrupt Christian Democrat. It is ironic that a party proud of its Christian foundations is placing the defense of the right to life in serious danger. For this reason, those who raised their hand to approve his nominations and those who maintain him in his post sin more greatly than the Ombudsman himself.

THE MATTER OF PUBLIC SECURITY IN THE PLATFORMS OF THE FMLN-USC AND OF ARENA 

It is, by all accounts, evident that the government of Armando Calderón Sol has been incapable of giving an efficient response to the problem of public security. It is not only a matter of the continuance of and increase in common crime and organized crime without the work of the PNC being able to show any improvement in its performance, but also that corruption and impunity continue to be the order of the day, without there existing the possibility of one of the pertinent institutions being able to articulate a defined strategy of unrestricted guarantee for fulfilling the requirement for legality.

Various public opinion polls have provided evidence that insecurity on the part of the citizenry is a problem which afflicts the entire Salvadoran population. And this is not all. Common crime together with organized crime constitute a constant threat to life, health and property, generating, as well, a climate of permanent lack of confidence. It is for this reason that, in what follows are presented the proposals on the matter of public security posed by the governmental platforms of the two principal political parties currently in the electoral race: the FMLN-USC and ARENA

The Platform for Government presented by the FMLN-USC coalition is concerned to point out the deficiency which currently exists on the matter of public security and "the lack of political willingness for offering security to the Salvadoran people". In this regard, it sustains the following position: "the internal situation of the public security institutions have shown weaknesses, lacunae and distortions; some of these factors are a product of development and others are provoked by functionaries who have persistently tried to distort the PNC’s civil and democratic character and its [duty to] respect human rights. In any case the PNC has not responded to the expectations of the population which is expressed in an increase in personnel in private entities, the contracting of private security guards and in a greater number of applications for the carrying of arms by private citizens".

The platform under discussion holds the problem of security to be "fundamental" and therefore proposes measures aimed at fighting crime, corruption and impunity and for making the exercise of the administration of justice more efficient. On the question of crime, the strategies which a "Government of Consensus" would be: (a) "effectively to improve the institutional mechanisms oriented towards safeguarding, pursuing, bringing to trial and the rehabilitation of criminals"; and (b) to increase in significant measure in social investment and the creation of jobs".

The implementation in practice of those strategies would pass through the following stages: (a) giving priority to the protection of the rights of persons without causing an imbalance in the security given to private property and to public patrimony; (b) combating impunity and procuring a state of affairs in which there is faithful compliance with the laws; (c) establishing a preventive policy on crime; (c) establishing a preventive policy on crime; (d) designing a public security plan which would empower the pertinent institutions and accomplish the integration of their efforts; (e) promoting citizen participation in the prevention and investigation of crime and promoting a cordial relationship between the police and community; (f) designing as part of the leadership of public security organisms a team of highly qualified persons with the iron will to root out common and organized crime; (g) creating a national system of intelligence, information and criminal statistics in support of the Attorney General’s Office, the Judicial Entities and the National Civilian Police; (h) promoting the apportionment of an appropriate budget assignment to the entities charged with the public security; (i) supporting judicial reforms to the public security system in order to make it opportune and efficient; (j) the prompt application of the laws governing the penitentiary system with the objective of bettering the conditions in the penal institutions and implementing rehabilitation and training programs; (k) guaranteeing labor stability, a just salary policy and social recognition to all personnel in public security, eliminating those elements which do not fulfill moral and professional requirements.

On the other hand, it might be mentioned here that the platform under discussion dedicates a section to posing the problem of corruption and the proposals aimed at confronting it. Now, if it is true that this problem should be dealt with under other rubrics such as the modernization of the state, for example, it is also true that corruption should not cease to be considered as a very important aspect of the public security issue. It is for this reason that it is included in this summary.

The coalition’s governmental platform holds that "corruption is one of the factors which contribute to deepening the problems of underdevelopment and for the lack of fulfillment in the efforts aimed at economic and social development". Moreover, it points out that "the abuse of power, influence peddling, illicit bidding which make goods and services enormously expensive and minimizes the quality of the same..., bribery, embezzlement, tax evasion, nepotism, biased patronage, the buying and selling of politicians, are some of the "usual" forms of corruption in El Salvador today".

