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Bernal, The poverty makers

A factory that makes poor people

by Miguel Antonio Bernal

To insult the intelligence of the Panamanian people has become the favorite inclination of the president and his cabinet every time they give a response or make a statement about the national situation.

It is not the intention of this article to transcribe the chief executive’s declarations, but the anti-democratic, anti-popular and anti-national statements to which the government’s discourses and policies would subject us are ever more disturbing. To attempt to take advantage of such a grave social situation that’s the produce of unemployment, poverty and misery in order to increase our population’s capacity for abuse is not only a human rights violation, but it’s also a trampling of the people’s dignity.

The president and his collaborators must not forget that transgressions of the law by public servants will always be more serious, given that their mission is to stand up for the rights of society’s members and not exclusively for the highly personal interests of their own businesses and pocketbooks.

To disrespect the inviolability of the person, the autonomy of the person, the dignity of the person, has become a daily practice for this government in a special way, not only through its laws and policies, but also by way of its public relations and the sale day after day of an image paid for with the taxpayers’ money. Parodying Voltaire, the executive and his “team” have forgotten that all Panamanians can go to heaven on the road for which they yearn. The state paternalism which they attempt to impose upon us is totally opposed to the participatory democracy that these times require, and also forgets that good things, when imposed, cease to be good. It is fitting here to go back to the teaching of Savater: Tolerance is not that everything that others do looks good to someone: this is called imbecility, not tolerance. Tolerance is not that one does the same as the rest: this is called indifference. Tolerance is that someone, perceiving certain bad behaviors and ways of life, nevertheless understands that it’s better to live with things we don’t like than to live in a world of mirrors that reflect nothing more than our own faces all the time. Tolerance is to learn to live with things you don’t like.

The government team and almost all high-level appointed officials are giving demonstrations of great intolerance with their poses and actions. To attempt to use deception as a governmental policy, to take frequent trips as a way of mental escape, to evade their responsibilities, to promote and protect economic and social policies that bring only misery, unemployment and violence, as well as to avail themselves of extraordinary powers in order not to have a due process of debate and approval of regulations, are highly significant of the dark purposes which they have in mind for the country and its inhabitants.

The sole act of sponsoring the more than 30 percent hike in electric rates, when previously a series of tax measures that affect the family economy had been imposed, accompanied by the high price of fuel and a law eroding Seguro Social, places into evidence who are the ones who really want to make poor people and who are the ones who are prepared to get rich off the poverty that will go along with the rate increase. Ignoring the fact that in Panama four of every 10 people live in total poverty and more than 16 percent of the population live in extreme poverty, the chief executive and his team, aided by the judicial authorities and the legislature’s passivity, clear the way to sow the whirlwinds to follow.

It’s up to the people, as a matter of some urgency, to sooner rather than later set aside passive and indifferent attitudes and assume a watchful and decorous outlook in defense of their dignity, their freedom and their happiness.

The government and the power brokers who sustain it have now shown too much of what their intentions are, and these are very far from being able to be considered favorable or beneficial to the Panamanian people.

The governmental declarations in favor of a free trade agreement and the expansion of the canal are only one sign that these poverty makers have forgotten, if they ever learned in the first place, the teaching of Don Justo Arosemena: to be, above all, Panamanians.