No trust in supermarkets
The galloping rise in prices in super and hypermarkets would already be punishment enough for Portuguese families, but it seems that it is not enough for some traders; faulty scales, pre-packaged products weighing less than labeled or without weight and prices above the volume indexed to the price/kilo are three more little serious expedients that came to break the thin thread of trust that consumers thought super and hypermarkets guaranteed them.
ASAE, when going out to inspect, only seems to have caught a tip of the Iceberg of a dishonest business that is spreading with coffee in linen cloth. The three-quarters of families with financial difficulties that were publicized yesterday in statistics still had more of these contortionists of the art of commercialization in full saddle waiting for them… Going shopping will become yet another exercise in mistrust and fear that will retract buyers and make us lose respect for some boys It is girlssuccessful sayings, which have been sold to us as references of civility and nobility of soul… What else will happen to us?
Maria Morais Mendes, Canidelo
Attack of the Speculative Onions
I wanted to make it clear that I always read the chronicles of João Miguel Tavares (JMT) with great pleasure and usually I completely agree with him. But not in Tuesday’s above-mentioned chronicle. JMT made me laugh, but it’s not right. As a liberal, JMT fears there will be a temptation to impose price lists or something like that, but that won’t happen. Now, it’s not the onions that are speculative, but the “Big Grocers” (and the little ones follow). And the State exists and has to act through the ASAE, which not only serves to apprehend rotten meat and counterfeit clothing — it also has the responsibility of controlling the proper functioning of economic activity. Personally, I just hope that ASAE’s action doesn’t come up against the traditional “lack of means”, not least because 51 records is not enough, there should have been at least 5100. I hope that the film will be released in a supermarket near me soon ASAE strikes back and may the Force be with them (with ASAE, not the “Big Grocers”).
Fernando Vieira, Lisbon
A long breath in Justice? Or just a sigh?
The article by Manuel Soares Is justice irreformable? in yesterday’s PÚBLICO, addresses some of the measures proposed for the reform of justice, so necessary for decades, referring to the suggestion of the President of the Republic at the opening of the judicial year. But if that reform is going to focus once again on how to apply justice and not on its essential content, we are once again wasting time and energy.
What is indeed crucial is reforming procedural codes — civil, criminal, administrative, etc. — hermetic, confusing, obsolete in many cases, modified successively with decree-laws à la carte, subject to different interpretations and endless resources. What is needed is the courage to assume that our laws do not work. Don’t we have the capacity? Are we not interested? How to make?
Why not study which countries citizens see themselves in the laws that govern them, where justice works best and have the courage to adapt these laws to our case? This is what will be, in fact, “a long breath”, necessary and of true reform. Otherwise, what we are going to have is one more sigh… but one of discouragement!
Isabel Ribeiro, Lisbon
Pass between the raindrops
Very interesting is the infographic, released by PÚBLICO, of the dioceses that have already taken preventive measures in terms of sexual abuse committed by their collaborators, priests or others. It draws attention to the fact that three dioceses have done nothing, concretely, to date: Beja, whose bishop, D. João Marcos, “forgot” to receive the independent commission, later wanted a pardon for the clear abuser and soon after came to say what was said for not said, making a sad figure; Setúbal, a formerly progressive diocese that has become a haven for ultraconservatives and has been without a bishop for too long; and Vila Real, whose bishop D. António Azevedo is, who seems not to know very well what to do with a diocese known for the sexual scandals of its clergy, but has already promised to react more energetically…
It is a case to say that a picture is worth a thousand words, in this case revealing those who want to pass between the raindrops.
Mariana Guerreiro Palma, Beja