In Santiago, the demonstration started at Los Héroes train station, passed the Palacio de La Moneda, the seat of the President, and moved several blocks along Avenida de La Alameda.
Luis Messina, spokesman for the Coordinadora no más AFP, denounced that insurers continue to make huge profits on workers’ savings and still pay misery pensions.
“Parliament continues to prolong the drama of pensioners,” Messina warned, citing the blockade and blackmail by the right against a pension reform that the executive branch presented to the body eight months ago.
The social leader recalled that the people voted for the current government to make changes in favor of the majority and that President Gabriel Boric promised to end the AFPs and restore social security.
If progress is not made on these changes, it will be up to the government to pave the way for the right to take power, Messina warned.
In statements to Prensa Latina, Communist Party representative Boris Barrera denounced that the AFP system had failed and that it urgently needed to be changed as people in Chile today would become poor if they retired.
Barrera demanded that the right wing stop obstructing the pension reform bill in Congress and move as soon as possible to an agreement that increases not only future pensions but also current pensions and closes the pension gap between men and women.
Meanwhile, Senator Fabiola Campillai, who lost her sight as a result of police repression during the 2019 social outburst, denounced that today is not just about decent pensions, but also about quality education and health, and redress for victims of human rights abuses.
“No more AFP”, “No democracy can exist without first ending so much impunity” and “NO with my money” were some of the slogans chanted by the marchers.
Similar demonstrations were called this Sunday in Iquique, Antofagasta, Valparaíso, Rancagua, Talca, Temuco, Valdivia, Chiloé and Magallanes.
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