When remembering Pedrógão, after three years, we should talk about people and the country.
People first. Those who died in such dramatic circumstances, in the face of an unacceptable failure of the State. Your relatives. The friends. Above all, communities. Never again will those communities forget what happened, but neither can the country. There is much to do to honor the memory of those who have left, repair the damage and loss of those who have survived and protect everyone from something similar to what happened on that tragic day.
Remembering that we are talking about people, we are asked to evaluate what we were and are being as a country. It is indisputable that the country failed those people at that time. But have we since then done everything we should have done? Honestly, I don’t believe it. The State and its representatives fell far short of what was required. Just as an example, I propose an analysis of five points: territorial cohesion; Territorial Planning; responsiveness in civil protection; Justice and Truth.
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*João Almeida, Deputy of the CDS-PP to the Assembly of the Portuguese Republic
