1 – In a few days, the Portuguese Parliament will begin discussing the budget for 2026. Meanwhile, trade unions have already started taking to the streets, staging strikes and demanding better wages, while the government expects pensions to rise 0.5 points above inflation next year. The lowest pensions will rise 0.5 points above inflation, an estimate that was put forward on Friday by the Minister of Labor, who anticipates, in her calculations, “some recovery in purchasing power for 90% of pensioners” who earn up to €1,045, estimating that around 2 million beneficiaries will be covered.

2 – The proposal will have benefits, but it is very little for those who have to pay rent, electricity, water, medicines, and ensure the purchase of products for their livelihood. A balance must be found between the 0.5 points above inflation that will be allocated to the 2 million pensioners earning up to €1,045, and knowing how those pensioners who receive a pension between €500 and €1,045 will fare.

3 – After this “news” from the Government of the Republic, we need to reflect on the health of society in general, because if it continues on the path it is on, it will not be long before it collapses, as happened in some parishes during the early hours of the 25th, but with a focus on Arrifes and Água de Pau, where five houses were damaged in this village. Six vehicles ended up in the river, and another 15 cars parked on the road were also damaged; the extent of the damage will be calculated later. These are events that cannot be prevented, because the rain is very strong, although it does not always wash away what needs to be washed away.

4 – But, returning to the social problem we struggle with daily and the impact it has had on various social aspects, starting with domestic violence, which has affected entire families and led to other consequences between parents and children, husbands and wives, including suicide, which has not yet been prevented in families.

5 – An inhumane society is emerging, based on social media, technology, and what they convey to people. Important values have been lost among couples, and what remains now is what is gathered from social media, notably bullying, which is on the rise among young people in schools. Then there are the images portrayed on social media, sometimes inviting conflict between parents and young people, which then extends to the family and behavioral level in children, since “a couple in conflict is spending energy on that very conflict, and that is not a response to the child’s needs.”

6 – Children and even young people of school age, from primary school to the end of secondary school, need attention, encouragement, and secure family protection to prevent these young people from seeing their parents or family as a hindrance to their growth, when that growth should take place in a safe environment with principles that do not alienate young people from family life, preventing them from becoming attached to their cell phones, which has led to behaviors between parents and minor children and even to suicide, which has been in the news.

7 – We need to change a society that is drying up. This change is urgent because everything is now focused on the “wars” that kill every day, forgetting people and generating major social changes, which are based on the rules offered by a world that is looking for new hope. However, it remains stuck in the immediacy provided by technology rather than in humanism, which is subject to what is shared on social networks and digital platforms.

Américo Natalino Viveiros, Director of the newspaper Correio dos Açores.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from leading thinkers and writers in the Azores, providing the diaspora and those interested in the current state of the Azores with a sense of the significant perspectives on some of the archipelago’s issues.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL).