culture

Panama's bus art economy has been all but destroyed be a number of factors. Economic forces were already threatening the survival of the art when Mireya Moscoso decreed that city buses had to be color-coded by route. Then the Torrijos and Martinelli administrations pushed to get rid of the diablo rojo buses and replace them with corporate generic acultural vehicles --- "just like the Americans have," say those who don't understand or appreciate what's good and bad in US culture. Along with the reconditioned North American school buses, the artwork that turned them into diablo rojos has been disappearing from the streets.

The diablo rojo and the bus art associated with it do survive in certain pockets, like the buses that run between the city and the bedroom communities of Panama Oeste, in Colon and in a few other places. There may come a new day and a new government that will do its best to paint over Ricardo Martinelli's legacy of cultural vandalism and corporate tastelessness by turning a new generation of bus artists loose on the Metro buses. That day, however, is not yet in sight.

Photo by Eric Jackson