Last weekend was bizarre in the sense that it goes to show how much we as Panamanians depend on alcohol to have a good time. There was a dry law put in place on a nation-wide scale from Saturday at 12 noon and it was lifted about an hour or so ago as of this writing (Monday at noon) and Saturday felt like a Sunday since no one was out on the streets and the city was dead quiet all across the board… I decided to go out for a drive to see Calle Uruguay deserted on a Saturday night and it was glorious; everything was closed, all of the clubs, all of the bars… every establishment that depended on people’s vices to survive did not open their doors that night. I bet the people who live in the vicinity thought Hell had frozen over… it was that drastic. I went all over the place and it was like time had been displaced all over; it felt to me like it was a Sunday night, a little bit past 8PM when in reality it was Saturday getting to midnight… took that to my advantage and listened to some new tunes I burned onto a CD. Sunday itself was, ironically, even more uneventful; Panama has been a democratic country for 16 years but if there’s something we’ve managed to do right is to create an election process that’s envied by most due to it’s simple and *gasp!* transparent nature… my voting spot is right down the street from where I live, a good 500m distance from the front gate to this primary school that’s been there for as long as I can remember; once I was trying to woo this girl that was attending 6th grade there but since I was a shy little geek then I failed miserably… she was cute; long, straight brunette hair and the only girl I can remember who I liked in braces… yeah, look, I dunno. I was young. 2 years prior this was the place where I stated my opinion about who should be the next president of my country and in many respects this scenario was the same one, albeit this time there not being even half the people that attended the last time around. If I’m not mistaken there have been 3 referendums in Panama’s democratic history: in 1990, President Guillermo Endara left it up to us to decide whether the constitution should be tweaked in several respects, all of them which escape me at the moment but I’m sure you can Google if you’re interested, and the country told him “No.” 1998 rolls around and President Ernesto Pérez Balladares wanted to run for a second term, so he left it to the Panamanian crowd to decide… they told him a bigger, fatter “No.” This time the fate of the Canal was at stake and the population had the final say about whether it should be expanded or not… only 16 years as a democratic country… politically in its teens, and they’re asked to make the decision that could make or break the most symbollic representation of the country in the eyes of the world.

We’re still not using electronic ballots and I think that’s for the best in many ways; sure, I was told that we’ll pass on to the more automatized option for the next presidential elections but something tells me that for the time-being we’re better off with the old-school approach of the good old pen and paper. It looks like no one bothered to take a picture of the ballot itself so I’ll try my best to describe it for y’all: a small, probably 6 x 6 inch piece of paper with one side sporting the signatures of both officials, custodians of the voting room, and on the other side, the money: one half of the paper was red, and the other was green. The question? Simple: “do you approve of the 3rd set of locks planned for the Panama Canal?” Left side was a big “SÍ” with a box next to it, while on the red there was a “NO.” The process took about 2 minutes or so since there weren’t any lines at all: it’s a validated tendency that a lot of people don’t care for referendums as much as they care about the big presidential elections. Figures: nobody realizes that if they’re asking you to step in and make your voice heard, it must be a pretty big fucking deal. We all know how the government operates, no matter what political party they come from: they all steal and do stuff behind our backs, so why in the hell would they go out of their way to ask us what we think? Of course, one of the main reasons is because the law demands them to, and if there’s one thing I’ve noticed from all of the recent elections that have been going down, is that nobody messes around with the Electoral Tribunal. Out of all of the government branches out there (and there are plentiful) I think that the least corrupt is them… perhaps not because they don’t want to, but because they’re kind of in a compromising position that, if they even tried, they’d be hanged, beat up and burned to the cross. I like that, though: the government could be a rotten apple but at least there’s some good in there, and we’re lucky that it’s where it really counts, where we have an active role in regards to the proceedings. Panamanians don’t realize this I think, but our voting system is one of the best (if not THE best) in the entire world, definitely in Latin America. Voting started at 7AM and was over at 4PM; by 5:30PM the Tribunal could give out an extra-official assessment of the results, giving the “Yes” a landslide victory with 80% of the vote. The official announcement should be ready by Tuesday or Wednesday… if you want to follow the deal or see the number for yourself, the Electoral Tribunal has a very informative site where you can see the results on a nationwide and province-wide scale. only 40% of the registered population went out there and voted. 40%. Really, do people seriously not care that much about what’s theirs?

