Puerto Rico News Digest For June 27, 2016

LEW URGES SENATE TO CONSIDER PROMESA

From Caribbean Business:

"U.S. Secretary Jacob Lew has sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch 

Mc Connell regarding the debt crisis in Puerto Rico. Lew says that if H.R. 5278, 

the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (Promesa) 

is not considered, the island’s looming July 1 default could trigger lawsuits that, 

if  “successful, a judge could immediately order Puerto Rico to pay creditors 

over essential services such as health, education, and public safety...”

SJ PRIDE MARCH REMEMBERS ORLANDO VICTIMS

From Fox News Latino:

"Thousands of people turned out on Sunday for the annual Gay Pride March
in San Juan, where special remembrance was paid to the victims of the Orlan-
do nightclub massacre, almost half of whom were of Puerto Rican heritage. "I
lost two friends, two brothers, Martin (Benitez Torees) and Jimmy de Jesus (Ve-
lazquez)," Boriquen Memorial funeral home spokesperson Serbella Tejeda said
after the establishment had offered its services gratis to the families of the 23
Puerto Ricans who died in the shooting at the Pulse nightclub..."

ISLAND GOP BACKS STATUS VOTE

From The San Juan Daily Star:

"The Puerto Rico Republican Party approved a resolution supporting the hol-
ding of a referendum on the island’s status issue in which voters will choose
among two decolonization options: statehood or independence, and that it be
held together with the Nov. 8 general elections, local party president Jenniffer
González announced Thursday..."

AGP SUSPENDS INFRASTRUCTURE PAYMENTS

From Reuters:

"Puerto Rican Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla late on Friday declared a sus-
pension of any payments on some debt issued by the U.S. territory's infrastruc-
ture financing authority, citing the authority granted under a local emergency de-
bt moratorium law. Garcia Padilla signed an executive order that applies to "cer-
tain Puerto Rico Financing Authority (PRIFA) notes," a statement from the gov-
ernment said..."

Finalist Donald Trump vs Semifinalist Hillary Clinton: There is Something Missing Here

Feature

TIBERIU DIANU


After the Indiana primaries, on May 3, 2016,  the Republican contender,
Donald Trump, has secured his “presumptive” party nomination for No-
vember general elections. However, not the same thing can be said about
Hillary Clinton. She, in spite of her ardent desire to compete with Trump
on the same national arena, could have not secured a similar position in
her Democratic party yet.

In other words, the Donald is already a general election finalist (from an
initial group of seventeen candidates), but Hillary is – still – a primary el-
ection semifinalist (from an initial group of… three). Trump has managed
to defeat 16 other Republicans, some of them with pedigree, and some of
them respected party rank-and-file members, like popular governors and
senators. While Hillary, in spite of her “inevitability” aura created by the
press, has managed to defeat only Martin O’Malley, who constantly sco-
red below 5% in all Democratic primaries. She, in her own words, could
not “close the deal” with Bernie Sanders. And still all we keep hearing is
about Trump vs. Clinton in the general elections. Is it just my reasoning or
am I missing something here?

Let us clarify some points. Hillary is not going to secure her party nomin-
ation anytime soon. First, Sanders keeps winning states (the last ones, West
Virginia on May 10, and Oregon on May 17), or breaks even (like in Ken-
tucky on the same May 17). He has already created a movement and, for su-
re, he wants to stick around for the July 25 Democratic Convention in Phila-
delphia. It will be interesting to see if this trend holds in the following – pre-
California (June 7) -- weeks, at the party elections in Washington (May 24),
Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico (June 4 and 5). Second, the ongoing FBI in-
vestigation of Clinton’s e-mails is still a powerful factor (some call it “a wild
card”). FBI recent interviews include Clinton’s long-time aide Huma Abedin,
and the Romanian notorious hacker Marcel Lazar, aka Guccifer, extradited in
April from Romania to the U.S.

