AMERICA/EL SALVADOR - Archbishop Escobar Alas: the law guarantees the right for all to water and a fair and dignified pension

Wednesday, 18 September 2019 water human rights local churches

Twitter

EL SALVADOR

2022-06-07
The Bishops in solidarity with the Church of Nicaragua, "concerned about the social and political situation"

2022-01-27
Massacre of Jesuits: Film reconstructs what happened in 1989 and what is still happening today

2022-01-24
The four martyrs beatified: "May their heroic example arouse in everyone the desire to be courageous agents of fraternity and peace"

2022-01-22
CLAR on the new martyrs: "The commitment and defense of the poorest were their death sentence"

2022-01-22
Beatification of the four martyrs, the diocesan Postulator: "Our vocation is to follow the Lord"

2022-01-17
On January 22, the beatification of four martyrs: witnesses of an outgoing Church, which announces the Kingdom of God with words and deeds

San Salvador (Agenzia Fides) - "Once again we raise our voice not only in the name of our Catholic brothers and our evangelical brothers, but in the name of all the people, to ask the Legislative Assembly to approve the General Law Project of the Water": this is how Mgr. José Luis Escobar Alas, Archbishop of San Salvador, began his usual press conference on Sunday 15 September.
The Archbishop commented this bill: "presented in March 2012, 92 articles have already been approved, but the study and approval of this law did not continue, in an attempt to approve instead a spurious law on water". He then continued: "It is necessary that deputies respond to the best interest of the Salvadoran people who elected them and guarantee the human right to water for each of the Salvadorans, providing a general law on water that is fair".
The Church in El Salvador has always been a protagonist in the demand for a fair law for the distribution and management of this precious resource like water. He stressed this when president Nayib Bukele was elected (see Fides 12/02/2019). "For over a decade the people have requested the urgent approval of a general law on water ... now the same people are tired of the lack of commitment and willingness to legislate on water" said Mgr. Escobar Alas on more occasions (see Fides, 28/9/2019 and 14/1/2019).
In his meeting with journalists, the Archbishop then touched on the issue of pensions: "On behalf of so many workers who cry when they retire for the unfair and inhuman pension they receive, denying them a decent retirement to which they are entitled and condemning them to put an end to their lives in poverty, I ask our government and the legislative authorities to repeal the current pension system as it is unfair, and to adopt a fair pension system, which effectively favors workers (and not others), which guarantees them a fair and dignified pension, to which they are certainly entitled". (CE) (Agenzia Fides, 18/9/2019)