Rodrigo Rojas, now a former vice president of Chile's Constituent Assembly, in a file image.MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP
He was a protester from any of the protests in the Plaza Italia in Santiago de Chile, the epicenter of the social unrest that started in October 2019. Rodrigo Rojas Vade little by little became one of the leaders of the demonstrations, with a speech based on in his own story: the fight against a leukemia that ruined him and exposed the inequalities of the health system in the country. As one of the well-known faces of the Chilean mobilization, he ran for the constitutional convention, which has the mission of drafting a new Constitution for Chile, at a time of political, institutional, economic and social crisis.
On May 16, he was one of the 27 elected by the People's List, the group of left-wing independents who broke into the constituent by surprise, establishing themselves as one of its main forces.
Pelao
Vade - as he became popularly known - was a few votes away from winning the presidency of the organ, but he became one of the seven vice presidents. Two months after taking office, an investigation by the newspaper
La Tercera
revealed the great deception: he was never ill with cancer.
“I feel like I have to retire. I have nothing else to do at the convention, "he assured the newspaper. This Saturday afternoon, he uploaded a video to Instagram where he said: “I want to tell the truth, my truth, because I can no longer and do not want to hold this. The disease that I have is not cancer, it is a diagnosis that I could not recognize eight years ago due to the stigma that society has on him, ”explained Rojas Vade, without giving details about the evil that would afflict him. This Sunday, after almost 24 hours of public outrage, for what has been classified as one of the main frauds in Chilean electoral history, the constitutional convention accepted the resignation of the vice presidency. "We empathize with the pain that this situation causes," said the board of the body, made up of 155 members. The president of the convention, Elisa Loncon,He assured that the Rojas Vade situation will be officially addressed: "It will act in the fairest way," he said.
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Rojas Vade's deception has impacted Chilean society from different fronts. Starting with cancer patients, their families, medical specialists, those who work for cancer patients of all ages and those who have lost loved ones to this disease. “This lie has no justification. Cancer does not have political colors, it does not care which family you come from. It hurts, it hurts, it kills, it puts you in debt. Seeing a man pretend to have no eyebrows or hair from alleged chemotherapy. We did lose hair and part of the body, friends, ”wrote the Valientes Corporation, of women with breast and metastatic cancer, on Twitter.
Rojas Vade became known for protesting while allegedly suffering from mixed acute lymphocytic leukemia, one of the most serious cancers in the world that attacks the blood and bone marrow. According to the initial version of this former flight operator for the Latam airline, when the riots began in October 2019, he had just abandoned treatment, although the doctors consulted in the investigation of
La Tercera
They assure that patients suffering from this disease do not resist the lack of medications for a month.
“I am not fighting cancer.
I fight to pay for the chemo.
Dignified health for Chile ”, said the poster with which he appears in the photograph that made him known on social networks almost two years ago.
Since then, the man went to protest every Friday with a naked torso, without eyebrows or hair on his face and head.
He arrived at the epicenter of the protests in Santiago de Chile with patches, masks - before the covid-19 - and even catheter.
He became a leader and an icon of the so-called
frontline
struggle
, the group of protesters who faced the Carabineros in the peak weeks of the protest.
He always seemed ready to confront the police and portrayed him through photographs on social media.
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For almost two years he told his story in different spaces.
He opened a blog where he told details of his treatment.
It was called
Cancer, reality without a filter
, which has now closed.
The Third
Investigation
remember that on Instagram he uploaded photos of his exams, hospitalizations and injuries to his body, always using the #cancerfighter (cancer fighter). He stated that he owed a private clinic about $ 480,000 due to his illness. As he once related that he underwent a clinical test at the Vall d 'Hebron Hospital in Barcelona - where a hematological and not an oncological study was carried out, according to the newspaper - in the published interview they asked him what his treating doctor's name was and he answered : “Emm, it's Josep ... I have him here. Let me look for him, he is
Pelao
Josep ”. After the triumph of the option
I approve
In October 2020 - the option to replace the current Constitution, whose column was drawn up in 1980 during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet - he was one of the founders of the People's List, which was formed with a view to conventional elections. As part of his own campaign, he spoke on various occasions about the cancer he supposedly suffered from eight years ago. Later, when he was elected, in his declaration of interests and assets, he stated that he owed a Chilean bank about $ 35,000 "for financing chemotherapeutic treatment against cancer."
Rojas Vade's deception of Chileans impacts the constituent convention, a body that has until July 2022 to present a proposed Constitution to the country, which must be submitted to a plebiscite. But the greatest damage is caused to the possibility of reconciling citizens with politics at a decisive moment for Chile, where a process of accelerated changes takes place in the midst of a deep crisis of trust towards democratic institutions.
La Lista del Pueblo, the group of origin of Rojas Vade, is in the process of disintegration, after its candidate for the presidency, Diego Ancalao, was left out of the race when the Electoral Service detected 23,000 fraudulent endorsement signatures, backed by a notary's office closed in 2018 and whose notary died at the beginning of 2021. Against the neoliberal model, left-wing and without ties to the parties, the emergence of the People's List four months ago was applauded by public opinion for its contribution to renewal of politics, at a time when the prestige of parties of all colors is on the ground.
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