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editorial

Time for Gustavo García de Paredes to step down as rector

A critical part of any nation’s development is its intellectual progress, one important aspect of which is the state of its academic institutions. This is not a quibbling point for specialists in ivory towers, but a matter of crucial significance for an entire society. Woe to the society whose accountants can’t keep orderly records, whose architects can’t design solid structures, whose cooks and construction workers can’t multiply or divide, whose voters can’t understand what they read.

The standards upheld or ignored in this country’s schools are and properly should be matters of public policy in which everybody in Panama --- citizen and non-citizen, natural person and legal entity --- has a vital interest. That interest is even greater when it comes to the University of Panama because the citizens of this country own that institution.

What does it mean when one Ónfala de De Bello, a professor with the University of Panama’s faculty of business administration and accounting, has been found by clear proofs cited by a commission headed by the law school’s dean to have deliberately falsified a university diploma and to have subsequently lied to her peers about the circumstances of that crime, and yet is allowed to remain a member of the University of Panama faculty?

It means an endorsement by one of our great public institutions of fraud and falsification of records as acceptable practices in this nation’s economic life. It amounts to a clear warning to investors both Panamanian and foreign that they should not risk their money on the development of this country.

The ongoing false diploma scandal has centered around the case of one Humberto Alcázar, who with de De Bello’s connivance obtained an accounting degree without having taken the necessary courses and then --- contrary to the assurances by the administration that the diploma was never issued --- used his fake degree to enroll as a graduate student at a private university. To make matters worse, the commission appointed by the rector himself demanded to see the records of four other persons for whom diplomas were prepared, two of whom had unquestionably been issued these documents, because the validity of those degrees was also under suspicion. The university administration refused to divulge this information to its own investigators, alleging that this would be a breach of privacy. And what does this mean?

It means inherent corruption in our public institutions that tends to overflow into private businesses, as such a lack of transparency in government always does. This, too, is a warning flag to investors and thus an impediment to Panama’s economic development.

The rector’s commission’s investigation is not the only probe into this affair. Responding to a complaint by law professor Miguel Antonio Bernal, the Public Ministry has undertaken a criminal investigation. This prosecutors’ probe has been hampered first by the closure to them of university offices where important records were kept, and then by the discovery that documents had been removed from university files. Moreover, the criminal investigation has been obstructed by a climate of intimidation created by Gustavo García de Paredes himself, who in retaliation for the growing scandal around him has initiated two more in-house university probes, one to identify and punish the person or persons within the administration who alerted anti-corruption activists and the press to the fraudulent Alcázar diploma and one to review the legitimacy of Bernal’s academic credentials. And what does this mean?

It means a betrayal of the public trust, a flouting by the rector --- who is a prominent member of President Torrijos’s Democratic Revolutionary Party --- of the “zero corruption” pledge on which last year’s election campaign was won. This, too, tells potential investors that notwithstanding the president’s promise corruption in this public institution at least is openly and sneeringly practiced, that the lives of those who complain about it will be made miserable, and at the bottom line that predation by public officials is an added tax they will have to pay if they decide to do business in Panama.

Whether or not one believes in Eastern religions, and whatever terminology one chooses to use to describe the phenomenon, the wheel of karma is ubiquitous and immutable. What goes around comes around. And so when the rector, ever the self-promoter, caused the publication in the University of Panama’s administration tabloid El Universitario a panegyric which states that García de Paredes obtained his licenciatura (the equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree) in 1962 and his doctorate in 1963, a retired professor raised the question of how one could legitimately acquire a doctorate in just one year, given that the doctoral program in question required two years of courses, followed by the writing, submission and successful defense of a dissertation. The response to this valid question came a day later and not from the rector himself, but from the General University Council that he controls. That body passed a resolution declaring Dr. Bernal “persona non grata” at the university. And what does that mean?

It means the University of Panama’s leadership is frivolous, which tells investors that the risk of opening a business that must depend on people educated at the university is high.

Let’s skip the philosophical, procedural, theoretical and political questions into which all discussions within or about academia are wont to be sidetracked. The plain truth of the matter is that what’s going on at the University of Panama is an intolerable impediment to the economic development of this country. Gustavo García de Paredes has made himself the symbol of institutionalized corruption at one of Panama’s most important public institutions. He must go, both from the administration and from the University of Panama altogether.

Bear in mind…

The first and most imperative necessity in war is money, for money means everything else --- men, guns, ammunition.

Ida Tarbell

When passions become masters, they become vices.

Blaise Pascal

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

Thomas Jefferson