The plenary session of the House of Representatives generally accepted the reform of the second article of the constitution, concerning indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples and communities.
It was supported unanimously, with 492 yes votes, but the opposition criticized the lack of a budget necessary to implement the reform, as well as the accusation of a clientelist vision formulated in the text of the new constitution.
During the discussion of the project, the representative of the Civil Movement, Gildardo Pérez Gabino, said that this government remained. “completely missing” Given the displacement of the Mixtecs and Tlapanecs in the state of Guerrero, “who had to give up part of their mining areas due to the presence of drug trafficking and organized crime.”
He further denounced that the Constitution had been colonized and called people of color Afro-Mexicans: “Why do they call us Afro-Mexicans? That prefix needs to be removed. If I was born in Mexico and my parents and grandparents were born in Mexico, then I am nothing but Mexican, not Afro-Mexican, plain and simple, I am Mexican, they cannot distinguish between racist and classist complexes.
Deputy Asael Hernández from PAN questioned whether they want to implement the reform without budgetary impact: “Because although the Ministry of Finance has confirmed that there will be no budgetary impact on the executors of the expenditure, on the contrary, the Center for Financial Studies of the House of Representatives has questioned the financial viability of the initiative.”
Meanwhile, Genoveva Huerta Villegas, also a PAN representative, announced that her party would vote yes, but believed that “There's still a long way to go.”
“At the beginning of the government, just over 10 million people suffered from some form of deficiency, be it in education, health, housing, social security, basic services or food. Four years later, this number had risen to over 11 million, according to surveys. data from Coneval, so “not only have we not paid our debt, we have increased it by neglecting it, and consigned it to a much more cruel and inhuman poverty.”he explained.
PRI deputy Leticia Barrera Maldonado said the tricolor would support the reform “Because as an opposition, we stand for responsibly supporting everything that benefits the people.”
José Alejandro López Sánchez, of the PT, said that the reform “It allows our people to regain the greatness they had before the Spanish conquest”; PVEM representative Iván Marín Rangel celebrated that the proposal recognizes traditional medicine and took this into account “This is a historic reform that allows us to restore our debt to our indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples”while Irma Juan Carlos described this Wednesday as “historic day”.
“A historic day that will remain etched in our minds and hearts as the moment when, after more than five centuries of invasion, dispossession, exclusion, racism and discrimination, our inalienable rights are finally recognized in the Constitution.”he concluded.
Said reform recognizes the right of indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples to be consulted before any legislative reform or any public policy to be implemented, and establishes that said communities have the right to determine the use of state resources allocated to them through popular consultation. and they have the right to operate and manage their own means of communication, broadcasting and telecommunications.
It also notes that work needs to be done to ensure broadband Internet access in indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities and peoples.
After the general approval, the debate in particular continued.