I reflected in these days of Holy Week on how much the Dominican Republic has changed since I was born, the first day of the year 1963, to date. At that time, the country had just over 3.6 million inhabitants; Haiti, 4.1 million and Puerto Rico, 2.5 million.
Our GDP totaled 940 million dollars while those of Haiti and Puerto Rico amounted to 295 million and 2.334 million dollars, respectively. The transition to the democracy that the country lives and enjoys today began, after ending 31 years of the bloody tyranny imposed by Trujillo.
Haiti was and is our neighbor in Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, our rich Antillean brother, where we all aspired to travel (and it was there that I made my first trip outside the country in 1970, with my parents), it has lost some of its charms. with which the island was called.
New York, Madrid, and Miami were far from being the benchmark today, as the most visited places by Dominicans and, of course, financial centers from where the significant foreign exchange earnings come that have “saved our economy in times of COVID.”
The entertainment in our half island was precarious due to the absence of means of production, resources, and the bustle of politics; and tourism did not even exist in the head of Don Ángel Miolán, who had returned from exile with Juan Bosch. Hardly, according to what they tell me, a few lupanares, bars, cinemas, restaurants, and a few ice cream parlors, plus the municipal parks, constituted the recreation and leisure centers.
In short, the consumption of rum, dominoes, and baseball were the enjoyment of the weekend; and on Sunday, the visit to the church.
A substantial change in the democratic life of our nation was constituted, via the votes and leaving behind the boots, the arrival to the presidential office of Don Antonio Guzman, in 1978.
From President Guzmán, I join the group of Dominicans who think that “we have not yet valued him enough to give him a correct place in our history.”
A change in my life was my entry to the law school of the UNPHU in 1979. When I was going to take the entrance exam, my father “only” warned me: “If you burn, I will enroll you in the UASD”. I, who already gave signs of how valuable time I understood and understand is, a non-renewable resource in this earthly life, of course, I passed the test. My colleagues from Colegio Loyola who entered UASD at that time graduated a year later than me.
Joining the UNPHU entered a new world: I came out of the domestic bubble and Loyola. From the exquisite home and Jesuit education, I went to a different space, more pluralistic in terms of gender (the Loyola was exclusively male), social, economic, and political.
At the end of the five-year career, he had already entered eleven months earlier, on January 2, 1984, as a paralegal in the only international law firm in the country, Kaplan, Russin, Vecchi, and Heredia Bonetti.
True, the country changed a lot after the sugar boom in the 70s, the economic reforms, the incentive laws, and the enormous democratic and institutional advances that the two PRD governments made, before Easter 1984 but the winds of renewal had little effect on the rule of law, the justice system, the underworld that were the Dominican courts, even under the ruling that “the Constitution was a piece of paper” and that a call from the legal consultant from the Executive Power to the president of the Supreme Court of Justice was an order.
Today the Dominican Republic has an estimated population of 10.3 million inhabitants, while Haiti and Puerto Rico have 11.7 and 3.2 million, respectively. Our GDP was around 90,000 million dollars at the end of 2019, while that of Haiti and Puerto Rico reached 14.3 thousand and 105,000 million, respectively, at the end of that year.
We multiplied our population by three and by more than ten our wealth in just 58 years, a sign that our ills are not growth and development but education, equal opportunities, and institutions.
The Constitution that we enjoy today is a modern instrument, the Legislative and Judicial powers have advanced exponentially, despite the long-pending journey to be a model of independence, as well as more developed nations.
The Executive Branch continues to be the center of the universe on our half island. He casually commented with a minister of the current government that Luis Abinader had obtained outstanding grades in his young performance of seven months, but that a titanic task awaited him. The second vaccine has brought hope; hope, growing energy; so much so that April 5 seems like the beginning of a new year. Hope has transformed the perception of reality. We have lost a year of our lives, the country’s foreign debt (and in our companies, in many cases) has grown, we have to produce …
However, we cannot lose sight of what has been the second greatest achievement of the current administration (after efficient health management): facing the institutional challenge at the hands of Doña Milagros Ortiz Bosch, whom I admire; from the Director of State Purchasing and Contracting, Carlos Pimentel, whom I do not know and respect, and the forthcoming selection of the members of the Chamber of Accounts.
Let’s sow more hope. And let’s reap the rewards for the future.
The author is a lawyer
Source:
Listin Diario
