opinion

Plea to the president about Law 132

by Ezequiel Miranda

In the name of the Association for the Conservation of the Biosphere, an organization whose field of action is the country’s western region, we imperatively request that you DO NOT SIGN the Law 132 which sells or concedes our insular and coastal heritage.

We make this request based upon the following points that we consider harmful in this law:

This law is drafted with many errors of form and substance, which if converted into a legal document would be yet more dangerous for the national interests which it attempts to promote.

No economic or financial study was done which demonstrates the advantages or good points of this law. In fact the exposition of motives is totally superfluous, improvised and opportunist. It totally lacks figures for amounts of investment, number of beneficiaries, number of coastal and island residents affected, probable number of people to be displaces, number of indemnities to be paid, etc.

There are no data about the current conditions of any coast or island that could be declared of tourism interest. In fact it could be any coast or island in this country. The law would have to be defined based on a study of their potentials, which hasn’t been done. Nor do we know what role the master tourism plans that have been done will play.

It doesn’t guarantee land to historical or indigenous residents who have always traditionally held under the principal of collective land use. Nor does it guarantee to the rest of Panamanians that insular and coastal systems won’t be destroyed. In other words, this law doesn’t protect the interests of the rest of the Panamanian community that doesn’t live on the coasts or islands.

This law was not considered or evaluated by the National Consultative Commission on the Environment, nor by any other similar regional group.

This law is unknown and wasn’t broadly discussed as the National Assembly’s Treasury Committee argued, given that in Chiriqui, which has enormous mangrove systems, archipelagos and many sandy beaches this law was not debated, nor was there any practical way to participate in the debate on this law. Nor in Veraguas province, which also has rich and beautiful beaches and islands, was this law debated.

Nor was it widely debated in Bocas del Toro, in Colon, in the Kuna Yala and Ngobe-Bugle comarcas or in the Perlas Archipelago, despite these areas being directly affected by the impact of this law.

It’s based on the violation of constitutional principles, because it gives many advantages, immunities and privileges to “investors,” while on the contrary residents without economic capital must comply with a series of requisites.

This law denies the rights of the older generation under the excuse of tourism development for development. The worst thing a country could do is to deny the rights of senior citizens using economic excuses.

This law includes or deceptively classifies activities that are NOT tourism as if they were, in that it includes the sale of lots, construction of residences and other real estate activities in order to appropriate lands and moreover to leave them exempt from taxes under the Tourism Investment Incentives Law.

This law puts the national security at risk, insofar as islands that have been alienated or conceded can be used to carry out illicit activities of diverse natures. Even without this law, shady activities are taking place on various archipelagoes of this country.

It strips the Maritime Authority of Panama and the Panamanian Tourism Institute of their jurisdictions and leaves the Ministry of Economy and Finance to be the judge and party in the adjudications and oversight of projects that are developed here. What does the country gain from this?

Finally, there are many points that invalidate this law, which make it unsuitable and harmful to the national interest. For this reason we leave you reiterating our request that you DO NOT sign Law 132, which was recently approved in third debate but without due transparency in the National Assembly.