On the anniversary of the dana, the mud is still there

If this anniversary reveals anything, it is that we continue to live on top of it, pretending not to step on it. A year later, it is still the mirror that reflects a power that fled from the mud and in which it has never looked again. Lest that mirror swallow him.

365 days after October 29, which many Valencians already call their Day of the Dead, The mud is still there. On the sides of the roads, in the office drawers, in the businesses that could not reopen, in the school barracks, in the unfulfilled promises.

But also in the eyes of those who do not forget.

Volunteers emerged from the mud, but not political power.

A year later, while Valencians are still waiting for the promised aid, the Government of Spain has had the grace to hire an advertising campaign to tell what the desperate victims were doing… and a select handful of Valencian socialist officials who claim that they were at work.

“I know where I was. And where were you?” is the title.

No, President Sánchez does not appear in the videos.

They have also included in this campaign the launch of a geolocation map called “Infodana Recovery” to see how 7,000 million in aid (which the Government calls investment) have been distributed. Half comes from the Insurance Compensation Fund.

What it doesn’t show is that not even half of what was announced has been fulfilled.

Neither the housing plan nor the promised compensation. The reconstruction of the damaged schools remains stalled, and the businesses in Paiporta or Alcàsser—those that were covered for just a few weeks—are sustained thanks to the neighbors, not the institutions.

But the government led by Pedro Sanchez has decided to write another version. In his story, the dana was a test passed with flying colors. In his official video, between images of clouds and smiles, our President of the Government has shamelessly proclaimed that “Spain rose up united.”

No mention of bureaucratic chaos, helplessness or aid frozen for months. No recognition of the volunteers who worked hard with a shovel and a broom when the State evaporated.

The obscene political bubble has already more than demonstrated that it is incapable of understanding and working for the real Spain. The one who didn’t wait for orders or permissions for days. The kids who cleaned basements with their hands, the civil guards, EMU soldiers and exhausted firefighters, the neighbors who slept in sports centers, the muddy municipal officials…

President Sánchez himself demonstrates daily that he is capable of erasing reality while he pronounces it.

This Sunday, in León, he once again exhibited his ability to deny the obvious: he spoke of “a Government that leaves no one behind” while Valencia remains half-way up. And he blamed his blatant non-appearance, the flagrant omission of relief from the government of Spain, on Alberto Núñez Feijóo already Santiago Abascal.

With a pair.

If the dana has uncovered anything, it is political uselessness taken to its maximum expression. Carlos Mazón, president of the Generalitat, is the embodiment of emptiness, incompetence and avoidance of responsibilities.

It is true that it is impossible to prove whether specific decisions would have prevented or lessened the tragedy. But what we all know is that the highest executive authority of the region was not there.

Mazón, the absent one. The man who continued with his unexplained social agenda while the water took everything away. The ineffectiveness of the designated controls, the silence and the lost hours. The alerts that did not sound, the controls that did not appear, the protocols that failed, the chain of excuses and lies… remain unanswered.

That four-hour meal at El Ventorro, for God’s sake.

Carlos Mazón, the baron who removed Feijóo from that presidential chair that he almost touched with his fingers when, the day after winning the regional elections, he signed his shabby pact with Vox, remains sheltered in his own Ventorro.

While the PP maintains this aberration, the Valencian Community continues to be orphaned by a moral voice that defends it without calculation.

In any case, Pedro Sánchez and Carlos Mazón are more alike than either would be willing to admit.: they live on propaganda, they have betrayed the dignity of their position, they cling to power beyond any imaginable limit, they have made simulation their job and they lie openly.

No one steps in the mud.

The state funeral, which the king will preside over Philip VIas appropriate, will be a solemn act, but not restorative. The victims’ associations have already shown their discomfort in the presence of Mazón and the President of the Government. They have no shortage of reasons.

The mud is memory, but it is also judgment.

May the dana anniversary truly be a turning point. May we remember not to relive the pain, but to transform the system. And that the next time tragedy strikes, those who have the obligation and mandate to do so do the right thing.