To all of you, to the workers and people of the city and municipality of Montemor-o-Novo and, in particular, to the retired, pensioners and elderly people to whom we dedicate our Public Session, our most cordial greetings.
At a time when the Portuguese are going to be called upon to choose the future President of the Republic, and we are only a few days away from the elections that are already on January 24, if it is imperative to bring to the debate the importance of these elections and what they can mean for the opening of a horizon of hope for Portugal with the candidacy of João Ferreira, they are also an opportunity to show its importance for the solution of the many problems that affect significant sectors of Portuguese society, as is the case of the retired, pensioners and elderly.
We are just a few days from the electoral act whose result will have a very significant influence on the evolution of the country's situation, since it implies the options and guidelines of the sovereignty body President of the Republic.
We have said that the powers that the President of the Republic has, if used in the right direction, would enable, through his influence, to ensure policies to serve the people and the country. As we have said that his action, if determined and courageous, would prevent or delay measures harmful to popular interests, which has not happened, not now with Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, nor before with other players.
Therefore, this is the time when it becomes imperative to summon all our energies, all our capacities and all our readiness and determination to expand the chain of warmth and support for João Ferreira's candidacy and the struggle it carries for the affirmation and implementation of a project of democracy, development, social justice and national sovereignty that the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic enshrines.
We need to give all we can and with all our determination to achieve our great goal: ensure a big vote on João Ferreira's candidacy.
We have said that this is a unique candidacy, a singular candidacy, a candidacy distinctive from all the others and the election campaign is confirming it.
It is a different candidacy that is not to be confused with any of the other candidacies, however left-wing they claim to be, or the social concerns they proclaim, because it is distinctive from any of them.
A candidacy whose singularity is not just expressed in words, but in a permanent intervention and combat action in defence of the cause of the workers and people.
No candidacy, no other candidate perceives, as João Ferreira's candidacy, the struggle of those who fight for a real alternative for the country.
The only candidacy that the Portuguese can find on the side of the workers, pensioners, youth, micro, small and medium-size entrepreneurs, farmers, without artifice or duplicity.
A candidacy that will give expression to the aspirations of our people. That will defend sovereignty and national interests. That will assume the denunciation of injustice, exploitation, corruption, and the class options that are at their root and the favouring of large economic and financial groups. That will denounce the different dimensions of the attack on the democratic regime promoted by the most reactionary sectors of Portuguese society, at the service of monopoly groups. That will act with courage and confidence to overcome fear and resignation.
A candidacy that has only one commitment to the people and the only pact that it accepts and defends is that with the Constitution of the Republic and the path that it advocates - the construction in Portugal of a democracy that is simultaneously political, economic, social and cultural.
Therefore, here we are engaged in this important battle to place as President of the Republic, someone who assumes the values that the Constitution holds, who incorporates its project, who wants to resume the paths of April that are inscribed in it.
First and foremost to promote and ensure the way to build a fairer and more solidarity Portugal.
Yes, this is the candidacy that fights against all discriminations and inequalities and that does not accept the harsh reality of poverty that involves around two million Portuguese people and that affects a large number of our elderly, retired and pensioners.
The times we live in require both an unrelenting fight against the epidemic outbreak and the need to do everything to stop it, with measures in the field of public health, as well as to prevent the increase of personal and social consequences among the retired, pensioners and elderly as a result of the growth of a climate of fear, insecurity and uncertainty that along these months has led to the minimization of their daily lives, locked down in their homes, deprived of contact and socializing with their family and friends.
Being fundamental in the fight against the virus, that each and every one of us take appropriate preventive measures, such as wearing a mask, hand hygiene, social distancing, it is also imperative to stop and combat the damaging personal and social consequences that this situation is generating with the exponential increase of isolation and loneliness and that has profound and, in some cases, irreversible implications for the physical and psychological health of many elderly people.
The truth is that the concern for the special vulnerability of this social group to the virus and who are, in general, pensioners and retired, cannot continue to encourage the idea that the miraculous solution is to close themselves in their homes, making more invisible and silent the deep inequalities and situations of poverty, which instead of disappearing, tend to worsen.
A special word for the situation of care homes, first of all to express solidarity with their workers, the vast majority of whom are women, who have ensured in very difficult conditions their functioning and the care of the elderly who live in them. For them it has been months that seem like years, where they are deprived of going out and being with their families.
