There are certain things in Panama that are assured; the start of summer come December, carnivals, our inherent lack of satisfaction with the way things are and finally, the telethon. Orchestrated by the Club Activo 20-30, the telethon goes down every year during the second weekend of December; for many it’s the chance to give back some of their hard-earned money for a great cause. For others, it’s all a front for money laundering since you never see where the money they raise is being invested in. Year after year they come up with some new cause to raise money for and on top of that they amplify the human suffering factor by appointing a symbolical child that will represent the struggles of the worse-off portions of the population for that given year. Nobody remembers why they’re raising so much money… they just know that it’s for a good cause, but this time is a little bit different since their goal for this year is to implement a system that I feel will be infinitely convenient for the population as a whole: a 9-1-1 number. The idea is noble, but one has to wonder if they really are going to do it seeing as you never really see where all of that money is being used for… kind of like our governments, ironically. Allow me to dig a little deeper into this…

Our telethon, as it is with most of them on a worldwide scale, is a 25-hour or so affair held over the second weekend of December (a more accurate description would be around the 15th, when everyone gets paid) in the ages-old Atlapa amphitheater; they do the whole thing in regards to trying to win your sympathy… the rows of phones that ring non-stop, patch-throughs to various orphanages and special clinics with reporters that have a penchant for crying uncontrollably if put in the appropriate scenarios (such as orphanages and special clinics), and of course, a whole truckload of live entertainment that, for the most part, you’ve never even heard of. I’m not familiar with the booking process the organizers use in order to score the entertainment, but the results are always quite hilarious. All of the national TV stations hook themselves up to the broadcast, bank accounts are set up in order for you to make your deposit, you can donate a day of work, you can send a text message or call from your cell phone or ground line, or you can buy any of the items in the telethon’s product line; all proceeds will go to their community fund where they’ll be tallying how much they’ve raised throughout the marathoner broadcast. The goal the organizers set for each fund raiser increases more and more as years go by; I believe we’re around 4.5 million dollars now. I chuckle. Who says Panama is poor? Hell, every year it’s the same ol’ story: people complain and complain about how there’s no money anywhere, how they’re eating rocks for breakfast but whenever it’s time for the little kids to step out of their piss-poor living conditions and ask for our help, we respond. It’s the whole holiday thing I suppose, but mostly it’s about people’s inherent obsession with drama. If “Bailando Por Un Sueño” has taught us everything is that human tragedy moves people into being active on the destiny of another. A necessary evil, I gather… exploiting another human being’s tragedy for ratings, but in the end it’s to help them. That’s how the balance restores itself. This time of the year though, it’s an exhausting exercise that wears everyone involved out… the charity fever that goes over the country is a very beautiful thing, and you can’t help but be taken a little aback by it. People respond to this thing like you have no clue.

As I said before, every year the 20-30 people have a different goal they want to accomplish by racking up as much cash as they can in the span of 25 hours. The goals from past years pretty much fall under the same principle as actors who win high profile awards: George Clooney is an Oscar winner… but do you know for what movie? The same thing happens here, in the sense that no one knows why they’re raising the money for since everyone’s more interested in the drama of them making the goal amount. I believe that’s part of the reason why there are so many people that don’t really trust the 20-30 and think this telethon thing is a fiasco; the causes as to why they do these things year after year are not of the highest profile possible (doesn’t make them any less important, let it be noted) and since they let themselves be easily lost in the shuffle no one really knows if the money was spent on what they said they were going to spend it in. No one knows, and considering Panamanians and our history of being given the shaft on a regular basis you’ll have to excuse us if we’re a little skeptical regarding your true intentions. This time around it’s different though, and I’ll tell you why: talks about establishing a 911 number in Panama have been going on for about 6 or 7 years but things never really materialized for various reasons… we didn’t have the call center boom we have now, setting up digital signal networks wasn’t as easy as it is now and it seems that with the recent tragedies that have plagued the country as of late were the push all parties involved needed in order to come to an agreement over the details of an operation as big as this one. I’ve read that once they get the funds they need (and they will. I will break down how these telethons go down in a minute because it’s all practically scripted in its execution) the service can be up and running starting August 2007. The sooner, the better: right now there are so many different emergency services you can call, so many numbers to learn in order to call the fire department, the police, and other basic emergency numbers that it’s happened before that you need to pull out the frickin’ phone book in order to get the right number. It’s ridiculous. People have died over shit like this, and if there’s a push for a unified number that’s easy to remember (such as 911) then we’ll all be better off. This time around, the stakes are higher; they can’t afford to not say where the money’s going because if the service is not up by August then the gig is up and the proverbial shit will hit the proverbial fan.

