SANTIAGO – On Sunday, Sebastián Piñera began his first public speech as Chile’s president, displayed on one of the balconies of the Palace of La Moneda in Santiago with a Plaza de la Constitución full of supporters.
In his speech, which lasted about half an hour, he summoned “all my compatriots, and especially the parliamentarians, to five major national agreements to advance with a true sense of urgency and build rock.”
The five national agreements are: – Por la infancia (For children) – Por la seguridad ciudadana (For citizen security) – Por una salud oportuna y de calidad para todos (For timely and quality health for all) – Por la paz en La Araucanía (For peace in La Araucanía) – Para alcanzar el desarrollo y derrotar la pobreza (To achieve development and defeat poverty), for the next eight years.
“Today we come to this same house of all Chileans (La Moneda), with the firm and urgent commitment to do justice and improve the dignity and quality of life of all our children, and especially those who in their short lives, only they have known abandonment and loneliness,” said the head of state. “Not only because they are our future, but because a large, just and supportive homeland cannot fail any of its children without failing itself, without belittling its soul and without betraying its best ideals,” he added.
[EN VIVO] Gracias chilenos por acompañarnos en este gran día #ChileLoHacemosTodos https://t.co/4RgyyySOtU
— Sebastian Piñera (@sebastianpinera) March 11, 2018
“Today I call all my compatriots to be a living part of this great National Agreement for Children, to give back to our most vulnerable children their childhood, their innocence and their joy of living, and so that everyone can develop the talents that God gave them and go as far as your dreams are great and firm your will.”
Citizen security
Piñera continued, “The priorities of our government will be the priorities of the people, and therefore we will put all our commitment, will and effort into turning back delinquency, drug trafficking and terrorism, and advance the security of our families, the integrity of our youth and peace in our regions.
“Citizens security is a fundamental condition to be able to develop our life projects. That is why we will never let fear invade our consciences, our homes and our lives, because that would mean atrophy our freedom and impoverish our future.”
“To achieve this, we will modernize our police and our intelligence system, improve coordination among police, prosecutors and judges, strengthen our rehabilitation capacity to those who have mistaken the way, we will support the work of the municipalities and civil society and we will strengthen our laws to fight these flagella with greater efficiency.
“We will take care of the serious crisis in our health system, which undoubtedly requires major surgery and requires reducing waiting times and waiting lists, reducing the price of medicines and improving the quality and dignity of health benefits,” he added.
Piñera clarified that “to be able to advance in all these objectives it is essential to reverse the stagnation of recent years, rescue fiscal balances and recover leadership, dynamism and the ability to grow, create good jobs, improve wages, invest, innovate in science and technology and to promote and not stifle creativity and the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship”.
In that sense, the president said that growth is “fundamental, not only to create good jobs, improve wages and create opportunities for SMEs, but also, to generate the necessary resources to finance public spending healthily. After all, there is no better labor policy than full employment, or better fiscal policy than growth.”
Finally he came to the issue of development, which, he said, is “much more than growth”, and indicated that “real development has a human face and its goal is to improve the quality of life of Chilean families,” thus pointing to “a great national agreement to achieve development and defeat poverty in the next eight years”.
Regarding the agreement for peace in La Araucanía, the head of state did not give more details during his speech.
In his speech the President also highlighted the “strengthening of the family” in the country and the birth rate, stating that “our Government has a commitment of soul to the strengthening of the family, that gives us so much joy and so little support we give”.
“We will strengthen our families, seeking a total equality of rights and duties between men and women, making the world of work better compatible with the world of the family, effectively combating intra-family violence and supporting motherhood, because children are like the stars: they always light up our lives and they are never too many,” he concluded.
