opinion

The following are President Torrijos's October 18 remarks to the Fundacion para el Desarrollo de la Libertad Ciudadana, at a meeting held at Miraflores:


The place where we are obliges a preliminary reflection. This canal, before being fully Panamanian, was a permanent source of conflicts, and now can unite Panamanians of different types, with different ideas, with coincidences and divergences, but peacefully, far from the extremes of violence. We can come together in peace and in democracy, with equity and without exclusions.

The objective that we Panamanians have to reach, after having accomplished the conquest of the canal, is to be a decent country.

Esteemed friends:

My profound thanks to the Foundation for the Development of Citizens' Liberty for your invitation and I want to recognize today your efforts to have a free exchange of ideas and, very especially, for the tenacity you have shown so that transparency might rule in this country.

The essence of the better country that we all want is decency.

Nobody can build a building over termite-eaten pillars. To get ourselves trapped in this fate wouldn't resolve anything. What you have to do is remove those pillars, make others and put down new bases and foundations of ethical concrete and moral steel to build a new country upon them.

It is thus fitting for me to tell you, with full conscience and responsibility, that this will only be accomplished if we do it by ourselves: government and governed; in the public and the private sectors; in the institutions and the companies; with the poor and with the rich. Just one word by which we can all live together in this little territory.

To get to the bottom of this matter and not only to describe it, you have to go from words to the practice of political honesty and the practice of citizens' honesty.

It's natural that at the start of a new government there is an expectation to know explicitly what we think, and above all, that we are going to do this in the fields of transparency and, of course, of its diabolical antagonist, which is corruption.

I say diabolical because it denigrates human beings, it degrades them, and also weakens institutions, chases away investments, generates poverty, provokes more violence and criminality, undermines governability and puts democracy in peril.

You know where we stand on this subject, and that we identified it as Zero Corruption, and made it one of the central themes of the Patria Nueva electoral campaign.

More than a campaign sign it was and is a commitment, consistently and responsibly made, on our part. This promise of action has become, since September 1, a public policy of the government. And we are going to make it a national motto, with the participation of all sectors and organized groups in society.

So that we go on deepening democracy --- a path on which we all agree --- the first requisite is to get rid of corruption and fight its causes. Democracy and corruptions can't cohabitate in the same house.

It had to start with something, and thus my insistence on setting an example, which is not a rhetorical phrase. I refer to the necessity for leadership in government and leadership in society to restore lost confidence.

What sense would it make to go on evading or spinning this subject?

During recent years we have been breathing in an air of incredulity and lack of confidence. It has produced a sustained increase in the perception of corruption in the actions of the government and in the private sphere.

This deficit in public confidence has made perceptions turn into realities that are generally felt and condemned by society, in part because those who governed us weren't capable of confronting alleged acts of corruption when they were denounced.

Thus, the people not only lacked confidence but in a way morally judged and condemned the suspects. That's why there's such incredulity today. Moreover, this condemnation, this rejection, has extended to the institutions and to all who in one way or another dedicate ourselves to politics.

If we don't recognize the gravity of this harm, we won't be in a position to repair it. There was a social harm and we are faced with a paradox: in Panama it appears that impunity has been made the norm.

This impunity has also generated the legitimate social demand that now the citizens aren't going to go on tolerating, nor will they accept in the future, anything that approximates, resembles or might be confused with an act of corruption. This puts transparency on the front line of reparative action.

Now as a government we have taken the first steps:

In the first hour of our term we proceeded to repeal that executive decree that annulled the effectiveness of the Transparency Law, and ordered an audit of all institutions and programs of the prior administration, and we have let the competent authorities know about some irregularities that were found.

In this way, the Public Ministry, the Comptroller General of the Republic and the Judiciary can perform their functions as set forth in the constitution and the law. That is how the rule of law --- which we are obliged to preserve --- functions.

However great the clamor for justice --- in which I clearly share --- we can not and will not take it into our own hands, nor apply it according to anyone's wishes.

Let me clarify, so that no doubt will remain: on the subject of corruption, for me there can't be a rough draft and a new story.

The government's function, which we are going to fulfill with total rigor, is to bring to the attention of the competent authorities the facts that may constitute crimes, so they can proceed to investigations and the punishment of the guilty

And if there is a lack of confidence in these authorities the solution is to strengthen them, not to substitute arbitrary actions for them, no matter how justified it may appear.

