Violence, the news media, and the privatization of the social life

The Legislative Assembly, six months later

Because of the electoral results that were revealed in March, the directive board of the Legislative Assembly was shaped in a very singular form. ARENA, the PDC, and the CDU decided not to participate in the administration of the formerly mentioned legislative institution. Ever since then, there has not been much information about its performance. The Legislative Assembly has not played an important role in the press. This article will reflect upon the performance of the directive board of the Legislative Assembly, and, on the other hand, it will examine the role that the aforementioned institution has played throughout the last semester.

To have an idea about the performance of the Directive Board operated by the PCN and the FMLN, it is necessary to consider the few news articles connected with the alleged reprehensible acts of the opposition. Aware of the political parties’ engagements, which sometimes lead to a journalistic infuriation, perhaps this fact proves that things have not gotten worse. In addition to the specific manifestations of inconformity about the legislative opposition (that is, the parties that did not accept to be part of the directive board of the Assembly), it could be said that things are working out normally. In any case, no scandals have been made public yet, as it has happened with other legislatures.

In the beginning of the present legislature, an opinion poll made by the Public Opinion Institute of the Central American University (IUDOP, in Spanish) revealed several positive expectations that the electorate had. For 57.1% of those interviewed, the new composition of the Legislative Assembly could improve the country’s situation. At the same time, three out of every ten Salvadorans estimated that the main challenge of the new legislators was the creation of laws that could favor the population. In the mean time, 27.3% of those interviewed said that it was necessary to eradicate the corruption that grew inside the Assembly; a 13.6% spoke about the need to create laws to promote the development of the country; and almost 20% of those interviewed thought that the political parties had to come to an agreement in order to facilitate the country’s process of governance.

Most of those interviewed indicated that the attention to the social problems should be the most important duty of the legislators. Beyond the exaggerated character of these results -all of the social problems cannot be resolved through the law without a realistic perspective promoted by the Executive power-, they can give us an idea about the political expectations of the Salvadorans. In this case, it could be said that the opinion poll reflected the mood of an electorate that had just sanctioned the government’s social policies. Beyond the new projections of the public opinion polls, the discontent of the population because of the performance of the Flores administration in the social level is an issue that has to be considered when it comes to reflect about the possible orientation of the electorate in the upcoming 2004 presidential elections of March.

The new legislators were not discouraged before the presence of the social issues that the electorate had asked them to consider. Since the instauration of the Assembly, many initiatives have been considered. They have paid attention to several important social problems (education and health, among others), and they have tried to project an image concerned about the corruption of several public officials. In this sense, it should not seem odd if the investigation about the performance of the public authorities has been a publicly discussed issue. Different legislative commissions have been formed to inquire into the alleged fraud of the public funds administrated by former public officials. Independently from the demagogic character that several inquiries have acquired, and because some investigations about the transparency of several public officials have not been handled in a serious manner, there is no doubt that this issue is part of the effort that the legislators are making to respond to the expectations of the Salvadorans.

As for the social preoccupations of the congressmen, several law projects have emerged from the parliament; there have been all kinds of initiatives (public health, education, the debt of the agricultural sector, etcetera). All of these events have unleashed disappointments and political arguments with President Flores, who is not pleased with the fact that the opposition is “invading those areas reserved for the Executive power”. Partly because of this environment, the President promoted the anti-gangs plan, and he was questioned by the opposition while the latter kept fighting for a new social agenda.

Are these considerations enough to talk about a renovated Legislative Assembly that shares the same preoccupations of the Salvadorans? The most evident answer is negative. In the first place because the Directive board of the Assembly is still not transparent enough, even after realizing that the citizenry identified corruption as an epidemic that affects the congress. Even if there is not any other element that could indicate the presence of the criminal behavior of one of legislators, transparency is not a virtue of the already mentioned organ either.

Politicking is something that still has a very strong presence inside the congress. This is not about falling into a anti-political delirium, which is a frequent attitude in several national circles, but about paying some attention to how lightly the legislative organ discusses certain issues. When you follow the way in which several alleged legislative investigations are conducted, this thesis can be confirmed. The congressmen only seem concerned about corruption when this problem can be used as an electoral device to discredit a rival. On the contrary, they simply forget about the whole matter. That is why there is not a more severe legislature to handle the damages caused in the public treasury because of the corrupt actions. However, it is also necessary to say that the lack of legal initiatives to end with corruption must be connected to the political and the economic influences of the accused ones.

In this context, the relation between the PCN and the official party should be seen as the main obstacle to advance and fight against the corruption in the high circles of the State. On the one hand, the main suspects of corruption come from the ranks of ARENA. On the other hand, the PCN directs the Comptroller’s Office. Only the effective supervision of the comptroller can help to control the movements of the unscrupulous officials.

