The widely read column in Hoy newspaper, “Que se dice”, is particularly tough today. In the first paragraphs, the writer asks the reader not to be shocked, but the Police have just arrested four men that were stealing motorcycles -get this- from the National Police Palace parking lot! No further details are offered, or whether the crooks had inside help in their operation. Moreover, says the writer, the case just points how incredible it is for us to think that something like this could happen. It also shows how daring the crooks have become.
The second paragraph talks about reciprocity, and tells of how Sam Goodson, one of the indicted in the Plan Renove government vehicle purchase scandal has said that he will not be returning to the country to stand trial. Readers may remember how Goodson escaped the country as the judge was still reading his partial verdict to get to the bottom of the case. Judge Angelan Casasnovas has declared Goodson to be a fugitive from the law. Now, says the writer, is a good time to see whether there is really reciprocity with the United States, since Goodson is in the United States and the Dominican Republic has been sending a long list of delinquents to the US under the existing extradition treaties. The writer asks if the US will do the same in the case of Goodson, and all we can do is wait to see the miracle of reciprocity.
In the third part of the column, “Que se dice” asks if the familiar phrase “The law was made to be broken” is well known to all Dominicans. Of course it is, he answers. Many have heard it a thousand times from publico drivers that run red lights “because there is no one coming”, to the businessman that plays hid and seek with the Internal Revenue Department and, of course, from the lawyers, engineers, publicists, bankers, and he had to stop counting because it would take all day to complete the list. He says we live like wild horses in this failed tropical paradise, in spite of the laws that we have plenty of, just as we have plenty of hard handed men that have acted in the name of the law. We have been told – and in this even those that oppose the FTA are in agreement – that this propensity to disobey the law, that not even 30 years of Trujillo could do away with completely, is what will do the DR out of the DR-CAFTA agreement. This is because the DR-CAFTA will oblige the people of the Dominican Republic to behave as the people of our civilized partner do, where everything works according to a little book that was written and has everything in its place and time.