PUERTO RICO IN HISTORIC COLONIAL OBLIVION 

Through time, colonialism has created intolerable and inhumane acts of hopelessness, misery and apprehension into different groups, as well as it has undermined their sense of group identity, values and cultural world views. While frequently advancing as a regime, colonialism has sheltered colonial settlers, invading and occupying land and permanently replacing an entire society, usually through genocide and/or major exploitation of resources.

As of today, Puerto Rico is considered an effective colony. Even though the concept of colonialism is distorted and unclear with the unincorporated territory jurisdiction of the United States, the U.S. Constitution doesn't comply directly or uniformly to the island as a sovereign nation nor a U.S. State. The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (in Spanish: Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico) is officially a "territory”, lacking sovereignty and full representation in the U.S. federal government. Only about half of American adults know that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, reinforcing a relationship of perpetual discrimination.

As a territory, the island enjoys various "fundamental rights" of U.S. citizenship but lacks others. Puerto Rico residents cannot vote in U.S. presidential elections and can't elect their own senators and representatives to the U.S. Congress. On the other hand, and in contrast to U.S. states, residents of Puerto Rico are subject to federal income taxes.

But when Hurricane María hit the Island, the economy of Puerto Rico was profoundly impacted. In the months that followed, FEMA would flood Puerto Rico with supplies as its proof was found on a runway in the old Roosevelt Roads Military Base in Ceiba. More than 20,000 pallets holding millions of bottles of fresh water went to waste in the sun. Huge portions of food supply were incredibly destroyed and after initially blaming local officials for failing to distribute it, a superficial investigation took place on how everything got to that stage. This new reality enforced a growing movement for Puerto Rico to become a state, especially after Hurricane Maria's disastrous impact on the island.

The freedom for sustainable energy is a key element for Puerto Rico's energy renewal in which continues to suffer blackouts due to mismanagement and the destruction of the power grid caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017. Small business, schools and seniors are the most impacted and haven’t been able to recover since then, closing multiple establishments and crippling the local economy.

On July 2024, sectors inside and outside Puerto Rico questioned the appointments of members to the Fiscal Control Board (FOMBPR) announced by the Biden Administration, as it did not forecast changes in the approach of the federal agency currently immersed in the restructuring of the debt of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) under Title III of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, (PROMESA), signed into law by President Barack Obama on June 30, 2016.

The Fiscal Control Board is the entity in charge of overseeing the finances of the government of Puerto Rico and has been imposed by federal authorities to manage Puerto Rico's finances since 2016 as a part of the bankruptcy process in the territory. It is composed of seven members appointed by the president and one member appointed by the governor to allow Puerto Rico to restructure its debt and attain fiscal accountability.

The Biden administration has also just recently announced the reappointment of former bankruptcy judge Arthur González and education leader Betty Rosa. With all of these changes, sectors inside and outside Puerto Rico have questioned members to the Fiscal Control Board and has not foreseen any changes in the approach of the federal agency currently immersed in restructuring the debt of the PREPA under the PROMESA Act. The creation of the Energy Bureau has shown that the energy system after years of political mismanagement bankrupted the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and left the Island with an useless power grid.

On July 22, 2024, the Oversight Board announced that the appointment of Luis A. Ubiñas by President Biden was now effective. Luis Ubiñas, a partner at McKinsey & Company has been accused of having a conflict of interest with his “recommendations” to the Board while helping the federal agency review and evaluate contracts with companies that were clients. Ubiñas served as the president of the Ford Foundation and a former senior partner at McKinsey & Company and was named to a three-year term on the board. Ubiñas was also on the advisory committee for the Export-Import Bank and is president emeritus of the Pan American Development Fund. His involvement in advising both on the Board and the federal agency raises questions about impartiality and the integrity of the decision-making process where individuals move between the public and private sectors, potentially compromising their objectivity and serving their own interests instead of the public's.

According on the Wall Street Journal, McKinsey & Company, one of the world’s largest consulting firms, is also under investigation for conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. Since it began to manage Puerto Rico's finances, restructure the public debt and re-enter the markets, it also advised the Fiscal Control Board through the PROMESA Act when companies sold opioids. Allegedly the firm made fraudulent claims to programs including Medicare and for its role in advising drug companies on how to boost sales of opioids, according to sources familiar with the matter. This is because, while McKinsey advised the Board, it also helped the federal agency review and evaluate contracts with companies that were its clients.

When the U.S. attained Puerto Rico, the treaty modeled that of an authoritarian association.  The United States still allowed Puerto Ricans living on the island citizenship, federal benefits, funding and military protection, but has no right to away voting for an U.S. president.  An appealing “trade” to the low economic stature of the island (and its fellow territories). However, if citizens from these territories move to the United States, and establish residency, they will be able to register to vote for president, reinforcing exile and strengthening a lack of unity.

