There’s more of us and we are not afraid

After spending all day yesterday waiting for the governor to resign, I went to sleep with no news of his resignation and thinking I would wake up to horrible news of disaster. Our protests these past two weeks since parts of the governor’s horrible chat with those close to him were first leaked on June 9, have been peaceful but I feared the worst if he didn’t leave.

We all spent the day glued to our phones and the TV waiting to hear the news. At first it was going to be at noon, then 4 pm, 5 and then they didn’t know when or if it would happen. Journalists who were waiting outside the governors mansion, waited there for hours not knowing what was taking so long or if he was even there.

There was comment after comment online about the governor’s absence, irresponsibility and lack of manners by keeping all of Puerto Rico waiting. A lot of people, including me, got tired of waiting for something that probably wasn’t even going to happen and went to sleep. I thought he chickened out or was having a tantrum and saying he wasn’t resigning. I knew everyone was going to be angry if he didn’t resign: journalists and politicians on TV were losing their patience and getting ready to begin working on his impeachment. I was mad because I spent all day waiting for that, I wanted to hear him say it when it happened.

This morning, when I woke up, I was dreading hearing about what happened last night after I went to sleep, until I heard those two wonderful words RICKY RENUNCIÓ (Ricky Resigned).

I was starting to believe he would never do it, that I would never hear those words, but it happened. I heard he resigned a couple of minutes before midnight. He couldn’t resign today, July 25, too many events have happened on this day in Puerto Rico’s history like the American troops invaded Puerto Rico through Guánica in 1898, our constitution was signed in 1952 and two young pro independence activists were killed in Cerro Maravilla, a mountain in Ponce in 1978. We can’t add that our first governor to resign, resigned on July 25; that’s too much.

He won’t go until August 2 and we don’t know what can happen from now until then, if he will name a Secretary of State who would be the next in line as governor or if our governor will be Secretary of Justice, Wanda Vazquez, who has faced a lot of controversy.

So, I don’t know what’s going to happen next but if these past two weeks have shown anything is that we are sick of getting stepped on and lied to by the government, we want a change, and politicians need to listen to us. We’re not stopping until we get all those who lie, still and use those positions for their own benefit out.

There was already a strike planned for today. It was smaller than the the one on Monday, but we still made noise, our voices were heard and had a lot of support.