No sooner had the airplane door opened than a gentle fragrance of blooming incense trees penetrated the deepest recesses of our being, just as Raúl Brandão observed a century ago: “the land of Pico has a scent.”
The “Mountain of my destiny” did not welcome the arrival of its visitors as it so magnificently does on the crystal-clear mornings of the Triangle Islands. Instead, it reserved for the days that followed the fullness of its splendor and its multicolored beauty, revealed as the sun sets in the west.
This island is a marvel, draped in a verdant mantle of beech trees, incense trees, cryptomerias, cedars, whitewood, and vast expanses of pastureland and cornfields, all bordered by walls of irregular basalt stones that crumble whenever the earth trembles.
Beneath our feet, along the island’s roads, there are unmistakable signs that the ground we tread is anything but lifeless.
Lifeless, rather, are those who live day after day with the changes wrought by the geological phenomena so common on volcanic islands, yet allow endless stretches of time to pass without repairing the damage that jeopardizes the safety and protection of the people.
Today, Pico faces calamitous situations that no person of sound judgment would dare dismiss, for they directly affect the mobility of the island’s southern communities, their lives, and their livelihoods.
For years, in these very pages, I have warned successive governments about the growing landslides occurring along the regional road overlooking the village of Santa Cruz das Ribeiras.
In recent years, several collapses of increasing magnitude have taken place.
On Holy Spirit Sunday in 2019, enormous boulders broke loose from the cliff on the inland side. Fortunately, no one was struck. Once removed from the roadway, they were placed on the shoulder overlooking the sea and were quickly swallowed by vegetation, where they remain ad aeternum.
The situation, however, continues to worsen, and new, even more dangerous landslides keep occurring in plain sight of everyone.
No one who understands the danger can drive that stretch of road without uttering a prayer under their breath, all the while criticizing those who allow these imminent hazards to persist along the cliffs without taking any action.
If there were an alternative route… but there is not. The only option is to drive all the way around the island to reach the government offices in Lajes, the schools, the Health Center, commercial establishments, and places of work.
If this is not considered relevant by those who govern, then the conversation is over. In that case, neither Autonomy nor the institutions of self-government serve any purpose.
Those from my generation in Pico still remember the days when the Civil Governor of Horta would travel to Lisbon seeking state funding for small public works—opening rural roads, repairing storm damage, building schools, and similar projects. Upon returning to the district capital, the governor would proudly announce in the newspapers the modest yet meaningful “victories” achieved during his visit to the Ministry of Public Works. As a gesture of gratitude, he would often invite the minister to visit the district.
Even during those voyages to the Adjacent Islands aboard the Carvalho Araújo and the Lima, not even the patriotic speeches proclaiming national unity at formal banquets ever promised development projects for the Portuguese citizens of the Azores.
The centralism of Terreiro do Paço was so insensitive that it failed to realize the nation was bleeding away its young people to North America, as entire families departed with letters of sponsorship, fleeing hunger and the Colonial War.
Mutatis mutandis, in these celebratory times marking the founding of Regional Autonomy, there remain many similarities with “the days of the old regime.”
This week, during an official initiative entitled Conversations on Autonomy, much was said about the progress achieved over the past fifty years.
One of the participants, former legislator Manuel G. Serpa, spoke of the difficulties encountered in persuading the regional government to undertake projects fundamental to Pico’s development, such as establishing secondary education and other essential services. In his view, “Pico emancipated itself through the iron will of its own people,” and therefore, “true Autonomy, if it is to be complete, must respect the potential of every island.” It is a criticism that many of this island’s residents would readily endorse.
What purpose is served by discussing the creation of a Faial-Pico Hospital Center, as physician Paula Casals has advocated, echoing a long-standing request from healthcare professionals and the general population, if the regional authorities—who promised two years ago to study the matter—have already rejected the proposal without presenting any plausible justification?
Meanwhile, the long-suffering people of Pico continue making daily crossings for specialist consultations and hospitalizations at the Hospital in Horta, enduring all the inconvenience and hardship that such journeys inevitably entail.
It is self-evident that the Health Center in Madalena could be equipped with additional medical services that would spare Pico’s residents—whose population is comparable to Faial’s—from having to cross the channel for a simple diagnostic test or a minor surgical procedure. Why should physicians from Horta Hospital not travel to Pico to perform these medical services? Are we somehow different from the Azoreans who live on the capital islands? Or is Autonomy merely a system of democratic centralism in disguise?
What is the purpose of Autonomy and regional political power if the people of Pico, living in many of its parishes and even in two of its towns, are routinely unable to access their savings through ATM machines or conduct their business at local bank branches?
Is it not the responsibility of the Regional Government to require financial institutions to provide accessible banking services for Azoreans living in rural and genuinely ultra-peripheral regions? Or is this an issue deemed beyond the powers of the regional authorities, who prefer to avoid confronting the dictates and interests of the major banking institutions?
Only under autocratic and dictatorial regimes does the supremacy of capital and profit outweigh the rights of citizens and the common good.
Even in this matter, thousands of Pico residents are harmed while democratic institutions remain silent—through incompetence, indifference, ignorance… or perhaps a combination of them all.
Yet through all of this, Pico Island continues to endure because of the courage and perseverance of its entrepreneurs and its people.
May the day never come when those who have borne the burden of these obstacles to development simply give up and abandon the growing and determined movement of those who seek to transform this island into a place where it is truly possible to live with dignity.
May those who bear the greatest responsibility change their attitude—and may they do so soon.
Pico Island deserves far more, because it has far more to offer…
José Gabriel Ávila
Journalist, c.p. 239 A
Article in Portuguese…https://escritemdia.blogspot.com/?view=classic
José Gabreil Ávila is a retired journalist with many years of experience at RTP-Açores-the regional public television service. He now maintains a very active blog and writes for several Azorean newspapers.
NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from various leading thinkers and writers in the Azores, giving the diaspora and those interested in the current state of the Azores a sense of the significant opinions 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).