News
Thursday 17th July 2025.
July 16, 2025
Representative Ernesto Cedeño , coordinator of the “Seguimos” (We Continue) faction and the Another Way Movement (Moca), reported that his colleague Jairo “Bolota” Salazar , of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), filed a lawsuit before the Supreme Court of Justice against the formation of the new faction.
The appeal seeks to have Resolution 2 of July 3, 2025, which approved the formation of the new legislative group “Seguimos,” declared void and considered illegal .
The caucus in question is made up of representatives José Pérez Barboni and Grace Hernández, from Moca; Betserai Richards, elected through independent nomination; and Cedeño, nominated by Moca.
According to the document released by Cedeño, Salazar filed the appeal through his legal representatives at the firm Cruz, Ríos y Asociados on Tuesday, July 15.
“Some people didn’t like the fact that we formed a caucus within the National Assembly of Deputies and challenged the action in court. Fighting is fighting. In God there is hope,” Cedeño noted on his Instagram account.
The representative of the Tocumen district, Arielis Barría , left the Irma Lourdes Tzanetatos Hospital in the early hours of Wednesday, July 16, where she received medical attention after reporting injuries during an altercation with crowd control units of the National Police.
According to witnesses and a partial summary of the medical diagnosis shared with La Prensa by those close to Barría , the representative showed signs of being ” hit, bitten, beaten, and kicked .” This information was corroborated by three different authorities who accompanied her to the hospital.
Additionally, Representative Betserai Richards, elected in the same sector as Barría and who was present at the Hospital, indicated that the representative was granted 15 days of disability due to her injuries , which Atencio also assured this media outlet.
Although colleagues of the representative have attempted to contact her, they claim that she is in the process of recovery and that their communication has been limited .
The Vamos coalition, of which Barría is a member, condemned in a statement the use of force against the representative and the citizens protesting the lack of drinking water in the area on the night of Tuesday, July 15.
The National Police , for its part, has attempted to distance itself from the reported injuries. In its most recent statement, the agency alleged that the representative “reacted aggressively toward the police units, injuring one of them.”
Videos of the incident, shared on social media, show Barría—in plain clothes—struggling with officers equipped with shields, helmets, and other protective gear typical of riot squads.
According to the representative herself, she was hit on the head with a baton before being arrested and handcuffed.
Other protesters were also arrested, according to Representative Richards.
Due to these actions, Vamos coalition authorities are considering follow-up legal action.
The Ombudsman’s Office , for its part, issued a statement announcing that it had opened an investigation into the police actions against the representative.
The Panamanian ombudsman reminded authorities of their obligation to comply with international commitments regarding human rights and the protection of women.
About 1,000 banana workers attempted to return this week to five farms operated by Ilara Holdings , a concessionaire of the Chiquita banana company in Bocas del Toro , following a court ruling that declared their nearly two-month strike illegal.
However, upon arriving at their former workplaces, the workers found no machinery, tools, or administrative staff: the farms were deserted.
“It’s our only livelihood,” said one of the workers, emphasizing the importance of preserving jobs in a province marked by unemployment and dependence on the banana sector. Although everything indicates that, at least in this case, there’s no turning back.
According to sources close to the process, Chiquita has terminated the lease agreements for five farms operated by the concessionaire Ilara Holdings. In fact, when the protests in Bocas del Toro were first reported, Chiquita announced the gradual closure of these farms.
In the Ilara Holdings case, the proceedings initially stalled because the union avoided direct notification, forcing the court to resort to edict notification. However, the High Court recently upheld the strike’s illegality in the appeal, paving the way for further administrative decisions.
Chiquita, in turn, formally suspended operations with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MICI) more than eleven weeks ago. The closure announcement and contract termination left hundreds of workers unemployed and without immediate prospects for reemployment.
Now, the company has closed ranks and is exploring options to partially resume operations, but under different conditions: without the union that led the protests and with a new labor structure that would reduce losses, which have exceeded 5% annually for the past five years.
It was also learned that Chiquita representatives have held informal talks with the minister of labor, Javier Moltó, although without any public commitments. Confidentially, the company has expressed a willingness to resume operations, provided it is allowed to hire new personnel or reconfigure its working relationship with another union.