In order to respond to such a serious situation, the platform claims that the "Government of Consensus will be founded upon Ethics in Service as the motivational center of the new governmental administration". "The new government [it repeats] will declare a permanent, integral and ceaseless struggle against corruption. For this reason alone it will apply a strategy directed at preventing, detecting, sanctioning and rooting out corrupt practices".

The implementation of such a strategy will proceed through the implementation of the following stages: (a) the development of programs for the promotion of citizen rights and responsibilities, civic education in ethical values for the society; (b) promotion of a "Culture of Honesty" among employees and functionaries, motivating citizen participation in order to develop a critical mass which will help to improve the levels of production and quality in services in public institutions; (c) development of a high level of transparency in governmental administration, providing public information on the handling of state resources; (d) strengthening the independence of monitoring and control organisms and their professional competence in such a way that their credibility can increase; (e) create a situation in which corruption may be declared a crime against humanity and a violation of human rights before regional and international organisms; (f) create a Governmental Code of Ethics for all public functionaries and employees; (g) create an Office of Governmental Ethics and an independent body to receive denunciations related to the handling of state resources; (h) promote a Public Access to Public Information Law (i) draw up a bill for a Law on Contracting Goods and Services which assures publicity, equality and efficiency in these activities; and (j) develop systems for hiring public employees and functionaries based on the principles of honesty and ability.

The general objective of the "Alliance for Security" —which takes up a third of the electoral platform of Francisco Flores— is "to contribute to the lessening of the levels of insecurity and crime throughout the country by means of programs and actions oriented towards preventing, arresting and controlling the components which are associated with criminal acts and with violence". Succinctly put, its specific objectives are the following: (a) to understand violence and its causes in order to design policies for concrete actions; (b) to offer support to the PNC and its judicial institutions in the development of national policies on the matter of security; (c) facilitate the possibility for living together in social contexts and of controlling citizen violence; (d) control violence and crime at a local level; (d) facilitate successful national and international exchanges of experiences between cities and institutions; and (f) strengthen the body of laws on this question in such a way that it permits the punishment in order to present an example to criminals and to discourage potential criminal attitudes.

With these objectives, the "Alliance for Security" establishes its strategies of action by dealing with four areas: (1) public security; (2) security and national defense; (3) judicial security; (4) security of the population in the case of disasters. At the same time, the first of these is divided in: (A) Empowering the capability for the application of the law; (B) Legal and Institutional Reforms; (C) Rehabilitation of the criminal; (D) Strengthening of the Culture of Peace.

According to the platform, the strengthening of the capacity to apply the law will require a strengthening of the PNC and the establishment of systems of investigation, technical assistance and information. The proposals affecting the PNC are, among other things: (a) to carry out an institutional reform of that body by means of the establishment of a regimentation of promotions, the professionalization of its member agents and the strengthening of the entities responsible for its control, cleansing and evaluation; (b) to establish new strategies of action such as: the perfecting of the investigative capacities and police intelligence, the substitution of the Joint Task Forces of the rural PNC and the strict control of arms in civil power and in the private security agencies; (c) to improve the police-community relationships and the relationship with the other bodies involved in public security (specifically, the proposal is for the creation of an integrated Liaison Commission, among others, for the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s Office, the Ministry of Public Security, the National Council for the Judicature, and the Ombudsman’s Office for Human Rights and the Legislative Assembly). On the other hand, the investigative systems, technical and information assistance will seek to integrate the scientific-academic sectors in an effort to understand the causes and effects of violence and crime. The results of this technical participation will pass through stages in which they are discussed by the citizenry and by the pertinent social organizations with an eye to articulating and evaluating the fight against violence.

The content of point B in the area of public security, legal reforms that should be implemented are: an Integral Policy on Crime with emphasis on crime prevention; legal reforms for combating narcotics trafficking, contraband and financial fraud; working to create a harmonious integration between penal and procedural penal legislation with the rest of the legal norms; strengthening the National Council on Public Security and encouraging legislation relating to the question of organized crime, trafficking in minors and illegal persons and extradition. On a complementary note, the institutional initiatives will be focussed on fomenting collaboration between state entities, designing for this purpose mechanisms for conflict resolution and institutional conciliation programs.

