Facing the Truth

The other day I was handed a letter at my university. The envelope bore an official letterhead. The letter said that I had been granted the privilege of carrying the national flag at the head of the university’s delegation in the November 10 parade, in recognition of my academic performance. The news pleased me very much, for several reasons. First, for anyone from Los Santos it is an indescribable honor to carry the national flag on November 10, which is the most glorious day of the Heroica Villa de Los Santos. Second, I felt that recognition as a great encouragement to keep studying the heavy subjects of my degree with ever more determination, and also as a vindication within the institution, after my year’s absence to carry out independent research in physics.

I later learned that the President would be present at the parade that day. And that I, as the flag bearer of my delegation, would carry the nation’s emblem in front of the stand reserved for him and for the members of his Cabinet. It is customary in these parades that, on passing in front of the presidential balcony, the flag bearers of the delegations stop and face the President, slightly dipping the flag as a tribute to the high dignitaries present. I then pondered the virtues and good deeds that would make the President worthy of having the nation’s emblem dipped before him. And no matter how hard I tried, I found none. I then asked myself whether the President was truly Most Excellent. And it seemed to me that neither he nor his Cabinet are even good, much less excellent or most excellent.

From the very day I received the letter, I decided to take in one hand the reasons that moved me to face the members of the Cabinet, and in the other hand the reasons that moved me to turn my back on them, in order to compare them and decide what to do that day. For facing them I found no reason. On the other hand, I found many for turning my back on them.

The first reason for turning my back on them was their having decreed November 10 a working day in my country. Out of respect for the glorious day, the true date of Panama’s one and only First Cry of Independence from Spain, the 10th has traditionally been given as a holiday to all the inhabitants of the country, ever since the exact date of this momentous event was rediscovered in the Spanish archives. This year’s November 10 parade in my town was barely a shadow of the parades of previous years, as regards the number of schools and of visitors. And this is a direct consequence of this misguided measure of the Presidency.

The second reason for turning my back on them was their having done nothing to stop the mining project that threatened to destroy the ecological balance of the fertile and extremely valuable Tonosí Valley. And even more, their having sent members of the riot police (Doberman) from other provinces, drunk, to repress a group of us from Los Santos who were protesting peacefully in Quema; they threw tear gas at us without any act on our part that warranted it.

The third reason for turning my back on them was the budget cuts that the University of Panama and the Technological University of Panama have been suffering during these years. These cuts have reached the extreme this year. As a student of the Technological University, I see every day how my classmates lack books to study and the proper equipment to develop their abilities.

The fourth reason for turning my back on them was their having wasted so many millions of balboas from the State treasury on that August referendum, simply to satisfy the personal whim of a ruler who sought to be reelected. These millions are desperately needed in the country’s schools and hospitals, which are falling to pieces, without materials to work with.

The fifth reason for turning my back on them was their having changed, too abruptly and without consideration, the rules of the game for the producers of the interior of my country, who have not had time to adapt to Globalization and have been left empty-handed, not knowing what to do to survive: salt makers, tomato growers, and many other farm and livestock producers.

The sixth reason for turning my back on them was their having run, during these four long years, a government of the rich in a country of the poor, indulging in such luxuries as pharaonic trips with endless delegations of party hacks, and their having bought unnecessary helicopters and airplanes, luxuries that are being paid for by the malnourished children of my country.

The seventh reason for turning my back on them was that all the members of the Cabinet and of the Assembly, most of whom belong to the ruling party, raised their own salaries, instead of raising the salaries of the workers of my country, many of which are far below the minimum needed to eat properly from the basic food basket, much less to live with decency.

The eighth reason for turning my back on them was the President’s not having had the courage and the decency to accept the public challenge that Arias Calderón made to him on several occasions to reveal the origin of his fortune.

The ninth reason for turning my back on them was their having reinstated the Presidency’s secret account of 6 million balboas a year, an account that Guillermo Endara, an honest man, had eliminated as soon as he began his government, and that the current President brought back to life when he came to power.

The tenth reason for turning my back on them was the President’s having turned his back on my fellow university students from Colón, who were trying to deliver a letter to him in a civic and very respectful manner.

I think I could go on listing the reasons for turning my back on them for hours. What I cannot do is list the reasons for facing them, for I have found absolutely none. The mere fact that they hold high public office does not make them worthy of honors and tributes, for the title does not make the book, nor the label the medicine. Honesty is needed. Probity is needed. Virtue is needed. Love for the people is needed.

I decided, then, to turn my back on the President and his Cabinet during the November 10 parade in the Heroica Villa de Los Santos, and so I did. I had a great responsibility on my shoulders, for as a university student I am obliged to say what I think and what I feel, even if this does not please those who command the country. Thank God, we live in a democracy where civil rights are respected, and for this reason I know that my protest will be seen as the exercise of a citizen’s right, in a peaceful and orderly manner.

After my protest, the Cabinet authorities did not remain long in the stand. I heard it said that they had engagements, and I do not doubt that it was so. Although they would have behaved the same way if they feared that the delegations that followed would repeat the protest in an equally civic, orderly, and therefore irreproachable manner. It is natural that, being accustomed to receiving daily bows from their subjects, they are not very fond of receiving as a tribute the backs of the people of Los Santos.

I can tell you now that we people of Los Santos have too much history and too much dignity to bow in tribute before those who humiliate us and to submit to a yoke that, to top it all, is ridiculous compared with the one the people broke 177 years ago, spurred on by the rebel cry of a brave young woman named Rufina Alfaro. Now then, although the inhabitants of the Heroica Villa de Los Santos feel my act as their own, it must be made very clear that the responsibility is mine alone. The rejoicing, of course, belongs to everyone.