Gerardo Solís – he’s been good at looking the other way. Photo by the Contraloría General.

To whom the comptroller job goes…

…is likely to determine the president’s reputation and fate – even though, according to Panama’s constitution it’s not his decision.

Nito Cortizo is and was a much better person than the leading lights of the National Assembly during his administration. But a thuggish legislature had its enabler in the Contralor General post, and the guy very rarely saw anything amiss in the course of a record-setting looting binge against the public trust.

This new and more fragmented legislature has some different faces in some of the posts, but well known and objectionable faces in the most important posts. Indications are that they will continue with what we have had into the indefinite future if they can. The creditors of the national debt would be one controlling factor, but woe to Panama if we put our fate in their hands.

We need a new constitution, which rather than a display of “depoliticization” of the comptroller general’s job, makes it elected and accountable. And which gives us more accountable elected officials by having more frequent and staggered elections, so that important posts other than the presidency that tend to be afterthoughts become the subjects of scrutiny and debates.

Not the sort of newsroom for aggressive young men.

Easy does it

Up to a point, anyway.

A smoke-filled, stressful workplace? That would be a traditional newsroom, and studies a few years back at Harvard and Stanford showed that second-hand smoke and high stress in workplaces are about equally harmful to affected working people’s health.

Is it any wonder why, after the work-at-home movement during the height of the COVID epidemic, around the world and in many professions people are resisting back-to-the-office orders from their bosses?

It’s not that there are no stresses in a more serene, less populous home setting, nor that people working in such places never set up health hazards of their very own. But living ande working where you can treat a neighbor’s horse with a star apple from the tree in your back yard might just prolong your working life.

Alas, nobody lives forever, and once past the biblical three score and ten estimated lifespan aching joints and muscles tend to put a limit to how much work you can do on the most idyllic little farm. The editor has spent a few days on a much put-off clean-up, and even if he has hired other to do the machete work, the exertion has slowed down work on The Panama News. Sorry about that.

Are there lessons to be learned?

Well, not from any discussions with “I’ll monetize it for you” hustlers. But it’s only natural to think of continuity and succession for The Panama News.

The doctors say I’m not dying, but warn of high blood pressure and other factors to keep under control if my preference is to die later rather than sooner. I’d better heed.

Bear with me on this, yet another incidence of a late editorial page.

Maria Montessori depicted in a Marche Tourism Italian currency graphic.

Contact us by email at thepanamanews@gmail.com

To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

These links are interactive — click on the boxes