Violence in Guerrero / Minister Aguilar

Violence in Guerrero. President López Obrador denied the existence of red flags regarding the surge in violence in the state of Guerrero, governed by the MORENA party member, Evelyn Salgado. He emphasized that the strategy to contain it is going very well. During the morning press conference held in Acapulco, Guerrero, López Obrador downplayed the increase in homicides this year in the region.

Moreover, he presented a graph that showed there have been 80 intentional homicides in 2023 so far, while there were 1,137 reported in the whole of 2022.

AMLO Goes Against Minister Aguilar. President López Obrador once again criticized Supreme Court Justice Luis María Aguilar Morales, who granted injunctions to the governments of Chihuahua and Coahuila against the distribution of free textbooks by the Ministry of Public Education (SEP).

López Obrador explained that they would wait for judge Aguilar to resolve the suspensions before delivering textbooks in those regions.

Recently, Mario Ángel Flores, former Dean, Universidad Pontificia de México, and current Director, National Observatory of the Episcopate, said that the SEP books are based on the ideology of "a radical group of Marxists."  As a result, several governors have called for a halt to the distribution of SEP books.  López Obrador said the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) agrees with the content of the new basic education books prepared by the SEP. He reiterated that the books were designed by pedagogues, teachers and education specialists.

The president also criticized Aguilar for not resolving the issue of tax payments by a national company, which owes over MX$25 billion (US$1.4 billion) to the public treasury.