During his arguments before the session of the Chamber of Deputies that discusses the accusatory libel against him, the former Minister of Health, Jaime Mañalich, took the opportunity to carry out a self-criticism of his communational management and apologised to the mayors, with whom he maintained a tense relationship at the beginning of the pandemic.
“I want to be humble at this time so that there is no doubt, that I have certainly made mistakes and offended many people during my work and I regret that this happened and I regret that it happened. And I think especially of mayors, because obviously from the outing point they wanted to do their best for their representatives,” said the former Secretary of State.
Specifically, Mañalich referred to the controversy she starred in with Maipú Mayor Kathy Barriga when she said the building lied about the information of a second fatal victim in the commune.
“And I think of Mayor Cathy Barriga, whom I treated very hard at the time, I think of Mayor Carter and Codina, who were very active and vehement people. And I take advantage of finishing my words by sincerely apologizing for those bad times those people,” said the former Minsal subtitle.
Mañalich also said that “this constitutional accusation has become a critique of The character of Minister Mañalich, and I want to recognize that I am a harsh person, that I am not concerned about the votes, the Yes or the No.”
On the other hand, the former minister’s lawyer Gabriel Zaliasnik said that “the (ex) Minister Mañalich has asked us not to go to the previous issue to face.”
“If this constitutional accusation were to be upheld, the only real consequence that will follow, because Minister Mañalich resigned four months ago, will be the civic death of citizen Jaime Mañalich,” he added.
Also present in the Chamber is the current Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, who defended the management of his predecessor’s pandemic by noting that “he did a good management, if I were a Member I would obviously not approve of the accusation, but here is the freedom of legislators to have an opinion on the management of former minister Mañalich”.
Deputy Hernando: “There is no information in those emails that could compromise Homeland Security”
Meps Marcela Hernando (PRSD), responsible for justifying the libel, referred to the Government’s refusal to deliver some emails to transparently and gather more information on the implications of covid-19 in the country. In this regard, he stated that “there is no information in those emails that could compromise Homeland Security, if there were any such deprolijities of life, then the accusation would no longer be political, it would be criminal.”
The parliamentarian described a chronology of the events, from the time it was notified of the existence of the virus in China, through its evolution in the world, until it finally reached Chile. In this context, it relieved the decisions taken by the Government in that process and, in particular, the choices made by the health authority.
“It is by virtue of poorly made or un yet made decisions that today we have to mourn the deaths of many people (…) He was aware of what a pandemic was and knew what to do, flattening the curve with all the measures of containment; that the people who were infected were as few as possible and postpone the curve, so that it would be able to be managed by the hospital network,” he said.
