Speaking of a great effort, of these months of intense work that have been taking place from the National Defense Council down to the Zone Defense Councils, the President of the National Defense Council, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, spoke on Friday morning by way of recognition during his visit to the "Arroyo Arenas" Defense Zone, located in the capital municipality of La Lisa.

The dignitary assessed that this stage, also marked by sacrifice, has "allowed confronting the enemy's maneuvers" and has "allowed addressing in a more direct way, with wartime structures functioning in peacetime, the severe problems that our entire people experience day by day."

In the exchange that took place in the context of the National Day of Defense, Díaz-Canel Bermúdez emphasized that "plans must continue to be refined, work perfected," and stressed the importance of continuing with "direct attention to problems related to food; medicines; water supply; the energy issue; solid waste collection; the fight against corruption; issues of illegality and crime; and above all the application of the Transformations."

Regarding the changes that must occur in the economic and social spheres, the head of state highlighted the importance of the Transformations, in their implementation and application, "providing a response to the population."

The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba stated: "We are going to hold our ground." Explaining that idea, he said: "We continue maintaining this work system: the structure of the Defense Zones, the municipal and provincial Defense Councils, and the National Defense Council activated full-time; and this is also providing us, in our view, with a group of experiences and important updates to the plans for high defense readiness, which have been adapted to the real conditions we are living."

Regarding the results these months of work are leaving, the President of the National Defense Council noted: "I believe that today you yourselves, as a Defense structure, are better prepared, based on the fact that this has been a training in real time and under real conditions; and that gives the country more invulnerability from the military point of view and from the defense point of view."

Díaz-Canel Bermúdez spoke of linking that strength with ideological invulnerability, and referred to the efforts being deployed, in the context of the Economic and Social Transformations, "to advance toward economic sovereignty."

The spheres of military defense, ideology, and the economy—the president reflected—"will be three elements that will lead us again to a situation of victory in the face of the empire's threats." The head of state asserted: "We remain in combat."

During his intervention, the president insisted that "the threat of aggression against Cuba" is latent and that "it is set out in all that aggressive discourse and elevated rhetoric on the part of the United States Government administration."

Because of that "escalation of sanctions," made "to increasingly besiege our economy," in an act "totally genocidal and totally criminal," the Cuban president spoke about the need to maintain high levels of defense readiness in the interest of the War of the Entire People, "of all the components of the territorial defense system; and that is concretized," he said, "above all in the Defense Zone."

The president's reflections took place after the President of the "Arroyo Arenas" Defense Zone, Rolando Vega Tabares, offered a detailed explanation about a scenario that has more than 15,600 inhabitants and where the activated structures work on tasks that seek to positively impact community life—such as attention to the most vulnerable, the development of health, culture, and food, citizen discipline, and the order and sanitation of each place.

It was a morning that also included the presence of Esteban Lazo Hernández, member of the Political Bureau and President of the National Assembly of People's Power and of the Council of State; the Organization Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Roberto Morales Ojeda; the Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), Army Corps General Álvaro López Miera; Army Corps General and Minister of the Interior Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas; and Major General and Secretary of the Council of Ministers José Amado Ricardo Guerra.

Also present were Major General Ernest Feijóo Eiró, chief of the Western Army; the Attorney General of the Republic, Yamila Peña Ojeda; as well as the president of the Havana Provincial Defense Council, Liván Izquierdo Alonso; among other authorities.

Daily in Havana, between 15,000 and 20,000 people are leaving the population group suffering from water deficit. This was stated on Wednesday afternoon during the meeting held at the headquarters of the Aguas de La Habana Enterprise, which was attended by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez.

The meeting followed up on the Water Supply Assurance Program for the "Nudo de Palatino" Central System—which supplies a large part of the central area of the city. The session also included Politburo member and Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), Army Corps General Álvaro López Miera; Vice Prime Minister Inés María Chapman Waugh; Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy; the president of the National Institute of Water Resources, Antonio Rodríguez Rodríguez; the first secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party in Havana, Liván Izquierdo Alonso; among other officials and experts.

At the Nudo de Palatino—built in 1890 as part of the Albear aqueduct and located in Cerro—it was learned that no municipality of the capital is in worse conditions than it was—regarding benefit from the precious liquid—since the Comprehensive Water Supply Assurance Program in Havana began.

When the head of state asked about the places that have felt the benefits of the Program the least, the capital municipality of Cotorro came up, where, to make a notable leap in improvement, important equipment is needed to ensure supply.

The province of Santiago de Cuba, and how water supply is advancing there, formed part of the meeting's agenda, at whose close the president called for continuing to deploy all possible effort—from the water and electrical energy sectors—to "reach year's end with an improvement." Likewise, Díaz-Canel Bermúdez spoke of continuing to advance in the installation of photovoltaic systems.

Essence of the Transformations: Doing Things Better

The 176 Economic and Social Transformations in which Cuba is immersed are the opportunity for every endeavor to be carried forward in a better way, and for everything to function more optimally, especially from the business sphere. The idea was shared on Wednesday afternoon by the President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, during a day of analysis at the headquarters of the National Institute of Water Resources (INRH).

The organism was the setting for a meeting between the country's leadership and the Superior Organizations of Business Management (OSDE), Water and Sanitation, and Management of Terrestrial Waters—both belonging to the INRH, and which were recently visited by the Secretariat and the Auxiliary Structure of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.

The exchange was also presided over by Politburo members Roberto Morales Ojeda, secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and Manuel Marrero Cruz, prime minister of the Republic. Also forming the presidency were Jorge Luis Broche Lorenzo, member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party and head of its Economic-Productive Department; Vice Prime Minister Inés María Chapman Waugh; the president of the National Institute of Water Resources, Antonio Rodríguez Rodríguez; the first secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party in Havana, Liván Izquierdo Alonso, among other officials.

