The deputy delegate of the Government in Pontevedra, Abel Losada, presided over the official acts of the Day of the Pillar, patron of the Civil Guard, which were held in the courtyard of the Command, with the assistance of the lieutenant colonel, Óscar Grañas, the mayor of Poio, Ángel Molde, the conselleira of Housing, María Martínez Allegue, the president of the Audience of Pontevedra, Javier Menéndez Estébanez, the chief prosecutor of Pontevedra, Pablo Varela, commanders of the Civil Guard and officers of the Province.

Abel Losada stressed, in his speech, that “we live in one of the safest provinces in one of the safest countries in the world.” And, taking advantage of the statistics, “which are cold and stubborn figures”, he indicated that the provincial crime rate is 30 crimes per thousand inhabitants, well below the 39 per thousand of the Spanish average. “We must be very proud of this and, in fairness, thank the Civil Guard and the National Police,” he said.

During his speech, Losada insisted that “wherever I go, they ask me for more Civil Guard and more National Police.” Thus, he recalled that the calls for competitions of recent years have the largest offers in history, counting the province of Pontevedra with one of the most covered catalogues in all of Spain. However, he called for the expansion of the catalogues to be put on the political agenda “because today the times in Spain are different and no one with a modicum of common sense formulates the efficiency of the country in terms of cuts in public services”.

Losada put “the modern headquarters of the Command” as an example “of the transformation of the Civil Guard and its constant adaptation to the times we have to live”. In this line, he stressed that the Civil Guard of the 21st century maintains the tradition, but “the ultra-fast speed was adapted to the emergence of the global phenomenon of cybercrime, it is a bulwark in the fight against gender violence and it is even a leader in the training of boys and girls for the prevention of crime.”

Cambados Barracks

The subdelegate of the Government referred to the Cambados barracks as “a thorn stuck” and acknowledged “not being satisfied when I find a work stopped by failures in the calculations of the foundation”. He pledged to “continue pushing to take this work forward and get it done as quickly as possible.” For Abel Losada, this infrastructure “is fundamental”, among other issues, “because it is in the heart of the region of Arousa, where the tireless fight against the drug trafficker continues”, at which time he took the opportunity to congratulate the Corps for the “series of operations with which we continue to hit drug trafficking hard”.

Tribute to Venzal

Abel Losada had words of gratitude to the Chief Colonel of the Pontevedra Command, Simón Venzal, who comes from passing to the reserve and who valued “his sobriety, his loyalty and his intelligence to transmit to me the knowledge that one lacks when he comes to a position like this”. He also thanked the collaboration of Lieutenant Colonel Óscar Grañas, who took over and the work of all the commanders and agents of the Civil Guard “from the first to the last”.

The subdelegate recalled that the State Security Forces and Corps are the entity most valued by the Spanish. “And this is no coincidence,” he said, since “it is a prestige won with sweat, day by day, patrol the patrol, attested to attested, in an act of service.”

“Your motto is peace and honor, what two words in this world stained with the blood and dust of the rubble,” he said in reference to the motto of the Civil Guard, to conclude by stating that “we are extremely lucky to live in Democracy in an advanced country and there is no democracy without you, because as our Constitution says, it is you who guarantee fundamental rights and compliance with the law.”

Lieutenant Colonel Óscar Grañas took the floor to celebrate that the Civil Guard “represents feeling, effort, work, self-denial and respect.” “Values,” he said, “that with 111 years of history, the citizens continue to identify, today, with the work done by the civil guards every day, in each of the barracks and in every corner of the territory.” For this reason, he valued the work of the Benemérita fighting gender violence, crime in cyberspace or working thousands of kilometers for the security of the country in international missions. “Our way of working is the way we have to restore the affection, the trust of all citizens in general and of the Pontevedresses in particular, who are here sharing with us the morning of this holiday,” he concluded.

Medal delivery

Finally, during the event, 18 decorations were given to the guards distinguished by both their trajectory and specific actions. The delivery of a Silver Cross, from the Order of Merit of the Civil Guard Corps to an agent was outstanding for his outstanding action in the disarticulation of a national network of illegal trafficking of weapons and ammunition, a Naval Cross of Merit with white badge and 16 crosses of the Order of Merit of the Civil Guard with white badge.

All of them were defined by the Government’s deputy delegate as examples of the vocation of “each and every one” of the agents of the Benemérita.