Puerto Rico coronavirus statistics for May 25

According to the Puerto Rico Health Department, 3,260 people have tested positive for COVID-19, an increase of 550 since last week. The death toll is currently 129, with five deaths reported in the past week. However, as of today, no deaths have been reported in 3 straight days. The precise number of total tests performed has not been released, although Health Secretary Lorenzo González Feliciano claimed on May 14 that it surpassed the 80,000 mark.

Puerto Ricans took advantage of the relaxed stay-at-home orders this week—which allowed them to visit areas like beaches or churches and participate in a limited number of activities. With thousands of people going to places like the beaches at Piñones, municipal officials including Loiza mayor Julia Nazario raised concerns. The economy is expected to be opened further this week, with restaurants allowed to resume dining-in operations (with a capacity limit of 25%) and allowing other retailers and other businesses to reopen. Shopping malls will be allowed to prepare to resume operations on June 8, against recommendations by the government’s coronavirus task force.

While the official number of positive cases, and the rate of increase, continue to grow, some medical authorities in Puerto Rico believe the Island has overcome its peak contagion period. Among them is Jorge Santana, an infectologist who has been advising the Puerto Rico Department of Health and the governor’s office.

FOMB opines on debt relief measures in Grijalva bill

The Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico expressed its opposition to the idea of cancelling Puerto Rico’s uninsured debt or defining what constitutes an essential government service. Both concepts are contained in a bill introduced last Friday by Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), which would amend PROMESA. “The Oversight Board believes that PROMESA is working,” said Natalie Jaresko, the FOMB’s executive director. While she expressed support for provisions to prevent conflicts of interests—including one mandating the creation of an ethics board, and another that forbids former members of the Puerto Rican government from becoming members of the FOMB—she also declared that the Board “has great reservations in regards to other parts of the bill.”

“As the Oversight Board has previously declared, if several of the amended provisions are approved, it would undermine the Oversight Board’s efforts to reach an expedited and just resolution to the claims against the Puerto Rican government and certain agencies,” she added, and argued that “the provision allowing Puerto Rico to cancel part of its unguaranteed debt will surely make it harder and unaffordable for the Oversight Board to be able to restructure Puerto Rican’s debt,” in addition to complicating future access to capital markets.

Grijalva’s bill, H.R. 6975, would also create a process for auditing Puerto Rico’s debt, and would assign the University of Puerto Rico $800 million per year.

FOMB announces no municipal funds cuts for next fiscal year

Citing the extraordinary circumstances created by January’s earthquakes and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Financial Oversight and Management Board announced that it would not cut the matching funds provided by the Island government to the municipalities, as previously forecast. While the 2019 Fiscal Plan had previously indicated cuts by one-third—from $132 million to $88 million—the fund will now remain at its previous level for the next year.

“The Oversight Board knows perfectly well the effects the recent earthquakes and COVID-19 have had on municipalities,” stated FOMB chairman José Carrión III. “Delaying the cuts in subsidies will guarantee that municipalities will be able to serve their constituents despite the very heavy burden imposed by this pandemic,” reads the Board’s press release, which it distributed via Twitter.

Governor Wanda Vázquez argues against FOMB before the Supreme Court

Lawyers representing the Puerto Rican government appeared before the Supreme Court last week, arguing that the FOMB had exceeded its authority in seeking to prevent the government from making changes to budget assignments without the Board’s authorization. Governor Wanda Vázquez, her attorneys, and those of the Puerto Rico Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority (AAFAF) requested that the court overturn an opinion reached by the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that the Island’s government was not authorized to make such alterations. 

Government attorneys asserted that PROMESA altered, but did not seek to “eliminate the structure of Puerto Rico’s actual government.” Although they did not argue against the existence of the Board, they did argue that, in forbidding the Puerto Rican government from reassigning budgeted funds, the law overturned “decades of democracy in Puerto Rico.” Their arguments were specifically focused on Section 205 of PROMESA, which allows the FOMB to present public policy “recommendations,” but does not order that these be implemented. Lower courts, however, have found that this part of the law did not abridge the FOMB’s authority to have final say over budgetary matters.