Also, appreciate the effort that has been made in many of these facilities in the adoption of exceptional measures, in a gigantic effort to ensure the necessary measures to prevent the outbreak and to guarantee the quality of the services provided.
We know that we are facing a dangerous virus against which no institution, however organised, is immune. But over the months, there have been serious situations in many care homes, all over the country, which lay bare the weaknesses and shortcomings of many of them. Situations that, prior to the current context of the epidemic, triggered a dangerous “fuse” and demand urgent responses.
The very serious situations that are experienced in many care homes, all over the country, show weaknesses, clearly evident in the worsening of the number of infections, between workers and the elderly, but they also reveal situations of shortages in the provision of fundamental care to the elderly, namely due to lack of staff.
It is essential that the measures taken during these months are evaluated and readjusted, adopting emergency responses, both of reinforcing workers to cover the shortages of human resources to ensure compliance with the contingency plans, to ensure the quality of daily care of the elderly, defend their health regarding different illnesses, but also in carrying out activities that ensure their motor and psychological stimulation to mitigate the consequences of isolation.
Let me salute the role of the associative movement of the retired, pensioners and elderly, namely MURPI and its associations, which in these difficult months have done everything to carry and disseminate information and contribute to the adoption of informed and responsible attitudes in the field of health prevention. A role that they carried out while giving voice to their problems in the most various fields, demanding solutions and instilling confidence in the fair struggle of the retired, pensioners and elderly and their organisations, namely to valorise their pensions, to take measures in relation to the care homes and residential structures of the elderly, to support the pensioners' associations whose day care and social centres have been suspended and to extend home support to the elderly, among other important rights and, particularly, in this acute phase, to immediately strengthen the National Health Service.
On this matter, we have made many proposals, some of which were considered in the State Budget for the year 2021, which should urgently be implemented. But what I wanted to emphasise at this point is that it is necessary to find more effective and expeditious responses to guarantee and speed up the vaccination of the population, in particular the vaccination of all the elderly.
The situation we have in Portugal is not satisfactory. The vaccine is an important means of fighting the virus and saving lives and cannot be subject to a policy of rationing that serves the interests of the laboratories of the two American multinational companies that want to have a monopoly on the sale of vaccines in the European Union. Nor to their objective limitations and difficulties of production and timely delivery. The solution that is seen and accepted by Portugal of the joint purchase of vaccines, and that some soon broke, as is the case of Germany, buying millions of vaccines on its own, does not allow the mass vaccination of the populations. People's lives cannot wait. These multinationals are resisting subcontracting other laboratories and sharing patents, despite all the aid and the massive public financial means, and which are in millions that were made available for research and production of the vaccine and its guaranteed distribution. There are other vaccines in other countries around the world. There is no justification for the Portuguese government to be conditioned to purchase vaccines outside the framework of companies already approved by the European Union and limited to its restricted contingents. Portugal cannot accept that the selfish interests of these great pharmaceutical barons prevail over the population's right to health and life. Action must be taken to put pressure on large laboratories and also to find solutions to diversify the acquisition of vaccines. And this is a priority!
But if solutions are needed to fight the virus and defend the health of the elderly, it is also necessary to guarantee decent living conditions for all the retired and pensioners.
Our fight to improve retirements and pensions in the past four, five years is well known. And for the present year, we have done everything to ensure that in 2021 all retirees and pensioners have an increase of 10 euros in the amount of their pensions. All without exception, because a lifetime of work and social security payments must correspond to a decent pension, with the guarantee of being updated in January of each year.
However, the structure for calculating the yearly update of pensions adopted by a PS government in 2006 does not allow this objective to be achieved. In 2021 there would be no increase in pensions if the PCP had not proposed an extra increase of 10 euros for all pensions starting in January.
The PS, PSD and CDS made this proposal unviable. But our insistence and determination made it possible to achieve an extra increase of 10 euros for pensions up to 658 euros that will be processed in February with back-payment to January.
A proposal that will cover around one million and eight hundred thousand retirees and pensioners and that translates into an additional 24 euros or 40 euros in the amount of their pensions between 2017 and 2020. To that is added the value of 10 euros in 2021.
