Por: Víctor Torres Montalvo / Twitter: @motinsitepegas
Foto: Nahmyr Zayas/Pulso Estudiantil
The stoppage at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Río Piedras campus, continues today with various activities and forums to create conversations around the same complaints that keeps the institution closed, and that will continue with a strike, beginning on April 6th.
Behind the gates of the Gallitos and Jerezanas home, the Movimiento Estudiantil UPRRP is keeping up with the main themes surrounding the political and economic crisis that’s hitting the country and its government. Today, the forum Pidamos la cuenta: Conversatorio sobre la auditoría de la deuda will point out —and put in perspective of the students— the debt audit.
The principal claim of the movement is to look into the enormous $70 billion debt, being that the base of all the fund cuts that Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board —also known as Junta de Control Fiscal (JCF) in Spanish— is demanding affects agencies and public corporations mostly. Regarding public corporations, the fiscal board has said that the government must cut $450 million from the money it sends to the UPR.
That’s 50% of what the government originally sent to the university, and the financial board declared that the decision was «based on judgement», meaning thats the entity did not actually look into the financial status of the university.
Also, today the Department of Music made a response to the press that their program and six more are in danger of being eliminated or put ‘on hold’ («moratoria,» in Spanish) because of it’s weak retention and graduation number. Also, a forum to look into the past stoppages and strikes (Procesos Huelgarios 2005 & 2010) will take place at the Natural Science gate.
In addition, yesterday the stoppage had a family activity involving yoga, kickball, games, theater acts for kids, and various pintatas (murals and banner paintings).
The academic and administrative stoppage in the campus will end this Wednesday, when all the UPR System congregates in a National Student Assembly in the Roberto Clemente Coliseum. There, the eleven campuses (Arecibo, Aguadilla, Bayamón, Carolina, Cayey, Ciencias Médicas, Humacao, Ponce, Utuado, Río Piedras y Mayagüez) —plus the Design and Plastic Arts School of Puerto Rico (EAPD, by its Spanish acronym) and the Music Conservatory of Puerto Rico (CMPR, by its Spanish acronym)— will decide future actions against the «attack» to the UPR.
In this past week, the Movimiento Estudiantil UPRRP managed to get a meeting with the governor, Ricardo Rosselló, and will negotiate face to face with the JCF in a still-to-decide meeting between April 10-17.
These are all the activities for today, April 3:
