Sen. Wanda Soto Tolentino, chair of the Puerto Rico Senate’s Family Committee, confirmed that the committee’s investigation of Family Department Secretary Suzanne Roig Fuertes remains active as a deadline approaches. The committee gave Roig Fuertes and former Administration for Families and Children (ADSEF) administrator Blanca Medina Díaz until Friday, October 30 to hand over the requested documentation, Soto Tolentino said on the radio program Normando en la Mañana.
"It is more alive than ever and more active than ever... Tomorrow the deadline we gave both officials expires. The investigations continue, we keep receiving information," she said.
If the documents are not delivered, the Senate president is notified and a request is made through the floor to go through the courts so a judge can determine contempt or issue an information order. She clarified a confusion in some media about separate deadlines: Sen. Juan Óscar Morales made his own information request, whose deadline went unmet and is following its own course, while the committee’s deadline is Friday.
Under the rules, both officials were summoned to give their versions, with 11 of 13 senators present. Both requested an extension and were given the same term. Asked whether she is surprised Roig Fuertes remains in her post, Soto Tolentino said little surprises her anymore and that officials who are heavily questioned should reflect and take time to answer unclear matters.
She added that senators gave the governor’s cabinet a vote of confidence in confirming it, but the governor decides whether she continues. The investigation will go on regardless of the secretary’s future, she said.