He has been waiting for years for a hip replacement and, no matter how many papers they present, it seems that he will have to continue waiting. He uses hearing aids and two canes, his family tucks him in for daily relief and happiness, and he moves as best he can with his strong body. Of course, when asked about his long period in the Portuense City Council, Pepín (Ramón Castilla Yanes)’s eyes light up, he elaborates on his memories and immediately gives advice, reinforcing his nickname of El Mariscal. What’s more, he even admits things that, in his time, would have cost him scares, such as that “if the management of Fiestas were done today as we did before (in dictatorship and democracy), we would all go to jail.”
Pepín welcomes us, along with his wife and one of his daughters, at his house on Las Cabezas Street. As soon as he enters his third-floor apartment, he proudly displays an office full of photos, plaques and other objects from his multifaceted time at the town hall, almost from the time when, as a child, he helped making floats until his retirement, after which he succeeded the taxes.
Born in 1940, his ancestry and decision-making weight was such that, just as he has numerous friends (“the old guards, many recovered since I retired”), he also recognizes that “a position like this creates enmities,” and even more so in a such a politicized municipality. He worked with numerous mayors and councilors in dictatorship and democracy. Asked if he has any predilection, he prefers caution and does not choose any stage, although he acknowledges that he conceives of the current mayor as “a son from living next door for a long time” and affirms that the best time of the holidays, especially during Carnival , it was with Paco Afonso (from 1979 to ’83), “when TVE seemed to have its headquarters here.”
After his daughter hands him a folder, Pepín proudly shows yellowed A3 pages from carnivals like those of 1976, 1985 and 1988 (they come out quite often) in which those unorthodox ways of controlling expenses today are evident. With names of volunteers on the left, tasks in the center and payments on the right, he defends, however, that before “the entire city council organized and there were no external companies today, which I believe was a mistake.”
In his opinion, and although he admits that the supervisory control of that time was not only not exemplary, but is the subject of denunciation today, he considers that the results in the festivals were, many times, better, although he regrets that Felipe González de Chaves “removed the Atlantic Festival because they said it was very expensive.”
Pepín believes that the Portuense Carnival, which once contracted with troupes such as Joroperos and others, lost weight due to the emergence of others in La Orotava, Los Realejos or Icod. For this reason, he considers that the ideal would be to move it to a week later, something that was already done the following Saturday in 2023 with evident success. Of course, what he has never understood is the summer event and he is clear that “the few people who participate” prove the error.
Likewise, and although he maintains that the July Festivals have maintained their success, he criticizes that “not even those from the town follow the procession as before when the boat returns.” Furthermore, he censures that the festivals are politicized and defends that “all the people do them. There have always been politicians who wanted to use them, but they are wrong.”
He also admits that the changes at Christmas amaze him when he compares them to his time. Of course, and although this year he did not see the parade, he received bad reviews, something that he angrily extends to the lighting “because they took me through Los Realejos and La Orotava and nothing to see.” In this sense, he does not know what happened for such a change, although he fears that it is for money.
Regarding the present and future of the city, he believes that it is experiencing a good economic and tourist period; he is enthusiastic about its cleanliness and, above all, about the gardens. However, he deeply criticizes the lost years with Parque San Francisco (“which I don’t even go through because it doesn’t bother me”) and the project, especially the walk between the church and the auditorium, “since it is only designed for 600 people when Its capacity should be much greater.”
Along these lines, it advocates another leisure space and parking in the old bus station and opts for a shopping center and multi-storey parking on the esplanade. He is so convinced of the potential of new parking spaces in such a thriving city, that he says that, if he had money and at another stage in his life, he would try to promote them because “they would immediately pay off.”
What he still has time for is to be aware that, with many friends and some enemies, he never went unnoticed or left almost anyone indifferent. Impossible if you are The Marshal.
