From the verifiable to the unverifiable of the Gamboa report

QUALIFICATION: UNVERIFIABLE y VERIFIABLE

The data:

During her first government report, the mayor of Metepec, Gabriela Gamboa, said the perception of insecurity in the municipality was reduced. In addition, he assured the existence of a 15% increase in members of the municipal police, along with the delivery of 101 patrols in his administration, which began in January this year.

He also spoke of the holding of 61 council sessions, the position of Metepec as the first municipality in the country to form the Anti-Corruption System and a “historical figure” of visits to the local transparency portal.

Analysis: In the first instance, the municipal president did not specify how much the perception of insecurity was reduced during her administration, limiting herself to saying that it was “in an important way”. The National Urban Public Security Survey (ENSU), conducted by INEGI, does not have information on security perception in Metepec, limiting its study to the Mexican cities of Toluca, Ecatepec, Nezahualcóyotl, Naucalpan, Tlalnepantla, Cuautitlán Izcalli, Atizapán de Zaragoza and Chimalhuacán.

The data of the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System, focus on measuring the crime incidence based on the crimes recorded so that in that instance there is no information on the public perception of security. The mayor also highlighted an "increase of almost 15% in the state of the strength of the municipal police." This particular data could not be verified on any official website, nor was it referred to in any news portal this year, which also makes it unverifiable. In the aforementioned report, the mayor highlighted the increase of 101 patrols for the municipal police of Metepec. In this statement, in particular, it was found that, in effect, in February of this year, the Gamboa administration delivered 26 pick-up trucks, 25 cars, 25 motorcycles, and 25 ATVs, all of the patrol type.

On issues of transparency, the mayor said that in the town hall of Metepec there have been 30 ordinary sessions, 30 extraordinary sessions and a solemn session as far as its administration. In this regard, on the official website of the municipality of Metepec, the town hall sessions are organized in their own category. In this, a total of 61 sessions, 30 ordinary, 30 extraordinary and one solemn; of which a total of five sessions were open council. Gamboa placed much emphasis on his report on the assertion that Metepec was the first municipality in the country to have an Anti-Corruption System. Also on the page mentioned in the previous paragraph it was found that, at the fifteenth ordinary session, dated May 23 of this year, the president of the Coordinating Committee of the Anti-Corruption System of the State of Mexico and Municipalities, Palmira Tapia Palacios, a The mayor constancy to the town hall for being the first municipality in the country to constitute its Anti-Corruption System.

In this area, the mayor said that a “historical figure of 38,360 visits to the transparency portal was reached, which counteracts with 9,328 of 2018”. There is no visitor count on any portal page, so this figure also becomes unverifiable. Probably the figure comes from the internal metrics of the website to which only webmasters have access to the page.

Conclusions: On this particular issue, it is extremely difficult to give a homogeneous rating to the sayings of the municipal president of Metepec. Some of his assertions could be verified directly. However, the same came from data whose source is not available or even its source was not issued.

The most obvious example is the decrease in Metepec's perception of insecurity. The available metrics that are constrained to perception and not to incidence do not take Metepec as an important city. In fact, in 2014 the city council had requested INEGI to be taken into account.

As verifiers of the public discourse, we believe that what cannot be verified reflects opacity, both of the city council, and of some instances, either by pure omission or by dissemination of data that are not public.

Qualification: Considering that the sayings of the municipal president that could be verified were true, but also aware of many where not even a source was cited, Gaby Gamboa's work report is divided into INVERIFICABLE and TRUE.

Sources: Metepec City Hall. 1st Citizen Report. https://www.facebook.com/Ay AyuntamientoMetepec/videos/428754821364926/ Accessed December 5, 2019. H. Metepec City Council. Town Hall sessions. https://www.metepec.gob.mx/pagina/sesiones-de-cabildo Accessed December 5, 2019 INEGI. National Urban Public Security Survey (ENSU). https://www.inegi.org.mx/programas/ensu/ Accessed December 5, 2019. Flat major. Gabriela Gamboa delivers 101 patrols for the municipal police of Metepec. https://planamayor.com.mx/entrega-gabriela-gamboa-101-patrullas-para-la-policia-municipal-de-metepec/ Accessed December 5, 2019.