Endara and the bus drivers

I believe that I have a tenacious tendency to forget. However, recent declarations about transportation have either convinced me of this, or, miraculously, that I have recovered, or that a dark mantle of forgetfulness has touched minds that never suspected that they were deteriorating. For this reason I bring up a bit of memory about the subject of transportation when I was president.

In my presidency I didn't take any initiative about the subject of transportation. The matter was taken up from the start of my administration by an honorable legislator who was very concerned with transportation problems, and who in good faith put all of his best efforts and capabilities in bringing, once and for all, a solution to this situation. I refer, of course, to the well remembered Legislator Eliseo Álvarez (may he rest in peace), a distinguished member of the MOLIRENA party from San Miguelito, who presided over the National Assembly's Transportation Committee. A few days after the committee over which he presided was installed, he visited me at the Presidential Palace to inform me of his working plan. With an enthusiasm that stirred me, he told me of his grand project of a new Transportation Law that would solve a good part of the problems of which this economic sector was complaining. It happened, he advised with great sincerity, that a great many of the transportation problems had their origin in the fact that presidents of the republic had converted transportation into a big political pork barrel, especially in the issuance of the "cupos," which are now called certificates of operation. I must confess that I had heard of this origin of the transportation woes. Since then I have felt a great admiration for Eliseo Álvarez, and I promised him not to interfere with his plans in order to defend a presidential prerogative. From that moment I dedicated myself to supporting the effort that this magnificent legislator was making, even though the final result was a diminution of the president's powers. Legislator Álvarez continued to visit me, but nevertheless, I didn't know in detail the contents of the proposal.

Almost weekly in the communications media there appeared news of the great conflicts between the president of the Transportation Committee and the bus owner-drivers. These debates and struggles lasted several years, and when everything was ready for the approval of the proposed law, the bus drivers decided that the day after the law was approved they would hold a demonstration at the Presidential Palace to force me to veto the law, under the threat that they would declare a strike. In that epoch, like now, the bus drivers maintain that a strike by them could bring down any government.

They say that "in a prudent war no soldier dies." Thus, I asked the president of the Assembly, at that time Honorable Legislator Lucas Zarak, to quickly sign the law and send it to me without delay. I had the minister of government ready, and the two of us signed immediately. Then I asked the minister of the presidency to publish it in the Gaceta Oficial the following day.

When the demonstration came, I received them with a copy of the Gaceta Oficial, informing them that the proposed law that they wanted me to veto was now the law of the republic. The bus drivers went out on strike, which was a great failure. I think this strike was handled with great skill, only because I received the support of the citizenry, who decided to repudiate the bus drivers and look for diverse other ways to get to work. The details of the way the strike was managed are very interesting, but I do not divulge them because I have the feeling that I will come back to confront these transportation mafiosi again and use the same or similar tactics.

This strike was a monstrous failure and I at no time negotiated with the bus drivers because I didn't have anything to negotiate. I don't know where my journalist friend Fernando Fernández got it that I had accepted everything that the strikers asked of me. Fernando, please read: I HAD NOTHING TO NEGOTIATE.

In the end it was Honorable Legislator Lucas Zarak , who as president of the assembly received them, and they signed a document without any effect, so that the bus drivers wouldn't go away so shamed.

Well now, the great disillusionment of all this struggle was that the law was presented to me as a panacea to solve the transportation problem when in reality it didn't even tickle and the situation, far from being solved, got worse.

This time "once and for all." I'm very convinced that the transport system in Panama is the worst that could be conceived. There is no possibility of putting it in order through negotiations. It has been demonstrated a thousand times that it's impossible for the bus drivers to comply with any commitment. They are simply not structured to be able to comply with whatever the arrangement might be.

I don't do this to annoy the bus drivers, but to do justice for the users who have never been their "customers," but their victims. I feel that I owe the users a rematch for the great struggle they waged the last time just for fun. Now I believe they know that they're going to fight to win and do away with the transportation regime, which is something of a feudal throwback, in which the feudal lord was within his fiefdom the owner and lord of all human beings, who were considered serfs bound to the land. If you have any curiosity about history, look up the feudal regime that held sway in many parts of Europe during the darkest epochs of the Middle Ages and you will see bus driver bosses in the same light as the feudal lords, and see our people as serfs.

Editor's note: This column was written by former President and presidential candidate Endara as a response to President Moscoso's criticism of his pledge to reform the public transportation system. Moscoso said that Endara didn't do anything about the problem when he was president.

Also in this section:
Endara, Taking on the bus bosses
RSF, Panamanian journalists unfairly convicted
Khan, Toward a regional tourist security network
Weisbrot, Argentina and the IMF again
White, What news is old?
Jackson, Land invasions

opinion

Reminiscences of the transportation problem