The senator of Democratic CenterMiguel Uribe Turbay, led a durThe opposition’s reply to the presidential address by Gustavo Petro last Monday, February 27.
“The country deserves a clear debate and with arguments about the reforms that this government is promoting today. These reforms are being justified on false premisess”, said Uribe Turbay, taking the spokesperson for the only community declared in opposition and in the company of senator Cyrus Alejandro Ramirez and the representative to the Chamber for Valle del Cauca, Christian Garcés.
The senator assured that “Health care reform is a matter of life and death. If we continue on the path proposed by the president, we would make our health depend on public entities”, a point in which he questioned the expensive state bureaucracy that would have to be created to be able to provide this care from the public sector.
Uribe Turbay, who led the Senate list of that party, maintained that: “We want changes to improve, but we are not willing to accept the destruction of the achievements of the current system (…) Ending these achievements implies ending this right”.
Regarding the pension reform, in its reply the opposition ruled that “if the pension reform is approved as it is proposed, the aThe savings of the workers will become the petty cash of the Government”.
On labour reform They asked for a balance to be made on the real conditions of the companies because they believe that the draft that was leaked “would condemn Colombians to informality and unemployment.”
In this document, it is proposed to increase the payment for Sundays and holidays from 75% to 100% and implement overtime from 6 in the afternoon, contrary to the current format that traces the overtime of workers from 10 at night. .
In his speech on Monday night, the president, Gustavo Petro, had asserted that “in a democracy, freedom of opinion is a value that I fully share. The reforms need debate in society, consensus in the Government and, after being approved by Congress and by society itself, they need a lot of determination to apply them”.
It was right in the middle of that statement, Petro announced the departure of the ministers Alejandro Gaviria, Patricia Ariza and Maria Isabel Urrutia of the head of the Education, Culture and Sports portfolios, in the midst of the first shake of his cabinet that is being fought in the context of a tough bid for the content of his reforms.
Although in August 2022 the Senators María Fernanda Cabal, Paloma Valencia and Paola Holguín had made a “reply” to the president’s inauguration speech, that intervention was broadcast on social networks and not under the guidelines of the Opposition Statute that allows the preaching of opponents to be broadcast on national television and radio signals.
The intervention of Senator Miguel Uribe was the first formal reply requested by the Democratic Center in opposition to the Petro government.