Carlos Mazón did not give any signs of urgency to the journalist Maribel Vilaplana during their meal of around two hours and 45 minutes on the day of the tragic floods in the province of Valencia, according to the communicator. Vilaplana has shared for the first time details of his meeting on October 29 at the El Ventorro restaurant with the president of the Valencian Community, through a close source authorized to speak on his behalf. The version of the communication and public speaking teacher is that during the meeting in a private room at the premises, between 3:00 p.m. and 5:45 p.m., Mazón spoke “several times” on the phone with interlocutors that she did not identify. “When you have a professional meal there is a maxim which is discretion. If your client picks up the phone, you hear, but you don’t listen,” explains this source. However, he assures: “(Mazón) did not convey at any time that anything was happening, (in reference to the dana).” In fact, she maintains that she found out about the magnitude of the catastrophe after leaving the restaurant: “(She) goes home and begins to be aware of what there is.”
Vilaplana cannot say whether Mazón stayed in the restaurant or left, this source continues. The version of the Generalitat is that the president went to the headquarters of the Government, the Palau, to coordinate with the Emergency Center, the Cecopi, where he did not arrive, according to participating sources, until after 7:30 p.m. That afternoon, without specifying the time, the journalist claims that she called Mazón and asked him to make a promise: “Please don’t involve me in this,” in reference to the previous meal they had had.
Mazón has explained his passivity in managing the catastrophe, which has left at least 221 dead, alleging that the Minister of Justice and Interior, Salomé Pradas, was in charge and had informed him. He also said that he had received misleading messages from the bodies dependent on the central government, the meteorological agency Aemet and the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation. However, the Generalitat itself was able to directly learn of the human and material damage that was occurring through the excessive volume of citizen calls to the emergency number 112.
The meeting with Vilaplana has been the subject of scrutiny because it has given rise to criticism against Mazón for his absence and his contradictions. Mazón hid this lunch for 10 days until, after EL PAÍS published that he had eaten for three hours in a central restaurant in Valencia, his circle leaked to The Spanish who had lunch with the journalist to offer her the direction of the regional channel À Punt. That day, the revelation of the meal had dismantled the version that Mazón and his team had previously given to different media, to which they first said that he attended a “private meal,” and, later, “a working lunch,” although That supposed meeting was not on their public agenda. In addition, Mazón’s team had given EL PAÍS and other media another temporal account, according to which the president had returned to the Palau at 5:00 p.m.
The communicator’s version, according to the authorized source, is that she was indeed offered the direction of the regional channel, but she rejected it. It was the first and only time he proposed it to her, he says, adding that they had not had previous solo meetings either. According to her, they had only met at public events, including one that she herself presented two weeks earlier in the regional capital. Mazón had said from the stand: “You already know that in Valencia there are two types of gala: those presented by Maribel Vilaplana and the others.”
On the afternoon of October 29, she maintains that she rejected the job offer due to an episode in her professional past that marked her. “Out of consistency and political conviction, she would never accept a PP position. “She is fleeing from being linked to the PP,” says the authorized source. The journalist was one of the almost 1,200 workers who took to the streets in 2013, when the Valencian Government of Alberto Fabra (PP) closed broadcasts. According to the communicator’s story, after the rejection of the proposal to direct the channel – an offer made by the president, despite the law stipulating that the Board of Directors elects the management – Mazón asked her what she herself thought about the channel. autonomous channel.
The meeting, the source assures, was not only about the labor proposal. Issues such as the president’s oratory and communication were also addressed, he continues. “She took out her computer and showed him how a speech is structured. He talked to her about public speaking, in which she is a professional,” he says. Vilaplana has a communications company, Bencomunicat, founded in 2006. Since her television career ended, she has dedicated herself to this task, which has led her to be spokesperson and advisor for Levante Unión Deportiva. She is also a professor at the private Cardenal Herrera-CEU university.
In fact, before the meal, she had been giving a public speaking course to Ford managers, according to the authorized source. He arrived at the restaurant by car, which he parked in the parking from the Plaza de Tetuán, a five-minute walk from the premises. El Ventorro is located on a small street in the center and is a discreet space where for many years, businessmen and politicians have done business and conspired. In one of their private rooms, Vilaplana and Mazón also talked about the possibility of teaching communication courses for senior officials of the Generalitat, this source elaborates. The journalist gave her opinion on how Mazón communicates in public: “She tells him that he has to speak more in Valencian and analyzes his speeches.”
They talked with two glasses of wine and a bottle on the table. It was the only alcohol they drank, he maintains. “There was no gin and tonics”, he emphasizes. “Instead of ordering a main dish, they chose to order appetizers for the center (of the table). They ordered tomato with belly belly and seasonal mushrooms. Coffee and cake to share,” he details. According to her, at the end, Vilaplana went home. Then he made his call to Mazón and, since then, he says, they have not spoken again. Two opposition parties, the socialists and Compromís, have asked for it to be published the food bill, in a petition registered in the regional Parliament.
That is the journalist’s version. Mazón has not expressly talked about his food at the restaurant. He did not even mention her last Friday when he appeared for the first time before the Valencian Cortes to give explanations of his management. Although the Valencian president assures that he returned to the Palau and that he was aware of the crisis until he arrived at the emergency center, Cecopi, after 7:30 p.m., the opposition has questioned what he really did in that area.
It is known that at 6:28 p.m. the president made a strange call to the socialist mayor of the municipality of Cullera, who, surprised, confessed to the media that Mazón did not ask him about the dana and that he was apparently meeting with more people: “I pick up the phone and he tells me something like: ‘What’s up, Jordi? We’re here and your name came up and I said, well, I’m going to call Jordi.’
Do you have more information? Write to the authors at fpeinado@elpais.es and mviejo@elpais.es
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