Fed-up Puerto Ricans march demanding governor resign

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Thousands of people marched to the governor’s residence in San Juan on Wednesday, carrying Puerto Rican flags and chanting demands for Gov. Ricardo Rossello to resign.

The crowd ranged from teenagers to retirees, with some waving the island’s flag printed in black and gray rather than red, white and blue– to symbolize their discontent with a government they say is rife with corruption and scrimping on necessary public services.

Police erected concrete barricades and shop owners covered store windows with metal sheeting or plywood as if a hurricane were coming. The multi-colored umbrellas that form a photogenic awning over the street in front of the governor’s mansion were taken down.

The turnout fell far short of the 100,000 that some Rossello opponents had hoped for in internet posts. Many older protesters went home before nightfall as chanting young people filled Old San Juan’s Totem Plaza and the first few blocks leading up to the 16th century fortress where the governor resides.

Karla Villalon has three elementary-age children and an 81-year-old grandmother. Her kids have been uprooted twice in two years when first one school, then another, was closed by budget cuts under Rossello. Her grandmother, a retired teacher, is anguished over the possibility of losing her pension in future rounds of cutbacks.

Villalon was outraged when Rossello’s former education secretary was arrested and accused of steering millions in improper contracts to politically connected contractors. Then hundreds of pages of online chats between Rossello and members of his administration leaked, revealing the men mocking women, the handicapped and victims of Hurricane Maria.

Villalon has had enough.

“It’s the final straw,” the homemaker said before the. “My kids’ classrooms have mold in them. … There’s just so much outrage that’s been building over time.”

That feeling rippled across Puerto Rico, where many are angry over what they see as neglect by Washington and the U.S. territory’s own government.

The island is mired in crises. It is struggling to emerge from a debt-driven financial failure and a more than decade-long recession. It needs federal funding to help recover from Hurricane Maria, the 2017 storm that devastated the island’s electrical system and a months-long failure to provide care to the elderly and medically vulnerable.

The outrage erupted after Rossello’s former secretary of education and five other people were arrested on charges of steering federal money to unqualified, politically connected contractors.

Freelance music producer Ise Sonja, 28, said he took to the streets Wednesday because he is fed up with corruption and government ineptitude. “(Hurricane) Maria woke the people up – it outraged us as a people.”

Since the storm, hundreds of schools have been closed to save money and a wide range of social services and pensions are being cut back, or are under threat.

Prominent Puerto Ricans on the U.S. mainland raised their voices in the call for Rossello to resign.

Actor Lin-Manuel Miranda led about 200 mostly ethnic Puerto Ricans at a rally in New York’s Union Square on Wednesday. The group waved Puerto Rican flags amid drumbeats, chanting in Spanish: “Long live free Puerto Rico.”

“Puerto Ricans are so numb to politics in America and we get lies from the Trump administration,” said Miranda. But the alleged corruption surrounding the governor of the U.S. territory “is the last straw and Puerto Ricans are standing up against it.”

Singer Ricky Martin said in a video message posted online: “Puerto Rico has suffered so much and we can’t deal with the cynicism of these leaders anymore. Enough already. Enough already.”

Martin said he was flying to Puerto Rico to march along with other Latin music stars from the island, including singer-producer Benito A. Martinez Ocasio, known as Bad Bunny, and rapper Rene Perez, known as Residente, who released a song online Wednesday calling people to the streets.

“This is coming out early so you can eat it for breakfast,” Residente raps on the song, “Sharpening the knives.” “Fury is the only political party that unites us.”

In comments to The Associated Press shortly before the protest was to start, he said, “The anger is so great that for the first time I’m seeing Puerto Rico rise up and take to the streets.”

In Boston, Red Sox manager Alex Cora, who is from Puerto Rico, told reporters that he hopes Rossello resigns within the next hours or days.

“I know it’s hard to do – but at the same time, as a whole, we’re very upset and very mad at everything that is going on,” Cora said. “I’m with my people back home.”