Star

The San Juan Daily Star
Monday, March 21, 2016
5
Bernier Reaffirms Call
for Debt Moratorium
By JOHN MCPHAUL
jpmcphaul@gmail.com
Popular Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial candidate
David Bernier urged the executive branch and the Legislature
late last week to move urgently to stabilize government
operations and guarantee essential services to the
public.
“Some weeks ago I wrote Gov. Alejandro García Padilla
recommending intensity in the debt negotiation process,
establishing as a priority the moratorium on payment of the
principal of the debt for five years while we continue to pay
interest,” Bernier said in a statement.
He reaffirmed that “the correct path is a moratorium
through an agreement [with bondholders] on the payment of
the principal, as was achieved with the Puerto Rico Electric
Power Authority,” Bernier said.
“If there is no will among the bondholders for this agreement,
then we have to decree it via the Legislature,” he said.
“The country cannot continue to wait.”
Bernier lamented the lack of will shown by the U.S.
Congress to support Puerto Rico in the search for solutions
to its debt problems.
“The federal government has been late in offering an
institutional remedy … to responsibly address the urgent
problem of our debt,” he said. “We have been denied access
David Bernier
to Chapter 9 of the federal bankruptcy law and they have ignored
proposals such as deposits from the federal Treasury
Department to the Government Development Bank, or the
purchase of the public debt by the Federal Reserve.”
He added that “the lack of federal action to make a decision
that is best for the people of Puerto Rico and guarantees
justice to creditors, many of which are good Puerto Ricans,
has taken the situation to the point where lack of payment of
the debt will be due to insolvency and not due to a rational
and reasonable political decision.”
The candidate said “the payment of the debt is unavoidable,
with serious consequences for the function of the government
and for the essential services for the welfare of our
people.”
On the moratorium, he said that once established, “the
debt negotiations should occur within a maximum period of
five years and should be carried out with the greatest possible
transparency.”
During this time, he said, the Legislature must audit
the negotiations.
“The hour has arrived to carry the demand of our people
in a great crusade of lobbying and defense of the interests of
the Puerto Rican people in the halls of Congress and through
the doors of the White House,” Bernier said. “We will follow
the example of our compatriots in the United States who have
made our cause theirs, mobilizing on every front to call for
just treatment so they provide us with tools so that the people
of Puerto Rico can overcome this crisis and get back on the
road to economic development.”