Padre Pistolas

Father Jesús Alfredo Gallegos Lara is better know as Padre Pistolas, a Michoacán priest famed throughout the region for packing heat and singing ranchera and mariachi music. He also has become famous for promoting public works projects - all to the dismay of his superior, the Archbishop of Morelia. The archbishop once suspended Father Gallegos, but politicians from all sides - who regularly seek out his endorsement, including PAN gubernatorial candidate Luisa Calderón, the president's sister - have urged Padre Pistolas to run for public office, knowing his popularity, moral authority and pull with the local population surpasses that of anyone else in church.

I visited with Padre Pistolas recently - hoping, course, he wouldn't pull out his Colt 45 and, say, "Vaya con Dios, muchacho!" He's folkloric, but also very dedicated to his work - and has done more to improve life in the rundown pueblos he serves than any other public figure. The story ran in The Globe and Mail (click the title of this post to read it.)

'Acapulco is both heaven and hell'

A campaign launched by Acapulco night club owners encourages people to speak well of Acapulco. It comes as the granddaddy of Mexican tourist destinations suffers through a wave of organized crime bloodshed that has involved beheadings and mass abductions. Tourist officials say the violence takes place far away from tourist areas and doesn't impact visitors. They complain, too, that violence in other parts of Guerrero often is erroneously reported as somehow involving or being near Acapulco. I went to Acapulco recently to report on the situation for USA TODAY; read my dispatch by clicking on the headline for this blog post.

Bulletproofing goes big time

A shot-up windshield from a Honda Accord sits under a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe in the garage of Protecto Glass International in Mexico City. The firm is one of the oldest armouring companies in Mexico and has experienced a boom in demand for bulletproof vehicles as perceptions of insecurity increase in Mexico.

The Mexican bulletproofing business has exploded with the crackdown on organized crime, moving from an industry protecting politicians, executives and the über wealthy to one armoring increasingly more modest vehicles for ever less important government functionaries, small business owners and professionals wanting to ward off carjackings and kidnapping attempts.

One industry group values the Mexican bulletproofing business at US $80 million, but that figure might be low since many armoring companies are not registered with the Public Security Secretariat, U.S. firms are capitalizing on the demand from Mexico and the bad guys - according to some - have their own people protecting vehicles.

Brazil still leads the hemisphere in armoring, says Esteban Hernández of Auto Safe in Mexico City. Mexico leads in the demand for Level 5 armoring, however - a level protecting against attacks with assault weapons and grenades. Hernández, ironically, came from Colombia in the mid 1990s to promote bulletproofing. Nowadays, he says of the armoring companies in his home country, "They're on the brink of collapse."

Read the full story in the Nov. 15 edition of USA Today.

Chicharito

A billboard in Guadalajara features local soccer star Javier "Chicharito" Hernández and the warning, "The future of a whole country, today is at your feet." The admonishment reflects the pressure on Hernández, who now plays for Manchester United.

Mexican soccer phenom Javier Hernández - better known by the handle, "Chicharito," or Little Pea - made his debut Sept. 14 in the Champions League as his club Manchester United took on Rangers. The debut, like everything he does with Manchester United, received major press attention back in Mexico, where the 22-year-old striker is fast becoming a living legend - especially in his native Guadalajara.

Chicharito faces enormous expections in Mexico, where international soccer success has been elusive and players have generally preferred to earn solid livings in a domistic league flush with cash from the nation's broadcasting duopoly instead of challenging themselves in tougher European leagues.

The lad appears ready. He comes from a solid, middle-class family, never indulges in vices such as smoking and drinking, according to his granddad, and never gets caught up in any scandals - unlike, say, aging striker and current Mexican soccer demigod Cuauhtémoc Blanco, who showed up for World Cup camp overweight and out of shape. He also speaks excellent English and was pursuing a university degree at UNIVA in suburban Guadalajara as he rocketed to soccer stardom last year with Chivas, the legendary Mexican franchise that doesn't field foreign-born players. His family has even moved to England with him.

I tracked down Chicharito's graddad - a former Mexican international and Chivas player - in late July, when Manchester United passed through Guadalajara, for story that ran in The Sun. Read it here, or click on the title.

Yet another Jefe Diego letter surfaces

Yet another letter purportedly authored by the kidnappers of former presidential candidate Diego Fernández de Cevallos surfaced Sept. 13, more than three months after the political insider and legal bigwig better known as "Jefe Diego" disappeared from his ranch in the state of Querétaro.

A photo, showing a blindfolded Fernández de Cevallos holding a copy of the magazine Proceso with him and former president Carlos Salinas posing in a photo, also surfaced with the letter, which, in a mocking tone, alleges that Jefe Diego has been abandoned by his friends and family and leaves uncertain who exactly is responsible for his apprehension.

"Thanks to the personal and public trajectory of 'Jefe Diego' many things continue to be said and perhaps all the lines of investigation fit since his family has abandoned him and his own friends don't care about his fate," the letter read.

The letter was signed by the, “Misteriosos Desaparecedores,” made mention of various theories that Jefe Diego might have been grabbed by everyone ranging from narcos to rebels to "defrauded individuals." And its surfacing promised to deepen the mystery of his disappearance and foment even more conspiracies on how a figure closely linked to the most senior officials in the country's internal security apparatus could suddenly vanish without a trace and how investigators would so willingly remove themselves almost immediately from the case at the behest of his family.