For the rehabilitation of criminals, on the one hand the modernization of the administrative systems for the penitentiaries is proposed, which would imply controlling criminal activities inside the penal institutions, encourage job-training and educational projects for inmates, design rehabilitation and social reinsertion policies and support efforts focussed on streamlining judicial processes. On the other, to design special policies actively involving citizens for the reclusion, rehabilitation and reinsertion of young inmates. Additionally, policies can be drawn up in order to prevent crime (offer employment, study and capacitation, for example), although these are only directed towards "minors in situations of social risk or who exhibit antisocial behavior". On the question of strengthening the culture of peace, the "Alliance for Security" proposes, fundamentally, the designing of a strategy which, by means of education and communications media, infuses the citizenry with a scale of values associated with conciliation, peaceful coexistence and respect for the law.

In the second area of the "Alliance for Security" (Security and National Defense), there is not much to reinforce because the proposals are so scarce and offer nothing new to the role assigned to the Armed Forces after the signing of the Peace Accords. In the third area, Juridical Security, the policies posed are directed towards six areas: (a) public administration in general, in which what is sought is to combat corruption by means of strengthening the legal and institutional mechanisms designed to regulate and control the activities of governmental functionaries; (b) propriety, principally focussed on strengthening the mechanisms for establishing land property and the application of the Law of Intellectual Property; (c) publication and promulgation of the law, understood in the document as updating and harmonizing legislation; (d) active collaboration of the community in the revision and promulgation of new laws by the Legislative Assembly; (e) the administration of justice in support of the autonomy of the National Council of the Judicature, to collaborate with the Supreme Court in the application of the law and creating mechanisms of support for the administration and operative parts of the justice system); and (f) monitoring the practice of lawyers and elevating the level of education in the legal career.

Finally, in the fourth area, that of Security in the Case of Disasters, what is aimed for, in the first place, is to identify the areas of risk in order to elaborate policies of disaster prevention and the reconstruction of the areas affected; in second place, to strengthen and update the organizations which study and identify the areas of risk and those which deal with disasters; in third place, to establish a norm which establishes the formulas for action and the means of cooperation in times of disaster.

As one may easily observe, the similarities, on fundamental issues —at least on the question of public security— between the governmental programs of two dissimilar political forces there are more than differences. ARENA as well as the FMLN-USC emphasize the role of the PNC in the control of crime, proposing in the same way and almost in the same words a structural reform of that police institution, of its strategies for action and its relation with the other bodies related to the area of public security. Both political forces also point out deficiencies in the judicial processes and propose a reformulation of the country’s policies on incarceration. Moreover, community participation and information are the centerpieces in the fight against crime for both parties.

Nevertheless, on the question of governmental corruption the differences could not be more evident. While the FMLN-USC proposal makes special emphasis to the point of proposing the creation and adoption of specialized codes and institutions in the control and supervision of public functionaries, as well as a system of community access to information related to the government in the "Alliance for Security" , the probity in government as a theme is conspicuously absent. The explanation of this transcends the documents: while Francisco Flores platform would provide continuity in the attitude of two ARENA administrations for limiting the problem of crime to its common and medium-level crime (for the "Alliance for Security" white collar crime appears not to exist), the FMLN tries to gain political capital from the corruption and financial fraud scandals occurring during the last five years.

It is cause for serious concern that Francisco Flores dedicates a complete section to minor lawbreakers and young people in high risk situations (those who commit crime are the poor and those who cannot adapt seems to be the basic assumption of the document), while he dedicates only a few lines to corruption and the strengthening of the entities which supervise the financial system and the public service enterprises. Perhaps on this point the ARENA presidential candidate does not wish to commit himself on what he cannot—and what perhaps is not convenient for him—to implement: to remove from his administration the parasitism and governmental opportunism of the last two decades.

CONCERNING THE PRIVATIZATION OF THE COMPANIES WHICH GENERATE ENERGY 

The sale of shares to the employees of public services is the principal point of action in the process of privatization. During 1998, shares of the telecommunications and electrical energy distributors were sold and, at the beginning of 1999 the possible privatization of the water supply and its distribution and the imminent privatization of the electrical energy generating plants was announced.

