As announced this Thursday by EL COLOMBIANO, the Mayor of Medellín will deliver pigs to all the neighborhoods of the city for this Christmas. Mayor Daniel Quintero made the news public that same day at night and criticism rained down on him from all sectors.
“We want 200,000 children and adults to have a nice Christmas, without hunger and in the community. Medellín will give a pig to each neighborhood in the city through its community action boards. Do you want to join us in this initiative? Write to: [email protected] ”, was the message she wrote on her Twitter account.
Hours earlier, sources close to the administration told this outlet that in recent days the Secretary of Government, Juan Pablo Ramírez, chaired a meeting at a Copacabana farm where the former Secretary of Health, Andree Uribe, who would be a candidate for the mayor’s office next year, and other local government officials and bishops. Over there it was announced that pigs would be handed over to the city’s community action boards.
Also read: Poll asking for which of the “Quintero candidates” would vote outraged mayoral candidates
However, when Quintero made the news official, he was highly criticized by deputies, councilors and citizens. One of them is the animal councilor Juan Ramón Lara, from the Conservative Party, who told him that the message is contrary to the animal defense agenda.
“The symbol of a “pig” at Christmas is synonymous with animal abuse and we have had to fight long struggles to discourage these practices. There are thousands of different ways to eliminate hunger. I demand that you, as a Medellín councilor and spokesperson for the animal community, reverse this decision… because more than a “beautiful Christmas” it would be regressing decades of animal rights struggle in our city,” he said on his social networks.
In this same sense, other people spoke, who told him that He will change the pigs for custard and fritters. It was then that Secretary Ramírez came out in defense of the initiative and clarified that the pigs would be delivered dead and processed, “open in the carcass and with a cold chain.”
It may interest you: Albert Corredor carries out a campaign by pressure on contractors and sancochos in neighborhoods of Medellín
The president also did the same and responded to the “donors” that he is looking for live animals are not accepted. For Jiménez it was not a solution to his criticism: “Secretary, in any way, it is giving away the death of an animal as a symbol of a Merry Christmas. What is worse in a city that has struggled for decades to erase the horrible marranadas from the end of the year festivities ”, he said.
Other people, such as councilor Daniel Duque, from Alianza Verde, pointed out that a “beautiful Christmas” for the city’s children should include actions such as maintaining the quality of care provided by Buen Comienzo, an early childhood program that has been involved in multiple critics: “I do not believe that the chronic child malnutrition that increased in Medellín can be cured with a pig.”
Likewise, Duque expressed that the initiative is not consistent with the campaign promoted by the Mayor’s Office to reduce the consumption of meat to protect the planet and reduce the use of water that these processes require.
And the deputy Luis Peláez stated that for To reach the number of people that the mayor wants pigs to eat, there must be more animals per neighborhood. “There are approximately 500 community action meetings. If we assume that for each pig 200 plates are removed (being almost impossible), it would only be 100,000 plates. In summary, for Quintero to reach the goal, there must be two large pigs for each meeting, ”he wrote in response to the mayor.
Among the criticisms also appeared the response of Quintero’s wife, Diana Osorio, who told him that I preferred the bean to the marranada, to which the mayor added that donations also accepted beans and vegetarian products.
Anyway, this idea has been highly questioned by those who believe that there are more important things to solve in the city. And he adds to the recent criticisms that have also been made of former councilor Albert Corredor, a friend and political ally of Quintero, for the Christmas parties that he is having in the neighborhoods, with custards, sancochadas and gifts for the children.
They question him because in 2023 he would seek to be a candidate for mayor, which some describe as opportunism and an advance campaign, and also because contractors from the Ministry of Education denounce that they have pressured them to help with logistics and with money for said parties. .