Yesterday?s investigative article in the morning daily, El Siglo, provoked an unemotional, but biting, rebuttal from Education Minister Milagros Ortiz Bosch. In a two-page memorandum distributed yesterday afternoon, the minister declared that ?the school breakfast program is one of the largest commercial operations in the country. It?s a game with a price tag of almost a billion pesos in which some players are winners and some losers.? For this reason, she argued, ?certain accusations appearing in the press have more to do with special interests than with a concern over the citizenry or the health of students.? The memorandum goes on to say that big changes are underway in the school breakfast program, which are not to the liking of those who are used ?to serving themselves with a big spoon by controlling tens of thousands of school rations.? They want ?to use any incident involving a single serving of milk to defame an entire system costing the country so much money.? Ortiz Bosch, who also serves as Vice President of the Republic, affirmed that ?we know that we are crossing a political abyss when we place the control of these operations, which the prior administration believed that it alone was able to control, in the hands of parent groups.? She added that the quality control system that is being developed for the school breakfast program has four elements. These are; (1) direct supervision by regional and district administrators, (2) third party periodic quality evaluation at distribution points, (3) an audit four times annually to be certain that rations being delivered are commensurate with each school?s needs, and (4) creation of an interactive system for complaints and suggestions. Nevertheless, the Editor-in-Chief of El Siglo wasted no time in answering the ?twisted and distorted.? allegations of Ortiz Bosch. Osvaldo Santana declared last night that the Minister?s comments were ?a typical reaction of intolerance by the new powers installed in the DR? looking for ?an unacceptable complacency? by the press. Santana declared that ?professionals who cannot be manipulated by spurious interests are running,? El Siglo, and that ?we are getting dangerously close to a period in which some who hold power feel possessed of absolute truth, so that anyone who questions them is regarded as bought and paid for by the worst elements.? He added, ?a totalitarian empire can?t be far away.?
