Dominican historian José del Castillo Pichardo has published a broad review of economist Eduardo García Michel's new book on Dominican political and economic challenges.
The essay, published in Diario Libre on August 14, 2026, examines the second volume of Vitriólico y sus personajes, a compilation of weekly columns that analyze national policy, historic reforms, and social issues.
Del Castillo Pichardo recalled meeting García Michel in the early 1970s when a delegation of former Lasallian and Salesian classmates visited his home in Santo Domingo. The group included Cholo Brenes, José Manuel López Valdez, and Carlitos Pimentel, who joined García Michel to seek guidance from former President Juan Bosch.
The group requested Bosch's help to secure the freedom of Pablo Maríñez, a Dominican sociology student detained in Madrid on accusations of collaborating with anti-Franco groups. The effort succeeded, and Maríñez later established an academic career at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and served as ambassador to Mexico.
Political Reforms and Early Career
The professional relationship between Del Castillo Pichardo and García Michel continued through academic seminars and dialogue groups over several decades. Working within the Siglo 21 organization, they organized workshops with political parties and civil society organizations focused on political, electoral, and municipal reforms.
Agreements reached during those Siglo 21 sessions laid the groundwork for the 1994 constitutional reform and the 1997 electoral reform. The measures prohibited presidential re-election, introduced an absolute majority requirement and two-round runoffs for presidential elections, established overseas voting, created smaller legislative districts for deputies in large cities, and instituted public financing for political parties.
García Michel completed his economics studies at the Complutense University of Madrid, a period marked by student travels across Europe. His journeys included the San Fermín festival in Pamplona, the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, the Colosseum in Rome, and the canals of Venice.
He regularly returns to Madrid to walk through his former neighborhoods and visit Alcalá de Henares, the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes. His essays also reflect visits to major art museums, including the Prado in Madrid, the Louvre in Paris, the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
García Michel worked professionally at the National Housing Bank, the Central Bank, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, the Monetary Board, and the Ecocaribe consulting firm. He also hosted television programs alongside his weekly newspaper column in Diario Libre.
Emigration and Demographics
In his writings, García Michel expresses deep concern over declining national values and population shifts. He notes that more than two million Dominicans have emigrated, mostly residing in North America and sending home more than 10 billion dollars in annual family remittances, a figure he views as evidence of the country's failure to provide domestic opportunities.
He also criticizes uncontrolled immigration from Haiti, stating that Haitian workers now dominate sugarcane harvests, rice, coffee, cacao, plantain, and banana crops. He writes that illegal immigrants fill roles in construction, motorcycle taxi transport, building security, and street fruit sales, while expanding into tourism, classrooms, and hospitals.
García Michel warns that this movement risks creating a permanent national minority with contrasting ethnic profiles and historical territorial grievances.
Hometown Roots in Moca
The book pays tribute to García Michel's hometown of Moca, where he was known as Coco during his youth and attended a Salesian school that emphasized discipline and soccer. Del Castillo Pichardo notes that Moca produced historical figures who fought tyrants over two centuries, including progressive leaders and cousins Ramón Cáceres and Horacio Vásquez, whose legacies are preserved in local museums.
Moca is also recognized for its agricultural products, including cassava, coffee, cacao, and traditional lard biscuits. García Michel's family played a role in the May 30, 1961 movement that ended the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, an event detailed in his historical writings.
Agricultural Challenges and Exports
A recurring theme in García Michel's columns is the policy neglect of Dominican agriculture and its link to domestic industry. Writing as a cattle rancher, he notes that beef exports remain hindered by persistent obstacles, while local dairy farmers face severe pressure from European supermarket private-label brands.
Dominican cacao production volume dropped by 26 percent in 2024 despite record international prices. Although annual cacao exports generate between 200 million and 300 million dollars, García Michel calls for increased investment to renew aging cacao plantations. He contrasts the situation with Germany, which produces no cacao beans but stands as the world's leading chocolate exporter.
Pests have severely damaged local coffee and citrus crops, leading to heavy reliance on imports. Similar import dependence followed the dismantling of domestic corn and sorghum production previously used for livestock feed. Organic banana exports are also declining, while the sugar industry has shrunk to a fraction of its former scale when 16 active sugar mills produced domestic sugar, exports, molasses, and rum alcohol.
By contrast, the Dominican cigar sector expanded without state direction. Under the leadership of Hendrik Kelner and businessmen in ProCigar, premium cigar exports reached 1.3 billion dollars through strict quality and marketing standards. Other export items include greenhouse vegetables and traditional products such as casabe cassava bread, while rice producers seek niche markets in the United States.
Del Castillo Pichardo contrasts Dominican agricultural output with South American exporters in 2024. Argentina exports soy flour, soy oil, corn, wheat, peanuts, meat, trucks, and oil. Brazil generated 337 billion dollars in total exports in 2024, with 49 percent coming from agribusiness items including soy, sugar, corn, meat, and coffee. Chile surpassed 100 billion dollars in exports, led by copper and lithium at 50 percent alongside salmon, horse mackerel, mussels, cherries, plums, flowers, cellulose, and wood.
Fiscal Deficits and Public Services
García Michel proposes structural reforms to the Dominican electricity sector to reduce losses at state power distribution companies that strain public finances. He urges the government to rationalize unfocused subsidies, eliminate fiscal deficits driven by costly public debt, and resolve the Central Bank's quasi-fiscal deficit that constrains monetary policy.
His social security proposals advocate equalizing per-capita spending between the contributory and subsidized health regimes, universalizing benefits, and expanding primary care. He also recommends reforming labor code severance rules, formalizing small and medium-sized businesses, and restoring professional work ethics in public administration.
Urban Traffic and Environmental Defense
Addressing urban infrastructure, García Michel outlines practical road reforms for critical traffic intersections in Santo Domingo. He calls for strict enforcement against stunt motorcyclists operating without brakes and reckless heavy transport trucks. He also recommends removing incompetent agents from the General Directorate of Traffic and Land Transportation who manually override automated traffic signals and cause extensive gridlock.
Both authors share a personal connection to the Constanza valley. Del Castillo Pichardo spent his youth in a pine cabin built by his uncle, public health doctor Manuel Emilio Pichardo Sardá, who directed anti-malaria campaigns in La Vega. He recalls bathing at the El Chorro dammed pool, sliding down El Gajo slopes on palm fronds, visiting sawmills owned by José Delio Guzmán, staying with Cunda, and meeting Lebanese businessman Marún Tactuk.
Del Castillo Pichardo remembers the Clavel and Radiante flower gardens, morning valley fog, and living alongside Spanish, Hungarian, and Japanese settlers who cultivated potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbages, strawberries, and blackberries near the Nueva Suiza hotel and the cold heights of Valle Nuevo. He emphasizes that García Michel shares this reverence for Constanza's mountain forests and actively advocates for their environmental protection.
Del Castillo Pichardo concludes by inviting readers to examine Vitriólico y sus personajes, which features dialogues between the fictional philosopher Vitriólico and his interlocutor Abimbaíto, describing the collection as a courageous and well-crafted defense of Dominican national identity.
