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Miguel Antonio Bernal, the maverick law professor, radio talk show host and political activist, has been private enemy number one for the University of Panama’s self-styled “Rector Magnifico” Gustavo García de Paredes for a long time, but particularly since Bernal called the rector and other university administrators for creating at least one false diploma for a “student leader” who supported the administration, one Humberto Alcázar. Bernal filed a criminal complaint about it last May and his former student, Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez, took the case under consideration.

Thereafter, university offices were barred to investigating prosecutors, documents went missing from university files and a series of explanations --- things like claims of an innocent clerical error that never actually resulted in a diploma being issued --- blew up in their maker’s face. Ultimately the rector’s own in-house investigation found that the university’s secretary general at the time deliberately falsified the degree and that the administration had blocked inquiries into several other suspicious diplomas, and then it was shown that the diploma’s beneficiary had indeed received papers that let him enroll in a private graduate school even though he lacked 12 classes needed to graduate. The university secretary general in question, Ónfala de De Bello, stepped down from that administrative post but was allowed to remain as a member of the business faculty.

Then the Rector Magnifico tried a bit of damage control.

He used the in-house university administration newspaper El Universitario to publish a panegyric about what a wonderful scholar he is. That article didn’t list García de Paredes’s scholarly publications --- an Internet search can only find reference to one thing that the rector has published, an introduction to a book about playing dominoes --- but rather the tale of how he received his undergraduate degree in Spain and one year later, his doctorate. That led to an inquiry by a retired professor, who noted that the doctoral program in question requires two years of classes, then the writing and defense of a dissertation.

With the Rector Magnifico’s own doctoral degree thus put into question, the next day’s response was a resolution by the University General Council to denounce Bernal as “persona non grata” on campus. (García de Paredes has still not explained the incongruities in his claimed academic qualifications, which is why Dr. Bernal now refers to the rector as “Mr.” rather than “Dr.”)

Third persons complained to the attorney general that the resolution was an attempt to intimidate those who would complain of public corruption, and urged her to pursue the false diploma investigation. Petitions were circulated on Bernal’s behalf.

Bernal also happens to be the president of the disciplinary board (Honor Tribunal) for the nation’s bar association (Colegio de Abogados). The rector got into a big public argument with the Colegio, which denounced him for his actions against Bernal.

The administration then went to talk to a faculty council meeting about its anti-Bernal resolution and was by an overwhelming majority forbidden to raise the subject.

Meanwhile the diploma scandal began to get international notoriety. The Council on Hemispheric Relations in Washington DC cited it as a stain on the Torrijos administration, which elicited a sharp letter of protest from Panamanian ambassador Federico Humbert. Universities abroad began to reconsider the value of a University of Panama degree for purposes of graduate school admissions.

Bernal, who told this reporter that he doesn’t expect to get the job but wants to use the opportunity to speak about issues he thinks are important, then applied for the soon to be vacant job of national Ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo), who is chosen for a five-year term by the legislature.

So the new university secretary general, Miguel Ángel Candanedo, sent a letter to the president of the National Assembly’s Human Rights Committee, Rogelio Paredes, reminding him of the University General Coucil’s “persona non grata” resolution. Initially it was reported that the PRD legislative caucus had taken that missive as an impugnation and stricken Bernal from the list of aspirants, but later Paredes said that this was not the case. The PRD deputy from Arraijan added that if someone wants to impugn a candidate he or she must attach proof of a disqualifying action to the complaint, which Candanedo did not do. He urged Bernal to keep his name in consideration for the post.

The next day Bernal filed another criminal complaint, this time against García de Paredes and Candanedo, alleging that their use of the “persona non grata” resolution amounted to several different crimes. He also filed a complaint with the Ombudsman’s office. But the Rector Magnifico protested that he knew nothing about his subordinate’s letter.

The following day the outgoing Ombudsman, Juan Antonio Tejada, weighed in with a resolution maintaining that the “persona non grata” resolution violated Bernal’s rights. Tejada is a member of the Partido Popular, a junior partner with the PRD in the Torrijos coalition.

Meanwhile Candanedo backtracked, claiming that his intention was not to impugn Bernal’s candidacy for Defensor del Pueblo, but just to inform the committee about the university administration’s opinion about the professor.

And to what effect?

The following day Ana Matilde Gómez announced that she would be referring the false diploma case to the anti-corruption prosecutor, so that it could be brought before the courts. A spokesman for the Public Ministry told El Panama America that it appears that a crime punishable by five years in prison has been committed, but that it will be up to a judge to determine precisely who is criminally liable and to what degree.

Meanwhile, the Rector Magnifico appeared to be losing support on other fronts.

He’s the president of the board of directors of the Interoceanic Regional Authority (ARI), which is slated to go out of business at the end of this year. Despite his repeated pleas to extend the life of the scandal-plagued authority that was set up to handle assets that Panama received under the 1977 Carter-Torrijos Treaties, President Torrijos has flatly rejected these requests and the assets over which García de Paredes has had a say will now pass to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Other university rectors have also moved to cut another of the Rector Magnifico’s powers, an apparently lucrative one: the Council of University Rectors is proposing legislation that would take away the University of Panama’s power to charter private institutions of higher learning. In recent years this legal right has been used to create some three dozen new “universities,” most of them lacking such basic amenities as libraries, for reasons that would only make sense if bribes were being paid for the chartering of diploma mills. The proposal would reduce the University of Panama’s control over the chartering and accreditation of new universities from absolute power to two votes out of more than a dozen.

As this issue of The Panama News was uploaded, the depth of the crisis at the University of Panama was highlighted in yet another way. Ornell Urriola, a history professor who’s retiring at the end of this school year, was nominated for the university’s “Educator of the Year” award by his department. However, Urriola explained in a letter to El Panama America that “”I couldn’t accept an homage from those who were complicit in the resolution against Miguel Antonio Bernal.”

What Panama’s courts or politicians might do next is unpredictable, but what we are seeing here is, in the wake of cover-up and intimidation strategies that have failed in a most spectacular fashion, is on the one hand a dropping away of political support upon which García de Paredes depends to maintain his powers, and on the other hand the rector distancing himself from actions taken on his behalf by subordinates. These are classic attributes of the breakdown of any criminal conspiracy, the loss of internal solidarity and the erosion of external toleration.