Abelardo De La Espriella's PR Disaster
When the earth fractures, a functional government dispatches medical tents, temporary shelters, and pallets of clean water and food. The new Colombian administration, operating on a markedly different frequency, deployed a comprehensive branding strategy. Crisis communication typically involves proving the State possesses the basic competence to keep its citizens alive through a natural disaster. Instead, this government treated a catastrophic seismic event as an unmissable marketing and propaganda activation, replacing standard humanitarian logistics with an incomprehensible tone-deaf public relation. There’s no relief effort; there’s only a content grinder agitating the masses.
Footage of President Abelardo De La Espriella arriving in the devastated Chocó region plays less like a disaster response and more like a deeply cynical regional pop tour. Stepping out of his heavily armored vehicle, the singer, far-right populist lawyer, and occasional crooner of highly profitable religious anthems, bypassed the basic expectation of acting as a commander-in-chief. Instead, he immediately began distributing footballs prominently stamped with his campaign slogan, “Firmes por la Patria,” to a crowd quite literally standing in the rubble of their homes. This tactical masterpiece of disaster relief is the work of Maria Fernanda Sandoval. An adviser imported directly from De La Espriella’s famously questionable law firm, Sandoval arrived in the executive branch entirely unburdened by any prior experience in public office.
The operational logic mutated from merely incompetent to openly grotesque when the administration finalized its international aid roster. Facing severe domestic backlash over a paralyzed internal response, the government outsourced its salvation, welcoming assistance exclusively from strict ideological allies: El Salvador, Ecuador, the United States, and Israel. This geopolitical curation meant prioritizing diplomatic alignment over actual earthquake rescue expertise. The arrival of the Israeli military as a frontline rescue detachment provided the administration's definitive, ugly turn. Amidst the crushed concrete, official military spokesman Roni Kaplan was filmed screaming “Free Palestine, never!” at a woman who confronted him. It was a flawless, deliberate execution of importing a foreign genocidal military apparatus and its attendant blood hands directly into a paralyzed domestic earthquake zone.
In the middle of the tragedy, every governmental gesture is a calculated, hollow broadcast. The executive office frantically scrubs its image with isolated photo opportunities utterly detached from the physical reality on the ground, tossing branded sporting goods at a cascading humanitarian crisis. Simultaneously, the political opposition treats the mounting casualty rate as a convenient scoreboard, quietly celebrating a catastrophe simply because it backs the president against the ropes. The institutional fragmentation is total, and the pain of the displaced grows exponentially while the critical window for pulling survivors from the wreckage closes. As the hours run out, the president's communications team continues to meticulously curate the social media feed, pouring gasoline on a society that is already primed to implode.
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