Unpaid pensions for months, elderly individuals left to fend for themselves, and families with children with disabilities lacking institutional support: these were the complaints brought by Cubans this Wednesday to the third broadcast of "Criterio Compartido", the radio program hosted by Miguel Díaz-Canel on Radio Rebelde, while the regime that has driven the country to ruin presents itself to the world as a guarantor of social justice.
The program, broadcast biweekly since September 23, 2026, serves as a propaganda release valve: it spectacularly resolves individual cases while the structural causes—decades of failed economic management—remain unaddressed.
Among the calls of this day, Ada Linares Mejía reported that her husband signed the retirement documents in February and has not received a single peso, because, as she was informed after months of complaints, the computer program that processes the files "had broken down."
Díaz-Canel reacted sharply: "It makes no sense to mistreat retirement benefits. We need to examine the apathy; we need to identify who made the mistake, and it will be corrected."
What the leader omitted is that Cuba has over 1.7 million retirees receiving a minimum pension of 4,000 pesos per month —which is between seven and ten dollars at the informal exchange rate— while the basic basket is estimated to be between 12,000 and 96,000 pesos. According to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, 94% of Cubans live in extreme poverty, and nine out of ten elderly people have skipped at least one meal due to lack of money.
Other listeners presented equally serious situations: Otoniel Aguilera Vázquez has been waiting for months for a response from the San Rafael asylum in Marianao to admit his parents, aged 88 and 84; Mavi Susel requested urgent care for a mother with mental health issues and two children with disabilities; and Michael Muro Ríos, who has a visual impairment like his mother, daughter, and wife, asked for a space where the family can work.
Before all of them, Díaz-Canel promised: "All of you will be taken care of."
The most celebrated moment of the program was the follow-up on the case of Regla Yudith Montiagudo, a mother who gained recognition as a caregiver for her 35-year-old son with a disability, diabetes, and an amputated leg, after having reported it in the previous broadcast.
Municipal authorities had denied that recognition despite the fact that Decree 121 of 2025 expressly considers it as paid work. Only after Díaz-Canel publicly intervened in the program was the home assistant service approved on October 12, and the family received a wheelchair from the Quisicuaba project.
The case starkly illustrates the gap between the legislation passed and its actual implementation: a mother had to resort to the presidential program to obtain a legally recognized right that has been in place for over a year.
The Minister of Labor and Social Security, Jesús Otamendiz Campos, participated by phone and reported that more than 883,000 people were registered as vulnerable at the end of September, compared to the initial figure of 876,522 identified.
In response to that crisis, the regime offers food packages consisting of five pounds of rice, one pound of peas, and one pound of sugar, with support from the World Food Program.
At the end of the program, Díaz-Canel took several minutes to denounce the "pressures" from Washington regarding the vote on October 28 at the UN concerning the embargo, labeling a event organized by the U.S. delegation as "a clandestine meeting with a panel paid for by the State Department." This turn reveals the regime's true priorities: the anti-American narrative above structural solutions to the misery that its own policies have generated over 67 years.
The next broadcast of "Criterio Compartido" is scheduled for November 4, 2026. The regime invites the public to share their complaints and concerns through the program's phone numbers: 78384565 and 63403698.
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