BY YVONNE REYES CAMPOS
The News
Mexico’s Constitution was officially revised yesterday, as the Congress Permanent Commission President, Ricardo Anaya Cortés, declared valid the changes to Articles 25, 27 and 28, thereby ending 75 years of Mexican oil sovereignty and opening up the industry to foreign investment.
A total of 24 state congresses validated the energy reform law, passed last week in federal Congress.
National Action (PAN), Institutional Revolutionary (PRI), Green (PVEM) and New Alliance (Panal) deputies and senators applauded the announcement while Labor Party (PT) Deputy Rafael Huerta Ladrón de Guevara held up a sign saying that President Enrique Peña Nieto is a traitor to the nation.
Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) Senator Manuel Camacho Solís said that the reform’s approval process was a violation of the social pact. “If there is no public enquiry, this reform will be illegitimate, and not only this reform, but I think that the political system will be as well,” he added.
PT Senator Manuel Blartlett called the reform’s approval a historic repression of a majority which violates all proceedings in order to approve an illegitimate and immoral reform.
PRD leadership launched a “Unity in Defense of National Sovereignty and Energy Resources Plan” on Wednesday, which aims to achieve a public enquiry by means of constitutional and direct action.
PRD President Jesús Zambrano Grijalva denied that the enquiry was a lost cause, saying, “If it were a lost cause we wouldn’t keep fighting. We fight for causes that are worth it.”
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, son of former President Lázaro Cárdenas, who nationalized the nation’s petroleum, said: “History has shown us that the people have succeeded when they have known how to organize around a fundamental objective.”
PRI Deputy Manlio Fabio Beltrones Rivera said that 16 constitutional reforms have passed in 16 months, and that, “We know well that the problems won’t be resolved with magic, nor complaining through absurd resistance.”
He also said that it won’t happen either with disqualifications or simply extremist positions “from hypocrite nationalists, and between them that we are thinking that the changes are obligated.”
He added that the greatest danger to Mexico is doing nothing or following those who propose nothing and sit paralyzed in defeat. “Today we advance again at what we want to build.”
PAN Senator Javier Alarcón said that the day was a historic one, and denied that the energy sector will privatize Mexico’s hydrocarbon reserves.
“The false concept of nationalism that has been tried to be used to insult this transcendent project for Mexico is that which loses sight that real sovereignty resides in taking our own decisions, from the liberty that gives precisely self-sufficiency.” he added.
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