Opinion

Bernal, Now’s the time

January 8, 2018

¡muere!

Now is when!

by Miguel Antonio Bernal

The youngsters of the heroic deed of January 9, 1964 knew to take action at the right time. They didn’t vacillate, they did not hesitate, nor were they intimidated, nor did they hide, much less did they split, in their show of indignation at their country torn, trampled, tainted and outraged by foreign boots.

Today there are those who are interested in us forgetting the early hours of the evening of January 9, 1964, which forever marked – as a nation without distinction – the Panamanians. The aggression hurt, but it also united.

The blood, the sweat and the tears that were shed then have not been and cannot be forgotten. Thus the memory of Ascanio Arosemena, Maritza Avila Alabrca, Luis Bonilla, José del Cid Cobos, Teófilo Belisario de la Torre, Gonzalo A. France, Victor M. Garibaldo, Jose Enrique Gil, Ezequiel Meneses Gonzalez, Victor M. Iglesias, Rosa Elena Landecho, Carlos Renato Lara, Evilio Lara, Gustavo Lara, Ricardo Murgas Villamonte, Alberto Nichols Constance, Estanislao Orobio W., Jacinto Palacios Cobos, Ovidio L. Saldaña, Rodolfo Sanchez Benitez, Alberto Oriol Tejada and Celestino Villarreta is today tainted by those who steal our present, promoting social, economic and cultural inequality, in order to stay in power and make us accomplices of a system that lives by and for corruption with impunity.

To commemorate another anniversary of the Day of the Martyrs, now is when we must take those actions that will help us to change the country. Not to continue as spectators beholding the daily robbery or our wealth, of our hopes, of our dreams to have honest governments, transparent and accountable authorities, who do not destroy the environment, who do not sow hatred and resentment.

We must revive the indignation and with it our values. Therefore we must go tomorrow, Tuesday the 9th at 9 in the morning, to the Cinta Costera so that our martyrs know, that now is the time when their presence is reborn. Now is the time to repudiate the Ali Babas, and give them civil death for their pretensions.