The Presidency of the Cabildo responds daily to numerous requests of the most varied variety. On many occasions these are queries related to the various competencies that our institution directly manages or to ask us to intervene in some issues that correspond to other entities. Also in this permanent communication with Gran Canaria society there are 'fashions' or eras, apart from situations in which an event or serious event causes an avalanche of requests, as has been the case with the pandemic caused by Covid-19. In any case, the Cabildo always responds and, if necessary, also acts to meet the needs of the island's population.
I open this reflection because lately the queries from young students who want to know their Cabildo better have multiplied. Male and female students who address our Corporation to ask about the role that the institution plays in such a complex moment for the world, where geopolitics and the discourse that predominates in the media is that of the lack of agreements and confrontation . It is a reality that demoralizes the community that observes how political activity focuses on blocking institutions and not on responding to the endemic or unexpected concerns of citizens.
Political confrontations also manifest themselves in territorial disputes. There are communities that lead the political and information agenda in the State, which places the others on the periphery, in a marginal stalls, as long-suffering observers of the national absurdity. And, even more so, when it comes to the Canary Islands, the national media are only interested in tragic situations such as the death toll on the 'Canary Islands route', which places us at the opposite end of the image as a leisure destination and winter solarium in Europe. .
This can only be overcome by correctly managing the available resources and having a plan or program that defines the process. Hence, it is important to know the role of local and island corporations, those that provide daily and direct services for the residents of each town, of each island.
And so I conveyed it to the students of the Second C class at IES La Isleta, and also to their Geography teacher, Óscar Iván, who have had the courtesy to contact me to ask me to explain to them the importance of the councils and especially the Cabildo of Gran Canaria.
The Cabildo of Gran Canaria is an institution that has a lot to do with the present and the future of the entire population of the island, and has been this way since the creation of the Corporation whose historical origin begins in 1912, when the Congress of Deputies It allowed the constitution of a new governing body in the Canary Islands to address the uniqueness of the archipelago. Because the reality of the Canary Islands is different from that of the rest of Spain and, furthermore, each island has its own reality on a natural border, the Atlantic that both separates and unites us.
History has shown that the creation of the island governments was a success. In the case of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria, it was established in 1913 and since then it has been an indispensable institution for the social and economic advancement of the island. Today, neither Gran Canaria nor any other island could be understood without its Cabildo. And to their credit are initiatives that provided their population with health centers (San Martín or the Insular Hospital and the School of Nursing); university or academic (the Las Palmas University College or the Pérez Galdós International University and the Casa de Colón), research and training (the Farm, the agricultural research farms or the Taliarte Research Center), along with many other initiatives .
But it is also the architect of the most important transformations in the last century, starting with social and health policies, the development of the primary sector and, above all, the recovery, conservation and improvement of the forest mass, with the policy of repopulation consortia or the construction of the large dams on the island. Actions that have been maintained over time for 75 years and that now allow us to see peaks that retain the clouds so that the water returns to the channels of the ravines, while recovering the land and stopping erosive processes.
Saúl, the IES La Isleta student who wrote to me, asked me about the constitutional importance of the Cabildo... I told him that it was a very pertinent question. If you read article 141 of the Spanish Constitution, you will see that it establishes the councils as a guarantee to respond to insularity. Because you know that living in Gran Canaria is a privilege, but that privilege comes at the cost of remoteness and territorial fragmentation.
This was the meaning of one of the answers to the student from La Isleta, who also wanted to know why we should maintain the town councils. An answer that could be very extensive, but which I summarized in the fact that the Cabildo defends the rights of all Gran Canarian men and women and manages such important issues as territorial planning, water, the primary sector, care of the environment, equality, culture or social care, among many other tasks that translate into well-being.
And there we would enter into the discussion about the meaning of 'manage'. And I have to respond with pride that the Cabildo has opted for the most transformative and committed meaning of the word, being aware that it is not enough to manage or operate an entity, but to carry out an island project, with what this entails. of model change to respond to the demands of society, guarantee future needs and respond to the threats that confront us.
Hence, this youth who has barely heard of the Cabildo in their training but who observes day by day the presence of the Cabildo, its facilities, its services and its commitment to the defense of the island, is interested in knowing our opinion, our vision. and our mission to build a sustainable, fair and safe island for the future. An eco-island that advances - step by step - with the change of comprehensive model that guarantees food and energy sovereignty, as well as water security. A territory that complies and is at the forefront - through involvement through participatory processes - of actions to stop the climate crisis, from the local level with a mind set on the global.
For all these reasons, the Cabildo of Gran Canaria continues to be as necessary as it was 111 years ago. Because it is the logic of territorial management that imposes the need to act jointly, the island society, its town councils, its associations, civil society... And for this, training is also fundamental, the educational model that must be based on knowledge, without forget the environment, the environment, the institutions in which not only the quality of life of the community is deposited at this moment, but also the thought of the future, that time to come in which, probably, some student from IES La Isleta or any of the CEIP and training centers, occupy a seat in the Plenary Hall of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria.
Antonio Morales Méndez
President of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria
