Ten years have passed since Congress passed PROMESA and, with it, imposed a Fiscal Oversight Board on Puerto Rico. There will be no shortage of events, speeches, and protests to debate what a decade of external control over our public finances has meant.
It is a necessary conversation, and I hope it serves to address a troubling notion: the idea that we depend on the Board to manage our finances, to give us direction, and to develop the technical expertise our government needs. While it is true that the Board plays an active role on all those fronts, that does not mean we are incapable of doing those things ourselves.
What is troubling is that, after ten years, we seem to have internalized the idea that solutions must come from the outside because we frequently rely on them; the dependence has started to feel normal.
When did we start losing the conviction that Puerto Rico can do great things? They are not easy. They require discipline, effort, and perseverance. But as my grandfather used to say: “más vale maña que fuerza”, which loosely translates to wit will take you further than muscle.
In 2016, Congress decided that Puerto Rico needed external oversight to correct years of fiscal disorder. It was an imposed solution. A punitive response to a real problem. And although the Board has played a decisive role in our public finances over the past decade, it has left a fundamental task unfinished: developing our institutional capacity to govern ourselves better.
The question we must ask ourselves is not when the Board will leave. The question is what will remain when it does.
Will we have a legislature capable of imposing fiscal discipline without external oversight? Agencies that plan beyond the next electoral cycle? Public officials with the proper tools and resources to administer and be accountable efficiently? Citizens who understand how fiscal decisions affect their opportunities and quality of life?
After a decade of external oversight, little has been done to advance that work.
And time is of the essence. Â Puerto Rico still faces significant fiscal risks. Federal recovery funds will not last forever, especially if we keep dragging our feet in putting them to use. Beyond that, our situation is nothing short of outrageous: there are families and businesses that have gone months, not days, without something as basic as running water. And the problem runs much deeper. The fragility of the electrical grid continues to limit economic growth, drive up operating costs for businesses, and disrupt the daily lives of thousands of families.
As if that were not enough, uncertainty over the future funding of essential programs such as Medicaid remains. None of that will disappear when the Board leaves.
Faced with these challenges, resignation is a tempting response. We often repeat that “Puerto Rico will never change.” But resignation is not a diagnosis; it’s a bad habit.
What we need is not another layer of oversight, surveillance, or control. What we need is to strengthen the institutions we already have. Lasting reforms are not the ones imposed from the outside. They are the ones built from within, by those who know our realities and how our government works. They are the ones that become everyday practice and survive changes in administration.
We must prepare for the morning after the Board leaves. Not because its departure will solve our problems, but because Puerto Rico cannot indefinitely depend on others to make its decisions.
That work has to start now. Transformations imposed by force rarely produce lasting, meaningful results. For that, you need something more complex, more subtle, and more valuable: capacity, learning, and above all, the will to do it.
That is why, as my grandfather used to say, wit will take you further than muscle.
This content was translated from Spanish to English using artificial intelligence and reviewed by a human editor before publishing.