Currently the Executive Hydroelectric Commission of the Lempa River (CEL, for its initials in Spanish) has thermal, geothermal and hydroelectric generators and plans to privatize only the thermal generators. To accomplish this it can count on the bill for the "Law for the sale of shares of the electrical energy generating corporations", which should be approved by the Legislative Assembly before the sale of shares begins. According to CEL, the thermal generators must be sold because they are now obsolete, it does not have the financial resources to modernize them and, moreover, they are occasioning millions in losses due to their deficient operation.

Once again, privatization is presented as a solution for the whole problem surrounding public enterprises with the understanding that the private sector will resolve all the problems of inefficiency which could possibly exist in these entities. As we will argue below, this is a position arising from basing the argumentation on a specious premise because a reality check demonstrates that the private sector is not always as efficient and that public enterprises do not only generate losses.

In the case of the generation of electrical energy, what might cause us to pay special attention is that the General Superintendence of Electricity and Telecommunications (SIGET) poses the necessity for privatizing the geothermal and hydroelectric plants as well, which implies selling an important percentage of our national resources (to wit, geothermal wells, dams and parts of the Lempa River basin) and give up the profits which these generators now enjoy. Below, this document reviews the principal characteristics of the proposal for privatization of the electricity generators, highlighting the evident contradictions in the proposal for total privatization of the generation of electricity, such as the pressures on rates and the possible loss of state income.

According to CEL president Guillermo Sol Bang, the privatization of the thermal plants is justified because "the offer generated by the electricity market is highly competitive and has caused CEL to experience very high losses , and so we have considered that the thermal plants could become efficient units if they use combined cycles, which CEL is unable to finance".

According to the same source, the operation of the thermal central plants causes CEL to experience a loss of between 35 and 40 million colones daily owing to the high costs of production. A kilowatt-hour of thermal energy costs approximately 2.06 colones while a kilowatt-hour produced by hydraulic means costs 0.2470 and a kilowatt-hour generated by geothermal means costs 0.4620 colones.

The privatization of the thermal generators includes three plants located in Acajutla, Soyapango and San Miguel, which together generate close to a third of CEL’s total energy offer. The schema for the sale of shares will be similar to that utilized in the previous privatizations and is composed to two stages: in one the sale of shares is to the CEL workers, employees and functionaries and to two corporations defined as "priority"; the second stage is the sale of shares to investors in general in a direct way or by means of the stock market. The price of the sale will not made known publicly until an offer is greater than the established price.

The privatization of the SIGET project, on the other hand, is more ambitious than that of CEL because it aims to privatize not only the thermal generators but also the hydroelectric and geothermal generators. According to the General Superintendent of Electricity and Telecommunications, Mr. Eric Casamiquela, "the ideal" is to privatize the geothermal and hydroelectric generators because this would encourage "healthy competition in the field of electricity generation in the country".

In open opposition to this posture, the President of CEL considered that "the geothermal and hydroelectric generators are an instrument of economic policy which the government needs in order to guarantee production and avoid a loss of supply". He added that in the countries where these resources have been privatized a loss of the electricity supply resulted and this had a negative impact on the productive and economic activity.

Of these two proposals, that of CEL appears to be the most reasonable, given the fact that the central thermal plants operate on the basis of heavy losses that make the investment by CEL in its own modernization impossible, which in and of itself is difficult to believe. Given that the daily losses are up to 35 million colones in daily losses are close to the equivalent of 12,000 million colones in annual losses —the equivalent of approximately 75% of the General National Budget).

The fact that private enterprise gives up a third of the demand for electrical energy cannot be taken lightly because this implies, for its part, the creation of more conditions for increasing quotas (see Proceso, 796, 808 and 829) and, on the other, to give up potential profits which the state could take advantage of.

It is important to point out that there have been attempts to mystify the efficiency of the private sector when, in reality, there are clear cases that demonstrate that this sector can operate inefficiently. The very President of CEL has pointed out that this is so even for the energy sector. Another example is that the financial sector, which, in addition to being inefficient from a macroeconomic point of view, has presented cases of criminal and/or inefficient handling of public funds (CREDICLUB, FINSEPRO, CREDISA).

On the other hand, the state is not so inefficient as the ideology of privatization supposes. In the case of the electrical sector, this is evidenced in the fact that hydroelectric generation is profitable owing to its relatively low costs. This is accepted by the Superintendence of Electricity and Telecommunications when they affirm that "the hydraulic portion [of electrical generation] will always be profitable".