Therefore, until there is a clear Democratic Party challenger, Trump’s disco-
urse should focus on his policies for the country and restrain from personal
attacks against Hillary. She is not even worth of such attention. She is just a
semifinalist. When she earns the honor of being a finalist, then she is entitled
to ‘personal attacks” against her challenger. I just cannot envision, like in any
sports or competition of any kind, why a loud-mouthed semifinalist like Hill-
ary is given the right to skip stages and, at least on the discourse level, offe-
red the free ride of “competing” for a tournament which she has not qualified
herself in yet.


Tiberiu Dianu is a legal scholar, book author, graduate of the American  University Washington 
College of Law in Washington, DC, the University of Manchester Faculty of Law in Manchester, 
UK, and an exchange scholar of the Oxford University in Oxford, UK. He currently lives in Wa-
shington, DC and works for various government and private agencies. The opinions expressed in 
the preceding article do not necessarily reflect those of The Puerto Rico Monitor, its editors or 
advertisers.

Puerto Rico News Digest For March 21, 2016

BERNIER CALLS FOR DEBT MORATORIUM

From Yahoo! News:

"The gubernatorial candidate for Puerto Rico's ruling Popular Democratic
Party is calling for a five-year debt payment moratorium, saying it's needed
to stabilize government operations and guarantee the delivery of essential
services. Former Secretary of State David Bernier made the call Friday weeks
after urging the administration to hasten the pace of debt restructuring talks
with creditors, which have been dragging on since Gov. Alejandro Garcia Pa-
dilla announced last June the U.S. Commonwealth's nearly $70 billion debt
is not payable..."

PR GOP CAUTIOUS ON PRESIDENTIAL RACE

From The San Juan Daily Star:

"Puerto Rico Republican Party Chairwoman Jenniffer González -- who
supported Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s run for the GOP presidential
nomination -- said she will continue promoting the participation of
Republican voters in the remaining primary elections. Although she
didn’t say who she supports now that Rubio has withdrawn from the
race after losing the primary in his home state of Florida on Tuesday,
she said “...Since Marco Rubio has withdrawn from the presidential
campaign, we have to be attentive to all the developments of the primary
race,” González said in a written a statement. “On our part, we will
continue supporting participation in the process up to the Republican
Convention...”

SOVEREIGN UNION REJECTS FISCAL BOARD

From Caribbean Business:

"Sovereign Union Movement (MUS by its Spanish acronym) President 

María de Lourdes Guzmán urged Puerto Rico’s political sectors to 

unite to “defend our dignity as a people” and adamantly reject the 

imposition of a fiscal control board by the U.S. Congress. She also 

asked the island’s political leadership to carry out concerted actions

to request that the U.S. government “put forth a serious process of 

decolonization, to seek a solution to the centenarian issue that is 

Puerto Rico’s status, which keeps our people divided and hinders the 

design of a national plan that would lead to social justice, to our 

economic development and the well-being of all Puerto Ricans..."

GOV'T TO BE SOLE MEDICAL POT PROVIDER

From News Is My Business:

"Now that medical marijuana is legal in Puerto Rico, don’t count on local
farmers joining the green rush. At least not yet. Instead, growing high-
grade medical cannabis will initially be in hands of the government and
“maybe in the future, we can enter the market,” the man in charge of the
Puerto Rico Farm Bureau told News is my Business. “Right now, there are no
opportunities for farmers,” said Héctor Iván Cordero, who leads the group
founded in 1924..."

Marco Rubio Wins PR Republican Primary

SAN JUAN (PRM) -- Florida Senator Marco Rubio won Puerto Rico's
Republican presidential primary election yesterday by a wide margin,
giving the embattled presidential candidate all of the island's 23 dele-
gates to the Republican convention. Rubio won with 25,513 votes,
which translates to over 71% of votes cast. Business magnate Donald
Trump received 4,610 votes for 12.86%, while Texas Senator Ted
Cruz nabbed 2,996 votes for 8% and Ohio Governor John Kasich
received 473 votes for 1.32%.

Approximately 25,000 voters participated in Sunday's primary, down
sharply from the 2012 vote. The island's Republican establishment
threw its support behind Rubio, a fact which surely contributed to the
Senator's landslide victory in Puerto Rico. Besides this contest, Rubio
has only won one other primary during this cycle, and that was last
week in Minnesota.