The discretionary funds became a symbol of secrecy.

Now that's over --- the arbitrary discretion, the failure to submit accounts, all the suspicions around such funds --- because we have committed ourselves to periodically divulging their use.

We have committed ourselves with the creation of the National Anti-Corruption Transparency Council.

Today I want to announce that this week I will sign the executive decree that creates this council as a consultative and advisory entity of the executive branch, appointed by the president.

The subject of corruption must not be relegated to a third level office in a ministry: from now on it will attended to starting from the presidency itself, so that there is no doubt left about the importance to which this government assigns it.

I have asked an honest and experienced citizen, known to all of you, Cristóbal Arboleda, who accompanies me today, to assume the secretariat of this council.

Through the council we will broach in comprehensive manner the problem of corruption. I am convinced of the necessity to build an alliance with civil society to develop these policies. Thus I have sent instructions to the Ministry of the Presidency to invite the representative groups in society to join.

Also, the executive will approve, in this month of October, the Uniform Code of Ethics for all public servants without distinction as to rank in the hierarchy, which will be pressed into service in the different institutions of the central government, the autonomous and semi-autonomous entities, and also companies and corporations in which the state is the majority shareholder.

We have specified more than 40 kinds of conduct that will be regulated by this statute, which takes up the subjects of probity, transparency, nepotism and conflict of interests.

At the same time, you find the Ethical Training Program for public servants in execution. I believe we can reverse the situation and take back the vocation in government service, based on an ethical upgrade in the behavior of functionaries. The invitation is for all public servants to support, with integrity and rigor, the introduction of practices that are aimed at achieving a crucial objective: zero corruption in governmental institutions.

Also, in the first week of September, I instructed a team to work on a modification of the Law of Public Contracting, so that public acts are carried out with more transparency and to substantially reduce the time that the procedures now take for the state to acquire assets, and above all, to root out every temptation to subornation, bribery, hidden backers, rigged bidding processes.

During this legislative session we will send the Legislative Assembly, for its approval, the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, which will become part of our national legal order, on a par with the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption.

Both the National Anti-Corruption Transparency Council and the Code of Ethics, and we have indicated, take their inspiration in the terms of these two conventions.

At the beginning of next year, we will begin the modernization of the office of Comptroller General of the Republic. Its adaptation will serve to make this institution be more than an overseer, a guarantor of transparency. One that will have controls, but not to be an obstacle for the development and execution of the government's programs.

Along the fundamental axes of promotion, training and modernization, the government will push the National Program for Fomentation of Transparency.

It's a direct link between citizens and government. It's an effort directed at the national conscience, accompanied by a permanent campaign directed at parents, teachers and professors, children and youth, workers and entrepreneurs, professionals and the mass communications media.

That is to say, that it reaches out to every Panamanian, so that we can renew the moral principles and values that can radically change the ethical levels of the nation.

Using technological advances, Panama Digital will go out by electronic means to aim another blow at secrecy: all the information of the public entities, the information about bids, purchases and budgets, will be available to the citizenry.

It's a start and it's only one part: that of the government. I believe that society also has to put in its part. There will always be more left to do and we have to do it together to raise the morals and dignity of the country.

If we look deep down inside ourselves we can say that it's a problem with cultural roots, and thus, a problem for everybody.

Thus, in addition to the measures and actions that we take as a government, to our decisions to clean up public affairs, I also want to make you a proposal today.

Let's set out on the road to a common objective of defeating corruption, by way of a National Integrity Pact --- a pact by which government and society, now with the existence of the National Anti-Corruption Transparency Council, may begin to generate concerted actions to make the decent country a reality.

I invite everybody to put all the initiatives on the table, and above all the will to define serious actions that can be accomplished. I know that now there is no confidence in dialogues either --- I am proposing that we close a deal among everyone and that we carry it out.

As president of the republic, I ask you to participate, so that we can act together and be able to say: in Panama there is honesty, we are not and we don't want to be a territory where impunity thrives and the crooks are the heroes. We're much better than that. And we're going to be much better yet.

Thank you very much, again. I am confident that today we start down the road.



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