Look, if you’ve come in here enough you might or might not have noticed that my patriotism in a little unconventional. Fine: if I had been one of the 60% that didn’t voted then you’d have the right to send this “ugly american” back to his country but for the love of Marley, this “ugly american” got up at 6Am on a fucking Sunday and trolled his ass to his voting spot and made my voice heard. My vote and the reasons why I voted the way I did are irrelevant and I’ll tell you why;politics brings out the nasty in people. Just like religion, politics is the blind belief in something that for the most part doesn’t exist anymore beyond what you yourself have cut it out to be, in your heart. Hell, I love political debate, it’s exciting but most of the time it’s a very dangerous tight rope that you can only dance around with with people mature and sovereign enough that will not feel threatened by an opinion that’s different than their own. You have politics in your country, I’m sure: how far would you go for the political party you believe in? These people are gods on earth… we give them the power to do whatever they want; the more we believe in them, the more they can do. It’s not a big surprise that the current president is a member of the country’s biggest political party with over 400,000 subscribers just as much as it isn’t a surprise that said political party has the majority of the vote in the senate… whatever the political party their church, says is what goes. That’s why a lot of people would take a political angle with this whole referendum thing, and with good reason: the government did a piss-poor job in hiding their intentions about what they wanted to do with the Panama Canal, but of course they’re in their right (somewhat) to state their opinions on the country’s issues because aside from them being politicians they’re also “regular people” like you and me… the only difference is that the power they have is much stronger the one we possess… we put them in office with our vote and when they’re up there, in the veil of being “the voice of the people” they do whatever they and their political party needs to amass more power; we have the original fire, which in theory should be the strongest of them all but instead we’re told when we can use it, as it was expressed this past Sunday. Every 4 or 5 years when the elections come around some monkey in a suit will promise the Panamanian people the moon and the stars and they will buy into it because we’re in our democratic teens, and as 16 year olds we’re naive and easily wooed. As teenagers, since we don’t have any real power over our parents (the government) and they’ll never listen to our suggestions since we’re kids and we don’t know any better, the only way we ever get heard is by crying, trashing our room and screaming at the top of our lungs… so we take it to the streets. There was a point in time where the teachers, the social security, the transport authority and even retired folks went out to the streets to get what’s theirs. Of course, they all eventually died down when they were given some degree of attention (here’s a cookie) and it all went away… because we don’t know any better.

We never do; that’s why we never choose the best people qualified for the top dog spot and, even though Martín Torrijos seemed like the best all-around “Ryu” character in the Street Fighter: Presidential Edition elections he’s coming out as somewhat faulty. Did you know that he was the one who sold the INTEL (our government-owned telecommunications company, now privately owned company Cable & Wireless) and it’s the reason why the Internet is capped and expensive as all hell, the reason why they have a monopoly in the market so overbearing that I don’t know when the day will come where I have fucking options in the way I communicate via telephone, and the reason why now every but our water company is privately owned, the prices sky-rocketing at a ridiculous rate and no one can explain why I’m paying $90 to the electric company where in the statements it says that I’m using up $60. As it turns out, they conveniently keep the highest consumption price I’ve ever amassed while using their service, and no matter how much effort I make in pushing the price down I’ll never be able to pay below those $90 bucks. Unless I go over those 90 bucks, of course… then I’d have to pay that new amount. Either my electricity is being stolen by some jackass or the electric company is fucking me right up the ass, no lube included in the prize package. Phones? Don’t even get me started with the fucking phones… my cell phone bill is supposedly around $40 bucks with a ridiculous amount of minutes (not really… over 250. Now, if you’re in the States you know that’s criminal) but I end up getting charge almost double that because I use chat messages a lot due to my sexy super spy schedule since there’s a cap between cell phone companies and Cable & Wireless; if I send a message to a C&W phone I get charged full price per message, and since a big chunk of my friends use C&W since it’s the cheapest way to go because they have crazy packages that give you an Internet connection, a ground line and a cell phone then it’s the best deal out there but only because it’s the only deal out there then I’m stuck with paying more than I should… and what would be the most logical solution? To move over to the C&W network. And let the monopoly win? Puh-lease.

Where am I getting at with all of this? Simple: Panama is clouded over a big shroud of monopoly. And why wouldn’t it? It’s a small country with a population in its democratic teens, and as teenagers they mostly don’t care and assume they’re going to be fucked over by people bigger and more powerful than them either way so they bend over and take it since they’re convinced that whatever they do won’t make a pinch of difference. It’s like we’re content as a society to go with the flow like that… nobody wants a change, even if it means it’s into something better. Sure, I mean, people are inherently scared of chance and that’s understandable, but if you don’t get over your fears then you’ll be stuck there for the rest of your life being abused and taken advantage of, wondering a big, fat “what if?” as you’re stuck in a doomed relationship with your “politician/fucked up country/Panama Canal/insert whatever you want here.”

