The Republic of Panama's centennial year is something of a tourist event. Moreover, again this year many Europeans who would have gone to the Mediterranean are doing their cruises in the Caribbean instead, to Panama's benefit.
The little tourism boom is as it should be. Ye who hath drunk of the Chagres River --- you know. You who have never been here, why not come down and know first-hand? Panama has its perils, but on balance it's a wonderful place to visit. This year people are coming in droves not only on cruise ships but for Carnival, for the 50th Anniversary Ocean-to-Ocean Cayuco Race and other althletic events, for the fishing, surfing and eco-tourism, for the cultural scene, for the Festival of the Black Christ and especially for next November's centennial celebrations of Independence Day and Flag Day.
I look upon increased tourism with favorable eyes. This country needs jobs and tourists provide some of them.
However, The Panama News does not overlook bad news in order to attract a larger and less informed mix of tourists. We are a small, poor country with a weak economy in which tourism is one of the few bright spots. Of course we have our problems.
Without getting into screaming sensationalism about it, tales of noteworthy crimes, public corruption and illicit activities that affect the Panamanian economy make their way into The Panama News. Most often, they are noted in the Panama News Briefs or the Business & Economy Briefs. When the Panamanian police nab more than two tons of cocaine as they did the other day, you'd expect mention of something like that and you get it.
Coincidentally, for the third time in a little more than nine years since I moved back to Panama I was recently the victim of a street crime. It was a pickpocketing (or, rather, pickbasketing) that left the ego bruised, prompted thoughts of horrible revenge and cost me the price of a new cell phone. Consider that where I go and how I go there are factors that put me at greater risk than the average tourist takes. Still, as much as I can rationalize that I should have done this or shouldn't have done that, it feels like an awful violation. It feels like the times that I had my apartment broken into, or discovered my bicycles stolen, or got mugged for a backpack containing nothing of great value, when I was living in the Unites States.
But we don't do gory crime pictures here. Go to El Siglo or La Critica for those.
We just chronicle the lowlights and occasionally do a bit of reporting about one or another aspect of them.
Like in the photo taken in Panama City's Casco Viejo above, we try to show the good and the bad: the decrepit current state of affairs and the efforts to improve upon that; the problem and the promise.
This issue, which appears late due to an interruption of Internet service, has a larger than usual Travel section. We take you to the Casco Viejo, as shown above and herein. We take you to David on the bus. We take you to Boquete, my first foray there in too long.
The Dining section, too, is a bit larger this time. I did lunch at a couple of little places that are parts of Boquete's little restaurant boom and took a trip to Panama City's Mercado de Mariscos.
The Sports section features boxing in Colon. I can't in good conscience let that generally postive story go by without mentioning the problems created at the event by a very few jerks.
Are some of the things noted in this issue's Business & Economy section positive or negative developments?
There's the letter to the OECD by Minister of Economy and Finance Norberto Delgado, serving notice that Panama is pulling out of the tax haven blacklist talks. Basically the OECD granted several European jurisdictions exceptions to rules that it wants to impose on Panama and the Caribbean countries. Is it a matter of Panama standing up for its rights, or just another straw to grasp while riding the national banking and financial sector's long slide?
There's the tale of Panama's new accounting, wherein the Panama Canal budget gets commingled with the national government's budget, in order to permit deficit spending at twice the level allowed under the previous way of figuring things. The way it was done says mostly bad things about the opaque Moscoso administration, but an easing of deficit restrictions in hard economic times is a policy that many other countries have tried in similar circumstances. It's an avoidance of stern austerity measures now paid for by higher interest rates on the public debt in the future. It will probably not progress to extremes like hyperinflation because Panama uses the US dollar and can't print money to throw at the economy.
Is the Cerro Punta to Boquete road a good thing or a bad thing? There are two sides to the argument, one of which is reported upon in our News section and the other expounded upon in the Spanish Opinion section.
And what about the US military's return to Panama? Most people here applaud the work that US Army National Guard and Reserve units are doing in one of Panama's most poverty stricken places. My Opinion column and the Editorial touch on some of the stickier questions raised by the presence of American forces here.
I have my opinions on these things, and I'm realistic enough to know that some of my ideas are likely to turn out to have been wrong. I try to report the important stories straight up, publish an interesting mix of opinions and let you make your own judgments. Call it due respect.
But if you insist on my bottom line judgment, it goes like this: If you're somewhere else, particularly if it's somewhere that's cold, come to Panama this year. It will be great --- especially if you come well informed.
