Sentinel was wrong to print Rosselló column

With all due respect to the Orlando Sentinel, I question their choice to publish a guest column on the coronavirus pandemic written by disgraced former Puerto Rican governor Ricardo Rosselló (“Containing next wave of virus,” May 3).

As one of the Florida volunteer leaders who helped direct relief efforts to Puerto Rico after Hurricane María, I experienced first-hand as Rossello made it impossible for aid to reach the neediest on the island.

Not only was this blatant mismanagement covered extensively in Puerto Rican and national media, it appeared on the very pages of the Orlando Sentinel, which found in February of 2018 how relief goods were left to rot in Orlando offices leased by Rossello’s administration. As these actions undoubtedly cost lives then, I find his advice on how to save lives now empty and offensive.

The Orlando Sentinel, on the other hand, published his opinion without caveat, giving credibility to Rosselló’s words by noting he has various degrees and was governor during the public health crisis that followed Hurricane María. How credible are words of a man whose incompetence left many to perish from preventable medical emergencies? How credible should someone who is personally callous towards the dead as Rosselló was revealed to be, when leaked chat logs showed him joking with friends about how bodies were overwhelming Puerto Rico’s morgues after Hurricane Maria?

While Rosselló might hold several medical degrees, his demonstrated incompetence during a public health crisis should make him uniquely unqualified to comment on the pandemic, or almost any other topic. It’s a shame the Sentinel has chosen to discredit its pages by giving him one more inch of newsprint.

Eleazar Meléndez Miami