Holding The Hands Of The People Vs. A Distant Wave Of The Hand (Carolyn Baker)

[Tace]

By Carolyn Baker -- World News Trust

March 5, 2007 -- Below the equator, it is now autumn, the end of summer and the beginning of winter. During the month of February, the nation of Chile virtually shuts down, and like the month of August in the United States, government officials take a four-week vacation.

On Feb. 3, a tragic explosion occurred in a federal government building in Valparaiso, Chile, triggered by a gas leak. More lives might have been lost, but the inferno occurred on a Saturday -- the very Saturday that President Michelle Bachelet was en route to her secluded summer cabin in the nation’s Lakes Region, intending to spend a month away from media and La Moneda, the presidential palace, relaxing on the beach with her mother and two daughters. No sooner had Bachelet arrived at her Caburga cabin, than she was informed of the tragedy and immediately boarded a helicopter bound for Valparaiso.

After touring the disaster area, assessing the damage, and ordering a generous aid package for families affected by the explosion, she returned to Caburga, but the extent to which she was able to free herself from presidential tasks for the duration of the month of February is unclear since at the time of her departure, the capital city of Santiago was embroiled in a mass-transit crisis as a result of Bachelet’s implementation of a new Transantiago bus system designed to alleviate congestion and greenhouse gasses. Throughout her vacation she was briefed daily on the situation by her Minister of the Interior, but as a result of the transit chaos, Bachelet returned a few days early from her vacation, displaying an impressive tan -- the only indication that she might have actually spent a few hours relaxing on a luscious Caburga beach. Bachelet returned from her vacation early, not only to quell the criticisms of her opposition, but to reassure her people that she was in charge and that the Transantiago system would work because she was going to make sure it would.

On Friday, March 1, Bachelet re-visited to Valparaiso to spend time with the 45 families impacted by the February 3 tragedy. Some of the aid measures to those families include:

-Emergency funding to cover firefighting and rescue efforts
-800 million pesos to help businesses damaged by the explosion
-People affected received priority attention from the Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service and the national healthcare service (FONASA).
-37 people who lost their jobs will receive emergency jobs for three months until they can find definitive jobs.
-45 families rendered homeless received subsidies to buy homes.
-250 million pesos will be spent on restoring Serrano Street, the area most damaged by the explosion. Public plazas and spaces will be restored as well.

Bachelet seems to be at her very best when she is mingling with the Chilean people about whom she cares deeply, regularly loses sleep, and incessantly worries will not have enough to eat, will not be gainfully employed, adequately educated, receive sufficient health care, and have their needs met as senior citizens. When the subject of “life” comes up in interviews with Bachelet, she is quick to add “not just life but quality of life”, and she holds an unrelenting commitment to her nation’s citizens’ transcendence from poverty to a magnificent quality of life, and the chaos resulting from the new transit system, Bachelet's policies are engendering steady economic growth for Chile.

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