Let me do a rewrite here --- the whole world may be watching the way that Panama's reputation is getting lower than low as the political class lives it up, but people who read this newspaper are watching what I write, and my first take on this front page was written when I had a fever, was tired and in a very foul mood. Such conditions affect one's writing.

The photo above is of a ray, which I took at the Galeta Island Marine Laboratory as it was looking up from an aquarium tank, maybe in hope of being fed.

It didn't see anyone from the Ministry of Education that day, even though the Smithsonian was opening a whale skeleton exhibit that our public school kids ought to see. As the world watches, our public schools are deteriorating and the ministry is only concerned with political patronage for MOLIRENA hacks and the Rosas family.

(This morning, that is, Monday the 13th, I expected my sister to drop by the office on her way from the Interior to Colon, sometime between 10 and 11 a.m. She arrived a little after noon, as she had to take a detour because students, teachers and parents were blocking the Pan-American Highway in La Chorrera because the utilities weren't working at their public school. I'm sure the ministry will find someone else to blame --- they always do.)

There are some ostensibly positive things that an observant world might catch. But even then....

We have the new "three-in-one" economic recovery plan, which the political and business classes agreed upon but which is opposed by the unions. Most of the money from the sale of state-owned enterprises during the previous administration will be used to pay down the national debt, and some worthy road and irrigation projects will be built. But then, the debt problem won't go away because our budget is way out of balance. Moreover, corruption has dogged the most worthy construction projects under this administration. And then part three of the scheme, the notion of financing certain other projects by selling off the rest of the real estate in the former Canal Zone, is awful urban planning and an absolute betrayal of the public trust, as the labor movement so rightfully claims.

Does Panama have reason to celebrate Donald Trump's announcement that next year's Miss Universe pageant will take place here? Well, it will bring in some needed business for the hotels and restaurants, and show off our country to a lot of visitors. The last time that the pageant came here, in 1986, Noriega was beginning to self-destruct and what Panama showed the rest of the world was not all that pretty. (And no, I don't give Mr. Trump high marks for culture and good taste, though I realize that a lot of people would disagree with me on that.)

At first glance, it might also seem positive that the legislature is considering legislation to make English the official second language of Panama. However, as the editor of the English-language paper I have done more to promote the learning of English in Panama than any member of the legislature, and I don't see any of the basic things that are needed to improve the level of English teaching or the skills of our translators and interpreters in the proposal. Moreover, I have two basic problems with the very idea of an official status for English here: first, it introduces an element of coercion in an Spanish-speaking country, while I find the carrot much more effective than the stick; and second, as the Crossroads of the World, we should be encouraging the learning of MANY different languages, including Panama's indigenous tongues. My educational philosophy is that every person educated in Panama must learn at least two languages, one of which must be Spanish.

Meanwhile, as the world watches and discriminates against Panamanian-flag ships because one of the Escalona clan is selling seamen's papers out of our consulate in Manila, sometimes to utterly unqualified individuals, Mireya defends the practice. The latest chapter in this sad saga is Vietnam's complaint that Escalona is pulling the scam on its citizens. The Foreign Ministry indignantly says that it won't even investigate the Vietnamese complaint. And so coast guards around the world do extra inspections on Panamanian-flag ships, and ship owners are switching away from Panamanian registry.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace is alleging that the Moscoso administration has been bribed by Japan to join the International Whaling Commission and take a pro-whaling stand. In Panama we have whales, but we don't have a whaling industry or a tradition of eating whale meat. We have an ecotourist industry that could bring in significant money from whale watchers, especially around Coiba Island, but that kind of thinking is too long-term for the Dade College interior decorating major.

Let's not use the word "birdbrain" --- we wouldn't want to insult our feathered friends. Along the Galeta Road, Mireya proposes to tear up some of the world's best birdwatching area to put in a parking lot.

And meanwhile, the police chiefs of Panama and Nicaragua are calling each other liars with respect to an arms smuggling scandal in which the governments of Nicaragua, Panama and Colombia, as well as private Israeli and Guatemalan concerns, have been implicated. The arms, according to the paperwork sold to the Panamanian police, have ended up in the hands of the ultra-vicious AUC death squads, who are this very moment conducting an offensive near the Panamanian border. We're already getting some of the spillover. Putting the scandal in the context of what we know about Mireya's actual (rather than claimed) policy with respect to Panama's involvement with Colombia's civil war is the subject of this issue's editorial.

Meanwhile, the former Enron exec who then went on to take care of Panama's policy toward deregulated industries has signed on with one of the companies with which he dealt in government. He says he knows nothing, the government says it knows nothing, but I know conflict of interest when I see it.

Our opinion section this time features my column on constitutional proposals and Willy Gutman's open letter to the president of Honduras. We have letters about race and other subjects.

The subject of race is a hot issue again in Panama, as it usually is not, at least not when compared to the highly polarized situation in the United States. The legislature passed, and the president signed, a very overdue law to ban racial discrimination by bars, restaurants and night clubs. El Panama America has denounced the law, arguing in an editorial befitting Der Sturmer that whites don't want to associate with blacks and that businesses that want to attract white customers should have the right to exclude blacks. (It was a bad week for El Panama America --- they ran two lead stories and several lesser ones about this alleged certificate of deposit worth billions of dollars in the name of one Manuel Antonio Noriega, and it all turned out to be a hoax.)

Even with this toned down rewriting, do I still sound too negative? I apologize. My intention is not to spread gloom and doom. But then, I do have to report the news, most of which isn't very good at the moment.

Anyway, along with the Galeta story, we have some good things to report in this issue, on the arts, community and cultural fronts. And though distribution is a hassle for our special print edition, I'm getting lots of requests for copies, so that's good news for this publication as well.

Let's hope that better times, and better news, are coming soon. It's getting downright tiresome watching the ongoing train of abuses.

Eric Jackson
the editor

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