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On March 1 President Martín Torrijos gave the customary address at the beginning of a new legislative session, taking the opportunity to defend his record in office and set out his aims for the coming months. "From putting our house in order, we pass to the phase of deepening the effort to set a new direction for the country," he said.

The president claimed to have used "the method of direct consultation with the people... to attack the country's principal problems: poverty, unemployment, social inequalities, the lack of public safety, the struggle against corruption and the need to reform national education." Admitting that some critics say that nothing has changed in Panama, the president argued that things are changing for the better, especially in the attitudes of people in the most impoverished communities.

Torrijos claimed a 14 percent reduction in unemployment, which economists say might be close to the truth only if making a living in the underground economy is counted as employment, which it traditionally has not been.

The president cited programs to build housing and schools, the construction a sewer and wastewater treatment system to clean Panama Bay, improvements in the quality of teaching in the public schools and increased health care outreach programs as projects that are now underway. He also noted a number of highway improvements and a plan to link Kuna Yala to the rest of the country by a road running from Carti to Los Llanos.

Torrijos promised more cops on motorcycles, more patrol cars and more raids on drug dealers.

He defended his use of the decree-making powers that were given to him during the time when the Legislative Assembly was in recess, calling his acts a "process of modernization that touches the deepest roots of public administration."

The president expressed confidence that a free trade agreement will be reached with the United States and that there will also be trade deals with Mexico, the European Union and the Central American countries.

He said that he awaits the recommendation of the Panama Canal Authority about a canal expansion project, and set as requirements for any plan that new dams that displace people in the Western Watershed  not be built and that the nation not take on new debts that will unduly burden the government.

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