The situation has generated political and social tensions in the region, where nearly 7,000 jobs have been affected. The government has accused unions of maintaining intransigent positions that led to massive job losses.
Amid the talks, Minister Moltó indicated that a possible return to operations could recover 20% of the workforce, equivalent to approximately 1,000 to 1,200 workers. This staff would initially be dedicated to cleaning farms, assessing damage, saving useful plants, and harvesting exportable fruit affected by diseases such as sigatoka.
Chiquita currently owns 31 farms in Bocas del Toro, covering approximately 5,000 hectares. The five farms leased from Ilara Holdings are no longer in its portfolio. The company plans to focus on its own lands for a gradual recovery of production.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Labor approved this week the dismissal authorization for the remaining employees, due to abandonment and suspension of work. The ruling became final after exhausting legal remedies.
In total, an estimated 1,400 workers were laid off in this final stage of the conflict. If the company decides to return, it would do so from scratch, legally speaking, although it would likely hire much of the same trained personnel, but under different union conditions. Chiquita’s immediate future in Bocas del Toro will depend on the success of the ongoing negotiations.
A judge ordered the preventive detention of César Alonso Trejos , 18, after he was charged with attempted murder of Superior Court of Appeals Judge Andrés Reyes and Alfonso Rivera Abrego, in an incident that occurred on the night of June 27 on 26 Calidonia Street.
Judge Luis Ceballos accepted the charge filed by prosecutor Víctor Barría, who explained during the hearing that the judge’s vehicle had nine bullet holes on the driver’s side , demonstrating a clear intention to kill its occupants.
On the night of June 27, Judge Reyes was driving to a restaurant with Alfonso Rivera in his Kia Optima when, at 26th Street Calidonia, he was shot nine times, shattering the vehicle’s windows and one of them wounding the judge in one of her arms.
During the hearing, the prosecutor presented as evidence linking Trejos to the attack a series of videos from businesses located on 26th Calidonia Street, where the vehicle occupied by Judge Reyes and Rivera was shot at.
According to the prosecutor’s investigation, the videos capture the moment of the shooting and a man with Trejos’ characteristics leaving the scene.
Prosecutor Barría also presented the statement of a protected witness who was on the scene at the time of the shooting and who stated that he identified Trejos as the shooter and then walked toward the Carmel building, where the defendant lives.
During a search of the Carmel building, the prosecutor’s office located a firearm that was allegedly used to fire shots at the car occupied by Judge Reyes.
The judge justified the preventive detention measure applied to Trejos by considering it a serious crime, which not only endangered the lives of the two victims of the attack, but also could have caused serious injuries to people passing by the site at the time of the attack.
For its part, Trejos’s defense argued that his client has no criminal record, is not a gang member, and maintains a permanent residence.
He also claimed there was evidence that the weapon found by police was the one used in the attack on Reyes and Rivera, and therefore requested a less serious precautionary measure than pretrial detention.
An expansion plan for the Colón Free Trade Zone, with new areas under the free trade zone regime, will be developed this year, the government announced at the third session of the Logistics Cabinet held this Wednesday in the province of Colón.
The manager of the Colón Free Zone, Luisa Napolitano, reported that 241 new companies have established themselves in the area in the last year.
He specified that as part of the planned boost to the area, the “New Field” project was presented, an expansion plan that includes the development of 250 hectares of reclaimed land near the Enrique A. Jiménez Airport, valued at $500 million.
Construction will begin in October and is estimated to generate 2,625 jobs during the construction phase, while more than 2,100 permanent jobs will be created during the operational phase.
“Colón is poised to become an important base for the country’s logistics activity. This is where our strength lies before the world,” said President Mulino, who chaired the Logistics Cabinet.
He added that with Panama’s removal from the European Union’s discriminatory lists, a new era opens for attracting investment and generating opportunities for the people of Colón.
Currently, more than 70% of the 14,000 workers in the Colón Free Zone are from Colón, and with the expansion, that number could double . According to official figures, the province of Colón has a population of more than 225,000, and the economically active population is 135,220. This represents an unemployment rate of 10% (13,968 people).