The highly contested primaries in Puerto Rico are full of controversies as numerous discrepancies were found in the vote totals. The elections commission has now taken the step to review its contract with Dominion Voting Systems, a prominent U.S. electronic voting company. The discovery of these discrepancies and the subsequent review of the contract highlight the importance of maintaining a robust and reliable voting system. The elections commission's efforts to rectify the situation can help restore confidence in the electoral process and ensure that future elections in Puerto Rico are conducted smoothly and accurately.

The University of Puerto Rico (UPR) Workers Union activated a strike vote for the university system resignation of the president of the UPR, Dr. Luis Ferrao Delgado, from signing the stipulation of the agreement by the negotiating committees on August 16, 2024. The stipulation of the agreement was discussed by the Board of the University of Puerto Rico in a meeting held on August 29, 2024, and chaired by its president, CPA Ricardo Dalmau, and then submitted to the Fiscal Oversight Board, without being signed by Dr. Ferrao. Dr. Ferrao didn't sign the stipulation with a favorable recommendation and, in collusion with the Board of the institution, passed the stipulation according to the Fiscal Board without an official position.

The president of the Retirement Board of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Luis Vicenty Santini, denounced early July 2024 that the university administration stopped paying $38.7 million in employer contributions during the 2023-2024 fiscal year to the Retirement System. The failure in contributions violates the Deed of Trusts that the university raised in 2016 and the PROMESA Law by defunding the UPR Retirement System in a premeditated way.

On Sept. 4, while this strike of the UPR Workers Union was taking place at the gates of the Río Piedras Campus, approximately 300 students were registered to vote for the November 5^th elections. Countless challenges were confronted when the electric power service collapsed several times, cancelling the efforts with only 58 students able to enroll the day before. The Campus suffers from the possible impact the economy has reflected in the Island, mirroring the state of emergency for the overall infrastructure in Puerto Rico. Multiple buildings in San Juan suffer from this painful abandonment, as the city feels completely desolated, deprived and agonized.

On June 15, 2016, a total of 375 students from the Río Piedras campus of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) were evicted from the Torre Norte residence, a building that was supposed to be remodeled with the intention of modernize the campus. With no safe housing to be able to study close to the institution, is still being questioned on how it is that the university administration wants an open institution without the opportunity to study and live in it.

The funds obligated by FEMA for the execution of the Torre Norte project amount to $14.6 million and the UPR's insurance contribution is supposed to be $5 million as a result of the severe damage caused by the impact of Hurricane Maria. The House Finance Committee (La Comisión de Hacienda de la Cámara de Representantes) passed a resolution that assigned $18.8 million to the University of Puerto Rico to assure the corresponding funds necessary for the construction and rehabilitation of the Torre Norte building on the Río Piedras Campus. However, no remodeling efforts can be identified in order to authorize the use of that money.

With all of this, an additional and evident frustration has deteriorated different negotiating committees concerning the transparency of the process in order to channel the stipulation agreement for the consideration of the Fiscal Board that is never observed. The crooked economic situation is reaching in such an extreme that the number of local cooperatives could be reduced, which would imply a decrease in assets because they could be sold outside the cooperative system. Cooperatives will be forced to allocate more money for their reserves, limiting the funds to give loans and credit to their members.

With tourism increasing, the respect for culture has  also been lost in areas of limitless recreation and patrimony, as locals forget those areas the UNESCO tried to protect. The notion of the colonial trauma continues to be transferred into successive generations, as it strengthens the idea that oppression is not a horrible way of suffering but a cultural disturbance for most of the people in the New World. It is certain that there is still little value or meaning to these lives under coercion, tied to their capacity and effectively banned from any pursuit of a cultural life through laws that prevent most communal life. This enduring foreign identity imposition is literally supplied by whoever happened to be part of the Fiscal Control Board to establish “order". 

The appointed individuals tasked with overseeing and advising on crucial financial matters always raised concerns about the importance of ethical conduct and transparency with the avoidance of any conflicts of interest. The island has voted for statehood in 2012, 2017 and 2020, as Congress was supposed to grant statehood and it hasn’t occurred yet. Another fight among Puerto Ricans demands full independence for the territory, as its indecision in status manifests a lack of cultural identity.

Historically speaking, people that suffered colonialism have been from the perspectives of the dominant culture, creating unreal and unimaginable critical reflections about their oral histories, ancestral knowledges, collective memories of family, community narratives, and other historical accounts.

SOURCES

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