Barrancabermeja residents protest amid Mayor's absence

In Barrancabermeja, community members, parents, and students held protests on August 12 to demand government action regarding the presence of homeless individuals near public schools. During these demonstrations, Mayor Jonathan Stivel Vásquez Gómez was absent from the city.

According to Decree 418, the mayor traveled to Bucaramanga for an unspecified “institutional agenda,” leaving the Secretary of Finance, Óscar Enrique Jaramillo Jiménez, in charge of the office. Critics have questioned the transparency of this move, noting that the decree did not specify the purpose of the trip or the entities involved, and was only made public a day after the absence began. This follows previous reports of the mayor appearing at a concert in Bucaramanga over a prior weekend.