The privatization of the energy sector ought not to include the thermal and geothermal generators because this would imply the privatization of the public infrastructure which was obtained at an elevated social and environmental cost, especially in the case of the dams. This would be a step backwards for the state to give up this income which the hydroelectric dams and geothermal fields generate because currently the fiscal deficit continues and requires that fiscal income increase and not decrease. Unfortunately this kind of inconvenient steps backward have precedents, the closest is the privatization of telecommunications.

Were it completely necessary, the privatization of the thermal generators ought to include special clauses in order to foment the transference of new technologies for national enterprises while maintaining stable rates because the high loss regimen under which the thermal generators are operating will be transferred over to the consumers bills once the enterprise becomes private property. These two measures would partially be compensated for by the economic benefits which national and foreign investors obtain from the privatization of the thermion generators.

OMBUDSMAN. The Human Rights Ombudsman, Eduardo Peñate Polanco denounced supposed death threats against himself in a February 3 press conference while, at the same time, he presented complaints against Mauricio Funes for his editorials. Peñate began his presentation by exhibiting an anonymous letter with alleged threats and declared that an unidentified vehicle was circling around his mother´s home and he fears that this is an act of intimidation. The Ombudsman also denounced the fact that Dr. Victoria Marina de Avilés, the former Ombudsman for the Defense o Human Rights, paid to Mauricio Funes the amount of 10,000 colones during a period of four months so that he would advise her on a television program about Human Rights. According to what he stated, the Ombudsman paid for the program with UN funds. On the question of editorials, Mr. Funes has accused the functionary, members of the PDC and "a well known antidemocratic journalist" of preparing a campaign to discredit news media which have pointed out irregularities in the Ombudsman’s Office for the Defense of Human Rights. This declaration has been clarified by the Ombudsman. "What is dangerous is that what [Mauricio Funes] has been doing is to incite and it could even be a conspiracy. To incite the people is dangerous", stated Peñate (La Prensa Gráfica, February 4, p. 30).

LAFISE. Concerning the 1996 murder of Siegfried Guth Zapata, president of the financial exchange enterprise LAFISE, an hypothesis has been raised that the institution was involved in money laundering. This information was made public by the former accounting advisor Mr. Francisco Esquivel whose testimony was presented on February 3 before the Sixth Court of Instruction. According to Roberto Arevalo Ortuño, the judge in the case, Esquivel was included in the category of accused because he had been singled out as having supposedly participated in the swindle and, it would seem, "has presented interesting elements" which require a deepening of the investigations. Nevertheless, he has not been detained because his guilt has not been proven. Previously, the ex advisor revealed in a morning daily that the central office of LAFISE in Miami was laundering millions of dollars through an agency in El Salvador. He added that approximately 120 to 130 million collars were laundered annually in El Salvador. In the same manner, he stated that Guth had tense relations with the president of LAFISE Miami, Joshep Zamora and, supposedly, there had been threats by telephone and by electronic mail against Guth. Esquivel also said that Guth sent to Zamora his letter of resignation as director of the institution which would have been effective on September 16, 1996 but he was assassinated 13 days before that date (La Prensa Gráfica, February 4, p. 10).

REFORM. The Legislative assembly, on February 3, ratified, with 72 votes in favor, a reform to Article 1 of the Constitution of the Republic which would prohibit any kind of abortion. Eleven FMLN deputies abstained from voting and the rest of the fraction voted in favor. For Eugenio Chicas of the FMLN, the constitutional reform was a very complex topic which could not be resolved in a hurried manner. According to the functionary, abortion could be an option for the resolution of several problems because he presented the following question before the legislative plenary: What option does the state offer to women who have been raped? What does the state do to resolve the problem of the children of the street?" Even more, he asked: Where is this "Yes to Life" when some of the political parties support the death penalty?", in direct allusion to ARENA and the PDC. For his part, Gerardo Suvillaga of the ARENA party, said he respected the decision of some of his deputy colleagues to not support the constitutional reform. The ARENA deputy explained that the reform had been planned for three years now in the Legislative Assembly; nevertheless, the Committee for Life introduced a bill on February 2 to take up the study once again, and the discussion was the result. With this reform, the human person is recognized "since its conception, as the origin and objective of the activity of the state..." (La Prensa Gráfica, February 4, p. 4).