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...doesn’t everybody?

Of course, it would be naive to think that everybody wants justice. But “justice,” just like “progress” and “freedom” --- and for that matter “communism” or “Christianity” --- is one of those terms whose meaning is bitterly disputed. What struck me as a police riot in one instance and some protesters’ inexcusable attack on some individuals and their personal right to freedom of the press in others will (and did) elicit “serves them right” reactions from people who don’t share my notions of justice.

As these words were written a far less than general strike continued in the public education, public health care and construction sectors and much of this issue is dedicated to the dispute from whence the strike, protests and street violence arose.

You can read President Torrijos’s defense of the new Social Security law, which concludes with what I expect will be the forlorn hope that the issue will behind him now. Notice that during the midst of the turmoil La Prensa commissioned a poll by Dichter & Neira (the Latin American affiliate of the Harris polling organization), but that PRD-aligned newspaper conveniently didn’t ask about Torrijos’s approval rating. I suspect that when the next credible polls emerge, we will see that the president has little public support beyond the one-third or so of the Panamanian people who support his party in all circumstances.

Also in the opinion section, you can read the defiant response to the president’s signing of the new law by some of his most fervent antagonists, the leftist November 29 National Liberation Movement. Miguel Antonio Bernal gives his opinion on the police actions in front of the legislature on May 25, wherein this reporter got tear gassed and had a shotgun pointed at him, and journalist Omar Batista was one of several people wounded with birdshot. (But if your sense of justice is to take President Torrijos and National Police Chief Pérez’s word for it, we all deserved it.) Also about the Seguro Social issue, Raúl Leis takes a dim view of of the way that the tradition of jamming unpopular legislation through the assembly in the middle of the night lives on.

The law is now a fact, but the argument is not over. The labor unions whose general strike call was heeded by only a minority of working people have called for a general boycott of the national lottery and other luxuries that generate revenue for the government and it seems that the street blockades and occasional violent confrontations around them are not yet over. Plus over the past few days it seems that members of the PRD-Partido Popular political patronage machine have been on their very worst behavior, from running down or shooting labor pickets in several instances to selling cocaine by the kilo out of a National Assembly vehicle in another.

Meanwhile, a lot of other things have been and are happening in the news.

For example, those who surf, or who have surfed, near the mouth of the Rio Teta in San Carlos might take an interest in our outdoors section, whose lead story is about a hydroelectric project under construction upstream. Those who run small businesses that aren't too small to pay Panama's sales and service taxes may be interested in an interpretation that Deloitte Touche reports in our business section. The Afro-Panamanian community in New York recently celebrated Panama's Day of the Black Ethnicity. Jazzman Danilo Pérez paid tribute to the late singer Barbara Wilson at the Take Five and Panama's best opera singers performed Rossini. Just as this pathetic university administration wish list was set to go before the legislature, scandal has beset the University of Panama.

And if all this is an information overload, you can just sit back and enjoy Panama's unique sunrises and sunsets.

Enjoy.

Eric Jackson
the editor

PS: Because our new student intern, some of our frequent contributors and I have all been out covering the tumultuous events of recent days, this issue is running late even with the extra help. But bear with us. Most of this issue is done and everything else should be uploaded by sometime Monday or Tuesday.