Vilaplana had already rejected Mazón's offer to head À Punt two weeks before the lunch at El Ventorro.

BarcelonaThe management of À Punt. That was the reason given by both Carlos Mazón and Maribel Vilaplana's entourage to justify their controversial lunch at El Ventorro. A meal that wasn't confirmed until ten days later. The journalist asked the Valencian president to keep quiet about who she had lunch with, and he did so until the media made it public. She didn't want to be implicated in a tragedy she knew nothing about. Therefore, a compelling reason had to be given for a lunch that lasted almost four hours. But Mazón had already extended that offer two weeks earlier. Specifically, on October 11, eighteen days before the DANA storm, as ARA has been able to confirm and as it had already pointed out. Eldiario.es

It was a chance encounter at La Raspa restaurant, run by Pedro García, the former director of Canal 9. Vilaplana was there with a friend and ran into Mazón, who was dining with his chief of staff, José Manuel Cuenca, and other members of his inner circle. At this establishment, just 800 meters from El Ventorro, one of the Valencian president's favorite haunts before the devastating floods, Mazón invited Vilaplana to sit with them and offered her the position of director of the regional television channel. Her refusal was absolute. "What did you say to him?" people close to her asked when she told them. "Obviously, no," she replied.

According to those close to her, Vilaplana hasn't forgotten that the People's Party (PP) let the Valencian public television die and finally closed it in 2013, laying off more than 1,200 employees. And all the more reason to remember, because she was... one of the most recognizable faces on Channel 9 After presenting the news for almost fifteen years, her career as a journalist was cut short by the station's closure. In fact, on Canal 9's final broadcast, Vilaplana uttered a now-famous phrase after years of censorship that Alberto Fabra's People's Party (PP) would never forgive: "Today we can talk." With the memory of the closure still fresh, and after redirecting her professional career to a communications company, she declined the offer. Sources familiar with the situation insist to ARA that Vilaplana has moved on from that period and in no way wants to be associated with the PP again, especially after being linked to the journalists who helped secure the party's absolute majority by downplaying, for example, the fallout from the Line 2 metro accident. She also didn't feel prepared to take on the role, given her lack of prior experience managing a media outlet. But that wasn't the reason she rejected the offer. Nor was it an economic issue, although the salary of the director of RTVV doesn't even reach 60,000 euros, half of what the head of the Catalan Audiovisual Media Corporation earns. The company Bencomunicats, from Vilaplana, billed 100,000 euros in the last fiscal year.

A free meal

Vilaplana's decision, therefore, was firm, and thus the lunch they later had at El Ventorro was unnecessary, according to the ARA's reconstruction. But the fact of "being in the worst place, at the worst time, and with the worst person" on the day of the storm, asshe admitted during her statement in court, through tearsThis made her remember that they would say she had been offered the directorship of the Valencian television network. This is the version that Vilaplana also gave through an authorized source when she spoke to the media for the first time on November 21, 2024, almost a month after the storm. This source stated that, indeed, she had been offered the directorship of the regional channel, but that she rejected it and that this was "the first and only time it was proposed to her."

The source also stated that they had not had any previous private meetings and that they had only coincided at public events, including a gala that she herself hosted two weeks earlier at the Valencia Conference Centre. It was at that event, on October 14, that Mazón said from the stage: "You know that in Valencia there are two kinds of galas: those hosted by Maribel Vilaplana and the others." Later, during refreshments, Mazón suggested they meet to discuss some projects, and she accepted because, according to those close to her, no one says no to a president, and also because she didn't expect it to be about À Punt again. The meeting would be the famous lunch at El Ventorro.

The open letter

Almost a year after the storm, Vilaplana broke his silence. And he did so to say that the meal had lasted an hour longer than initially reported. However, that open letter Nor did she say that Mazón had offered her the directorship of À Punt. "I went to this meeting at the president's request, with the aim of exploring possible avenues for professional collaboration. During the conversation, several options were presented to me, including applying for a position at the regional television station, which I clearly rejected due to personal and professional convictions," she explained.

In this way, the journalist downplayed the position offered to her by the head of the Council. And in court, when she testified, she also didn't say that she had been offered the directorship, but simply a "position of responsibility." In any case, Vilaplana's response was the same as two weeks earlier, because in their first conversation she had already made it clear that she would not be joining À Punt. Vilaplana's refusal, therefore, was irrevocable. This is demonstrated by the fact that the lunch became more of a communication course for the Valencian president than a negotiation to try to convince her, according to knowledgeable sources, who also emphasize that Mazón didn't insist because he knew she wouldn't consider it. According to these sources, the lunch and the conversation afterward were a communication consulting session in which Vilaplana, oblivious to everything happening outside because she wasn't checking her phone—unlike the president, who did answer some calls and messages—advised him on public speaking, her specialty, and recommended, among other things, that he speak more in [a specific context/form]. Mazón, despite the difficult situation the Valencian Community was going through, did not cancel the lunch.

The lies surrounding that meeting have been constant from the beginning. Beyond hiding who he had lunch with, at first Mazón simply said it was a "private" lunch, but later said it was a "working lunch," without specifying what it was, to justify that he was working. This "working lunch" was not on his agenda, which was blank after the midday meeting with unions and business leaders. The fact is that when the opposition asked him for the receipt, which he still hasn't provided more than a year later, he said he attended the lunch as leader of the Valencian PP, not as president.