Back in the 80’s-90’s, what the organizers would do in order to inject some drama in the proceedings was to hold back all of the big fishes so that the public saw that they were behind their goal for about $500,000 or a million dollars with the purpose of the people watching at home reached into their pockets and gave a little more more before the phones get cut off. There were many companies that gave ridiculous sums of money, but the staple every year was this very kind sir, Mr. Poll, who owned the biggest supermarket chain in the country (”El Machetazo”). This guy was a real class act; he’d separate part of his business’ annual income to build schools and orphanages and churches in the interior. He also never charged tax on any items he sold in his supermarkets. He was one of the good guys… anyway, what he and his company would do was that they’d make their initial donation on the first night of the broadcast, which was always something ridiculously high like $200,000 dollars or so… then his workers’ union would come in and give around $40,000 or so. The hours would pass and suddenly the Poll family would make a donation of $150,000 or something crazy like that. Then, when they extended the time of the telethon because they hadn’t gotten to the goal yet this funny-looking grandpa, a guy who looked a lot like Colonel Sanders, would step into the stage and make a “personal donation” of $100,000 and they’d surpass the goal every single time. That guy really believed in this thing, and since his intentions were always good it kind of inspired everyone else to be more human about the whole thing… and then he died. His business is not as charitable as it once was but most importantly it doesn’t carry the heart it used to. Now, the big donors are Cable & Wireless, our monopolizing telephone technology company, and the groups who own the malls that have surfaced in the recent years. After 20 or so years of watching this thing I can’t help but feel a little desensitized by the whole thing. My eager interest died with Poll.

Every year the goal goes higher and higher, and every year the telethon gets more and more commercialized. It’s rather sad really, and it puts me (at least) in a weird place just like that dancing show did because you can’t help but notice how they’re exploiting the viewer’s emotions so they cough up money. I have a real problem with that, but then the purpose is a good one and that’s where the mojo distorts itself. There’s so much telethon junk you can purchase now: 7 different types of shirts, hats, mouse pads, those silly cancer bracelets, pins, buttons, stickers, patches, car plates, towels, pencils, pens, rulers and so much more crap that it’s unbelievable how much of a presence this thing has in the Panamanian psyche come December. It works for them that the telethon has become somewhat of an event to go to; for a couple of years now, they’ve been advertising the shift from 1AM to 4AM as the “happy happy fun time explosion banzai hour” or the shift all the cool kids go to. Hey, as long as it gets them to donate, sure. If only the acts weren’t inherently lame I’d bring myself to appreciate the effort… instead I go to have a hardy laugh and, indirectly, donate.

The artists that come are mostly Panamanian, but a lot of people from abroad come down to lip-sync their way into your heart. You know things are worse off than you thought they were when a band that took pride in themselves for not using any tracks during their shows is in that cool kid shift pretending like they really give a damn about any of this while they act like they’re actually playing (I’m looking at you, Rabanes). It’s a little sad and pathetic… and believe me, if there’s something more ridiculous than an electric piano player in a rock band, it’s an electric piano player in a rock band pretending like he’s actually playing. Mili Vanili Syndrome all over the telethon festivities nonewithstanding, the telethon is one of those rare instances where the entire country unites for a common good, and thank Marley it’s a really good cause. Even if there’s a lot more consumerism involved in this new age or charity fund raising, the core of it all is still pure. This year’s telethon starts tomorrow.

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