It was no secret that the cigar chomping Fernández de Cevallos cut a controversial path through Mexican political and legal circles. He became notorious for his moonlighting as an attorney for some of the country's most powerful companies suing the federal government to win injunction in tax cases while he served as a National Action Party (PAN) senator.

He also clashed with President Felipe Calderón, who, in 2008, buried the hatchet with the Diego faction of the PAN by appointing a Fernández de Cevallos protegé, Fernando Gómez-Mont, as interior minister and later a former legal associate, Arturo Chávez Chávez, as attorney general. (Gómez-Mont left cabinet after objecting to the PAN-Democratic Revolution Party alliances formed in five states for the July 4 elections.)

The perils of investing in paradise

A road sign points the way to Tenacatita Bay in Jalisco state, where a titling dispute jeopardizes the investments of at least 40 foreign property owners. The owners bought deeds over the past five years that had been issued by the federal government and validated by the president of Mexico. But a Guadalajara-area businessman recently won a court injunction saying his company holds a valid deed to the same area - which was purchased in 1991 from the widow of a former Jalisco state governor and upheld in 1977 by the Mexican Supreme Court. 

State police now block access to the land the foreigners purchased along with the beach at Tenacatita, which had been popular with working-class Mexican sunseekers. The businessman, Andrés Villalobos, told reporters last week he would not offer the foreigners any compensation since, he said, they were most likely deceived in making their purchases. He promised, however, to help prosecute anyone tricking them into purchasing land that he said was always private property and not for the federal government to title and sell.


The foreign buyers insist they did their due diligence and hold titles validated by one of either President Felipe Calderón or former president Vicente Fox. At least one buyer put her title into a bank trust, suggesting her purchase was considered proper by some institutions.

I recently travelled to the Jalisco coast to write on the issue for Postmedia News. Click here to read it.

Mexicana suspends ticket sales

SECOND UPDATE: Mexicana suspended all flights Aug. 28, including domestic runs flown by its subsidiaries, Mexicana Click and Mexicana Link. The new owners, Tenedora K, failed to adequately slash costs, which it reportedly tried to do by firing the unionized flight attendants and pilots and then rehiring some of the staff at reduced salaries. The federal government rejected the plan and refused to bail out Mexicana, which was privatized in 2005 and run up more than $1 billion in debt.

What becomes of Mexicana remains uncertain. I always preferred Mexicana to its domestic competitor AeroMéxico, which, in my experience, hired less-friendly and less-resourceful staff who were always anxious to pass the buck and neglect customer service problems. Other airlines such as Interjet, Volaris and Vivaaerobus - all of which are less than five years old and have lower cost structures than Mexicana - will fill some of the void on domestic runs and AeroMéxico and other competitors will no doubt add international flights. I'll definitely miss the direct runs back to Canada, though. It's possible some airlines such as Air Canada or Westjet will expand service, but the Canadian government's visa requirement for Mexican travelers dampened enthusiasm for flights to Canada and AeroMéxico abandoned its Canadian runs earlier this year due to a lack of demand.

UPDATE:

Mexicana has stopped selling tickets effective 6 p.m. Aug. 4 for travel on its mainline carrier, which flys international runs and many of the high-volume domestic routes such as Mexico City-Monterrey, Mexico City-Cancún and Mexico City-Tijuana. The company said in a statement that it will continue selling tickets for domestic travel on its subsidiaries Mexicana Click and Mexicana Link as the operations of those airlines is unaffected by the financial and labour woes of Compañía Mexicana de Aviación.

Mexicana employees about to get a haircut

Compañia Mexicana de Aviación has filed for bankruptcy protection in both Mexico and the United States, in a move the Wall Street Journey said in a cheeky headline, "Wards off the repo man."

Mexicana de Aviación wants its pilots and flight attendants to take pay cuts of roughly 40 percent in order to keep the company from going broke. The Mexicana employees rejected the proposed paycuts on Aug. 2 - along with an offer to buy the mainline part of the airline for just 1 peso.

Financial problems and subsequent labour unrest are just the latest patches of turbulence for Mexicana, an 87-year-old airline that company officials say has lost more than four billion pesos since being re-privatized in 2005.

The airline on Aug. 2 canceled service on three runs, reduced frequencies on others and altered routing on many flights, which will now make a stop in Mexico City. Creditors had its planes held in Calgary, Montreal and Chicago. Mexicana says its operations will carry on as scheduled and its employees' unions say their members won't stop working.

Mexicana management says cuts need to made immediately for the carrier to survive. It's subsidiaries Mexicana Click, which operates many domestic runs, and Mexicana Link - a commuter-jet airline - are unaffected by the turbulence.

Pilots at Mexicana earn US $216,000 per year, while flight attendants earn US $52,000 per year. Under the management plan, pilots would earn US $127,000 per year. Flight attendants would earn $32,000 per year.

The company outlined plans to slash its labour force by 40 percent, too. The pilots' union said the company was distributing "inexact" statistics. It also said, "It's a shame they value it for one peso."

The federal government has declined to become involved in Mexicana's problems.