The last accusations of corruption against the present and the former left-wing officials have been promoted in the Comptroller’s Office. In this sense, the PCN is mainly responsible for the slight importance conceded to the inquiries connected with these accusations. Apparently, the objective of the accusers, especially in the case of the accusations against Silva, has to do with his struggle to occupy the third place in the preference of the electorate. This is how the investigation about the way in which the project of a garbage disposal system was conducted becomes a political accusation without too many relations with what actually happened.

In spite of the efforts to be synchronized with the expectations awakened at the time of its inauguration, the Legislative Assembly is still hunted by the demons of the past. This situation does not favor the alleged improvement of the institutional performance, and it does not allow them to compensate the inefficient and the distant image that overshadows the Legislative Organ.

The economic cost of the infectious diseases

Many of the measures that the government is taking to control the infectious diseases are mere reactions against very serious situations and do not obey to a preventive or to a systematic health policy. In order to face this problem, it is necessary that the State identifies the specific social characteristics presented by the most common pathologies of this country’s inhabitants.

By not implementing an efficient health policy, the government has to deal every year with the same social repercussions. It is necessary to understand that the palliative measures cannot have a positive set of repercussions in the long term. That is why a preventive policy is the adequate solution. In El Salvador, the most evident proofs of an inadequate health policy for the infectious diseases are the following:
- The diseases that affect in a large proportion the health of the population are generally the same.
- The people who are affected by those diseases usually belong to the same social status.
- The places and the areas where these diseases have a larger impact are practically the same.

From an economic perspective, the problem involves a couple of key aspects:
1. The amount of money assigned to the public health sector is far from successfully resolving the needs of the population.
2. There does not seem to be an economic rationality able to efficiently assign the resources to those activities that could be more effective to fight the infectious diseases.

An effective use of the resources destined to attack the diseases is not always guaranteed. It is necessary to carefully choose the strategies to eliminate the outbreaks of the diseases. Several recent studies reveal that an inadequately handled epidemic could have higher economic costs than those predicted.

The cost of the dengue
A few weeks ago, the Ministry of Health announced that the clinics will be opened for a longer period of time for those who seek for medical attention, and that the number of fumigations will be increased in the Metropolitan area of San Salvador. These actions represent an estimated cost of $80,000. Some of the investments made by this ministry include $25,000 for the purchase of the fumigation equipment, and $175,000 to buy chemicals that fight the larva.

So far for this year, the State would have spent approximately $60,000 in medical attention connected with the dengue, without including the treatments and the medications. This amount is the estimated result of the medical attention provided at the public health system with an average cost of $11.40 per capita. From January to mid October, approximately 5,336 people received medical attention because of the dengue. However, the medical costs increased when more than 45% of those patients (2,345) actually contracted the dengue. This means that a number of medications and a complex treatment are necessary to fight the disease.

The cost of conjunctivitis
Conjunctivitis is the contagious disease that reached its highest level during 2003, higher than it was during the last year. So far, the Ministry of Health has reported that a total of 154,239 people requested medical attention because of conjunctivitis. The Salvadoran Social Security System (ISSS, in Spanish) has taken care of approximately 90,000 of these people, out of which 54,000 have been treated with $1,958,000 million. According to the ISSS, the average cost medical attention and the medications is $16.00 per patient.


These $16.00 do not include an integral treatment for the other 100,000 cases. This means that outside the ISSS, approximately $1.6 million have been spent because of conjunctivitis. The consequences of conjunctivitis in the country’s productive development have not been analyzed, specifically in reference to the absence of the workers who have been affected by this disease.

Prevention
According to the World’s Health Organization (OMS, in Spanish), the prevention of diseases can save a considerable amount of financial resources for the State. The outbreaks of infectious diseases are closely linked to an enormous economic loss that can take place at a regional as well as at a national level. El Salvador and other countries of Central America consider that one of the alternatives to achieve the necessary development is to invest in tourism. However, the countries can have an attractive tourist infrastructure, but if they are constantly going through a problem of infectious diseases –such as the dengue and conjunctivitis-, they seem unattractive for the foreign visitors.

The diseases because of which most Salvadorans frequently seek public medical attention are the acute respiratory infections, pneumonia, diarrhea, and gastric enteritis. So far for this year, 1,796,229 people have requested medical attention in the public health system. This means that the State has spent approximately $20.5 million in this area, almost 50% of the health expenses made between 2001 and 2002. It is important to notice that even if this type of diseases do not require an extremely complex treatment for the recuperation of the patient, these diseases frequently affect their jobs and their families. The acute respiratory infections affected most of the population (1,498,153 cases), and $17.1 million were spent in public medical attention.

In 1995, the Committee of International Science, Engineering, and Technology (CISET) of the United States established that the loss of productivity due to diseases such as the flu represented more than the double of the cost of the aforementioned disease for the system of health (240%). If under the same parameter we establish the cost of the productivity loss in the country because of the respiratory infections, it would represent approximately $40 million.

It is evident that the absence of an effective health policy to attack the infectious diseases not only represents a considerable amount of resources inadequately invested by the State, but it would also have an important repercussion in the country’s economic activity, given the loss of productivity.