I’ve heard a lot of stuff over the past few months regarding the Panama Canal referendum to the point of nausea… my mom’s a definitive “Yes” while my dad’s a definitive “No.” Fucking mierda… it’s ridiculous how two people can try so hard to impose their will onto another, and the worst thing is that I see it everywhere: at friends’ houses, relatives homes, on the street, on TV, I hear it on the radio, at the office, and everywhere in between and everyone’s preaching why I have to vote “yes” or vote “no” and they’d be willing to sit down for hours and try sway me into one camp or the other… just as if the green and red represented religions. They were so convinced of their beliefs that in many cases people would get into street fights because of it. The cards have been layed out on the table though and it’s all been set; we, the people, approve the Panama Canal expansion. Now, when government officials steal some money off the 5 billion dollars assigned to the project (and they will) hopefully it won’t be much so the gig doesn’t go over budget and the Canal is sent to hell and we all look like idiots to the rest of the world. And don’t give me any bullshit about how I don’t know how they are and they’re great people and what not… nigga, please. One of the key players of the Panama Canal Commission is my uncle. I know what goes on in there. For every one good guy (and I’d like to think my uncle is, in fact, one of the good guys) there’s 20 snakes not letting him do a thing. Hopefully we made the right choice. Only time will tell; in the meantime we’ve got 15 years of vigilantism to look forward to so that everything proceeds as planned… by the way, have you read the proposal for the Panama Canal expansion? It’s here, if you want it. And finally, here’s the Wikipedia entry on the Panama Canal… about the expansion project:

The current plan is for two new flights of locks: one to the east of the existing Gatún locks, and one southwest of Miraflores locks, each supported by approach channels. Each flight will ascend from ocean level direct to the Gatún Lake level; the existing two-stage ascent at Miraflores / Pedro Miguel will not be replicated. The new lock chambers will feature sliding gates, doubled for safety, and will be 427 metres (1,400 ft) long, 55 metres (180 ft) wide, and 18.3 metres (60 ft) deep; this will allow for the transit of vessels with a beam of up to 49 metres (160 ft), an overall length of up to 366 metres (1,200 ft) and a draft of up to 15 metres (50 ft), equivalent to a container ship carrying around 12,000 20-foot long containers (TEU).

The new locks will be supported by new approach channels, including a 6.2 kilometre (3.8 mi) channel at Miraflores from the locks to the Gaillard Cut, skirting around Miraflores Lake. Each of these channels will be 218 metres (715 ft) wide, which will require post-Panamax vessels to navigate the channels in one direction at a time. The Gaillard Cut and the channel through Gatún Lake will be widened to no less than 280 metres (918 ft) on the straight portions and no less than 366 metres (1,200 ft) on the bends. The maximum level of Gatún Lake will be raised from reference height 26.7 metres (87.5 ft) to 27.1 metres (89 ft).

Each flight of locks will be accompanied by nine water reutilisation basins (three per lock chamber), each basin being approximately 70 metres (230 ft) wide, 430 metres (1410 ft) long and 5.50 metres (18 ft) deep. These gravity-fed basins will allow 60% of the water used in each transit to be reused; the new locks will consequently use 7% less water per transit than each of the existing lock lanes. The deepening of Gatún Lake, and the raising of its maximum water level, will also provide significant extra water storage capacity. These measures are intended to allow the expanded canal to operate without the construction of new reservoirs.

The estimated cost of the project is approximately $5.25 billion. The project is designed to allow for an anticipated growth in traffic from 280 million PC/UMS tons in 2005 to nearly 510 million PC/UMS tons in 2025; the expanded canal will have a maximum sustainable capacity of approximately 600 million PC/UMS tons per year. Tolls will continue to be calculated based on vessel tonnage, and will not depend on the locks used.

The new locks are expected to open for traffic in 2015. The present locks, which will be 100 years old by that time, will then have greater access for maintenance, and are projected to continue operating indefinitely.

I voted, even if it’s all indifferent to me. I’m part of that angry, 16 year old teenager. The difference between me and those who didn’t vote though is that if it all goes to hell, I have a right to complain. With that vote, I earned the right to complain.

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