I know that many of you present here and with pensions of just over 300 euros will say that such increases do not take away the difficulties you face every day.
But what has been achieved with extra increases is a concrete example of our determination and the struggle of the pensioners to break the posture of the right-wing political parties that make the annual increase in pensions depend on the performance of the economy, without respecting the right to a decent pension, for those who worked for a lifetime, with low wages to serve capital, and who, after retiring, intend to keep them in the same situation with low pensions and depending on welfare and charitable initiatives.
At the same time that we fight for the valorisation of the pensions of the current retirees, we have advanced with proposals, either in the Budgets, or in several legislative initiatives of measures to improve their living conditions and to fight poverty among the elderly, better healthcare and decent living conditions, which have been rendered unviable by the PS, in many cases in convergence with the PSD and CDS.
Examples of this are the proposals for the creation of two new minimum pension brackets for those who have 36 and 40 years of social security payments with the increase in their amounts. The proposal to eliminate taking into consideration their children's income for the attribution of the Solidarity Supplement for the Elderly and its payment during 14 months, as well as the elimination of penalties on early pensions for those who have already retired.
Many others are yet to be considered, but they continue to be a requirement of these times of great difficulties for the elderly. These are proposals that require the abolition of user fees, free medication for chronically ill patients and the creation of new teams for Integrated Care, as well as proposals aimed at the immediate creation of twenty thousand new vacancies in the Public Network of Care Homes, because the waiting lists continue to exist, in a context in which illegal facilities and profitable business in this area continue to flourish. There is a lot to be done!
This vast set of proposals embodies fair demands of the retired, pensioners and elderly and for which we will all continue to fight. It is also a struggle for a project and an alternative policy as upheld by João Ferreira's candidacy.
Portugal can and must win, but with a different policy, a policy to serve the people and the country.
Portugal can and must win by supporting João Ferreira's candidacy. The candidacy of all those who are committed to the fair distribution of wealth, the defence of public services and the social functions of the State and the fight against all discrimination.
The candidacy of those who do not accept a Portugal of social inequalities and injustices.
There are those who want to decide on behalf of the people and have already declared a winner!
But there are no early winners and it is in the end that ballots are counted and the results are confirmed!
That is why we have to fight to the end, explaining the importance of João Ferreira's candidacy to give strength to the fight for the real change that the country needs.
We have a lot of work ahead of us. Much remains to be done in mobilising the vote, so that no one remains absent, so that no vote is lost.
In this battle that we are fighting, the retired, pensioners and elderly can make an important contribution as full-bodied citizens in explaining and mobilising to vote on João Ferreira's candidacy, with their life experience, knowledge and determination and willingness not to give up contributing and participating in building a fairer society in Portugal.
Exercising the right to vote, voting for João Ferreira is also proof of life for millions of retired people and pensioners, proof that they have not lost hope in a better life for themselves and their loved ones.
Until the last day it is time to go to the Portuguese. To tell them that the solution is not abstention, that this is not the time to be silent or give up.
That the vote on João Ferreira's candidacy is the vote that, like no other, expresses the demand for change for a better life.
The vote for a candidate who has been in recent years and continues to be, in all decisive battles for the defence of the vital interests of our people.
And this is a strong reason to support and vote for João Ferreira, because the vote on his candidacy will never be a vote neither lost nor betrayed!
The vote for a candidate who will continue here whatever the circumstances, fighting alongside those who aspire to a break with the policies that have been followed and made Portugal an unfair and unequal country.
Yes, they are votes that are not lost under any circumstances, but that will always translate into levers for the development of the future struggle.
Hence this is the candidacy that counts for all the battles of the present and the future. And this is its great usefulness and an additional reason to support João Ferreira's candidacy!
But another good and strong reason that needs to be stressed is that this is also the opportunity through a vote on João Ferreira's candidacy, for each one to make his indignation, his claim heard, and give strength to those who give voice to their everyday problems.
Yes, this is the time to take the fight to the ballot!
The safest and most consistent vote to defeat anti-democratic projects and confrontation with the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic and to deepen democracy, which does not end with the act of voting, either on January 24, or in the elections that will follow.
The vote that will influence the course of national life towards development, progress and social justice.
The vote that, with courage and confidence, will open a horizon of hope in the life of this country!