The idea emerged about the need to accelerate the implementation of the Transformations. In this regard, the head of state highlighted the importance of the party organization strengthening itself to better support the changes. The dignitary emphasized that workers participate in each transforming process, because, without that participation—he said—not even the best transformations can be implemented.

Díaz-Canel expressed that the water sector has been among the most affected by the intensification of the imperial blockade—whose negative impact has been increased by the energy siege; and in that sense he reflected that the raison d'être of the Transformations, in the water sector, has much to do with technological innovation, especially now, when the purpose is to ensure that an electrical blackout does not imply a blackout in water supply capacity.

The National Institute of Water Resources—the president expressed—is an organism where sensitivity toward the population's problems must be present. "It is very important," he stressed, "everything we can achieve here." He said this in view of the fact that there are currently numerous complaints about water supply.

For his part, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz reasoned that a high level of functioning of the Communist Party is required in order to overcome current challenges. And in the same conceptual line, Roberto Morales Ojeda expressed that the organization's role is precisely to generate a dynamic that contributes to the solution of each difficulty that arises.

In a first moment with the OSDE of Water and Sanitation, the concept of accountability emerged as an extremely important tool within the ranks of the Communist Party. It is a method—said Morales Ojeda—that in no way implies "settling accounts," because what it seeks is to know "how the militant can be a better militant."

During the exchange with executives and party leaders of the OSDE of Management of Terrestrial Waters, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz referred to the Economic and Social Transformations as the opportunity to reinvent oneself and to make use of them in the purpose of implementing all possible good ideas.

The change of mentality motivated other reflections: the certainty prevailed that this condition is an indispensable premise for understanding the 176 Transformations, and for leaders and workers to become true protagonists of the implementation of the changes.

In the Midst of a Transcendental Moment

As a closing of Wednesday's session, the exchange took place at the headquarters of the National Institute of Water Resources between the country's leadership and the militancy of a universe that is very important in the lives of Cubans.

Analyses were heard on the results of the party visit, and the voices of those who make up a strategic organism for Cuba were also added.

Regarding the Economic and Social Transformations, the prime minister of the Republic, Manuel Marrero Cruz, spoke about the importance of "achieving among all that it be understood that this is a process that conceives profound changes." And at another moment he defined the current stage as a path whose guiding thread is the work of the Government, while highlighting the relevance that "the Party has assumed the leadership of this process."

Marrero Cruz recalled that the philosophy of such changes is "to try to untangle everything that prevented us from doing things" differently. We must work, he said, with order and control, but unleashing productive forces, in the search, in the sum of all actors, for an improvement of the economic situation.

The head of Government reflected that at the popular level one question becomes the great challenge: Where are the results? And later, in his intervention, he detailed that "we already have 169 policies with legal accompaniment": there are 169 transformations for which the policies allowing their implementation have already been elaborated and approved.

Another reflection Marrero Cruz shared: "The first transformation we must achieve," he said, "is the change of mentality, starting with the cadres, or with all of us who have the responsibility of leading these processes." Life—he affirmed—is saying that in several places it is not understood how to carry the process forward. The also Politburo member commented that sometimes, with decisions, orientations, and legal norms already in place, it is still not possible to carry forward the transformations in the business system, which would redound to the transformation of the economy.

Regarding this type of meeting, President Díaz-Canel Bermúdez expressed: "Here we are making a visit to share, to learn among all, because we are living a transcendental moment of the Revolution."

"And that transcendental moment of the Revolution depends on the way we apply the Economic and Social Transformations, and on those Transformations becoming results in the family, on the table of each of our families, in productive results, in our capacity to export, in our capacity to generate income in foreign currency, and in our ability to advance as a country, and to overcome all this energy siege, all this genocidal policy they are trying to impose on us to asphyxiate us; and for that it is necessary that the Party functions well, and that the administration functions well."

At another moment of the session with the militancy, the dignitary recalled that "we are living a very complex moment, a moment of much siege, a moment of the intensification of the blockade that has provoked an accumulation of problems."

The blockade against Cuba—he asserted—"has been the longest blockade in the history of humanity." And later in his words he shared the conviction that "we, with our own effort, with our own work, with our talent, with the talent of the Cuban people, can move forward, even if they continue to tighten the blockade further."

Regarding the INRH and its business system, the president assured that "both face one of the most complex scenarios of the country's fabric, because this has been a sector severely hit by the intensification of the blockade and by the energy siege."

It is true, Díaz-Canel Bermúdez reflected, that the blockade has entailed great challenges and difficulties, but also "there are many strengths and many opportunities." On the above, the head of state highlighted the existence of "a committed and experienced human capital." And he stressed:

"Here there are people who know how to do things, who are high-level specialists, who are deeply dedicated workers, who are capable of keeping a water system functioning in the midst of so much adversity and so much complexity. So, with that, we are going to move forward."

The Cuban president asked to "stop seeing the business system and the Water Resources system as the one that distributes water," to see it "as the one that manages and offers a technical service of high value and enormous sensitivity for our population."

"And the success of that lies in seeking energy efficiency. We must go to Renewable Energy Sources in the entire water resources management system; capture income; and take advantage of the autonomy and decentralization of faculties that has been made, so that the entire system is strengthened from the base, from the municipalities, from the community."

Díaz-Canel shared his conviction that this important system, taking advantage of the 176 Transformations, can achieve that "the enterprise generates its own resources for its maintenance and to provide a greater offer of water services to our population."

The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba said to his interlocutors: "We trust you."