News
Wednesday 9th July 2025.
July 8, 2025
On Tuesday Judge Marisol Ortiz legalized the arrest of Bernardo Meneses , former director of the Institute for the Training and Utilization of Human Resources (Ifarhu) , in a hearing in which he is being investigated for the alleged commission of the crime of unjustified enrichment.
At the hearing, anti-corruption prosecutor Azucena Aizpurúa explained that Meneses’s arrest resulted from an audit report by the Comptroller General’s Office, which revealed an unjustified increase in assets of approximately $419,331.
According to the prosecution, this amount exceeds the assets declared by Meneses when he served as director of Ifarhu between 2019 and 2023.
Judge Ortiz explained that during Meneses’s arrest, his fundamental rights were not violated and that he was treated well by the police officers.
Meanwhile, Ángel Álvarez , Meneses’s lawyer, requested that his client’s arrest be declared illegal, considering it an unnecessary action, since—he argued—he always responded to the prosecutor’s office’s calls and has never refused to appear in court.
The former director of the Institute for the Training and Utilization of Human Resources (Ifarhu) was arrested on Monday, July 7, and appeared at a pretrial hearing on Tuesday, July 8, for the alleged crimes of unjust enrichment and money laundering.
The hearing is being held at the offices of the First Judicial Office, in Plaza Ágora.
Meneses managed to hide his face when he arrived at the court offices by wearing a gray hooded coat. In front of photographers and journalists, about 10 people tried to form a wall to protect him. Among the attendees was fellow party member Balbina Herrera , of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD).
The pretrial hearing is a key phase of the accusatory criminal justice system, during which a judge assesses whether the detainee’s rights have been respected and procedural safeguards have been met during the investigation phase, before the case proceeds to trial.
According to reports from the Public Prosecutor’s Office since June 2023, beneficiaries of financial aid allegedly made refunds or cash returns to three bank accounts controlled by Meneses.
Various financial institutions also issued reports of unusual transactions, highlighting the “large amount of income” the former official handled between 2021 and 2024.
According to authorities, Meneses failed to provide reasonable justification for the source of said income.
Meneses’s arrest came after the Comptroller General’s Office forwarded a file to the Public Prosecutor’s Office documenting an alleged unjustified increase in the former official’s assets.
This Tuesday, marked 77 days of the country’s teacher strike , with no digital alternative yet activated to mitigate its impact.
Meanwhile, the Ester educational platform , developed with a $30 million public investment during the pandemic, remains inactive and unused amid the greatest educational crisis in recent years.
Designed in 2020 as part of the National Multimodal Education Strategy , the digital tool was conceived to guarantee educational continuity in emergency situations. However, neither the Ministry of Education (Meduca) nor other authorities have reactivated its use during the indefinite strike that began on April 23, 2025.
Organizations like Jóvenes Unidos por la Educación question the lack of willingness to use the digital platform as a support tool while thousands of students remain out of class. The organization asserts that many teachers were instructed to continue with manual registrations and abandon the platform.
Yair Velásquez , a member of Jóvenes Unidos por la Educación , recalled that the use of the platform and digital report cards was announced at the beginning of the school year. However, teachers were later ordered not to use them and to prepare report cards by hand.
“The country invested $30 million in Ester and other resources that, according to the distance learning protocol of the Multisectoral Permanent Council for the Implementation of the National Commitment to Education (Copeme ) —an entity affiliated with the Ministry of Education (MEDUCA)—should be activated in situations such as a strike or any other system disruption. Digital platforms, television, and radio must be at the service of students,” he noted.
Parents, students, and teachers remain unclear about how missed content will be recovered or whether support or remediation mechanisms will be implemented.
Meanwhile, the Ester platform —which cost millions to develop, license, technical support, and training—continues to symbolize the disconnect between educational discourse and school reality.
As the teacher strike drags on, questions also grow about the future of the 2025 school year and the accountability of resources that should guarantee the right to education, even in times of crisis.
The Latin American and Caribbean Parliament (Parlatino) has asked the European Parliament to accept the European Commission’s recommendation to remove Panama from the money laundering list, an issue that the bloc’s legislators will vote on this Wednesday.
In a letter sent to the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola Tedesco Triccas, and released this Tuesday, Parlatino “welcomes” the European Commission’s recommendation to exclude Panama from the list of high-risk jurisdictions for money laundering and terrorist financing.
In its letter, Parlatino recalls that this decision was based “on information provided by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the organization that removed Panama from its list on October 27, 2023,” and that ratification now rests “in the hands of the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament.”
“We ask European parliamentarians to accept the European Union Commission’s recommendation, taking into account the precedents and goodwill shown by Panama to be removed from this list, an action that would be very well received by the parliaments and parliamentarians that make up Parlatino ,” the letter from the Latin American and Caribbean regional organization states.
The Parlatino, the letter adds, “has spoken out on several occasions as an institution and through its parliamentarians regarding the aforementioned list, which includes Panama, the host country and whose parliament is a member of our organization, so we are aware of the efforts it has been making to strengthen international financial transparency and reinforce its system for preventing money laundering and terrorist financing.”
The vote on the delegated act proposing the exclusion of Panama and other jurisdictions – Barbados, Gibraltar, Jamaica, the Philippines, Senegal, Uganda and the United Arab Emirates – from the list of high-risk countries in terms of money laundering prevention is scheduled to take place this Wednesday at 12 noon Strasbourg time , according to the Panamanian Foreign Ministry.
On June 10, the Panamanian government considered the European Commission’s support for removing the country from the money laundering list to be “a step in the right direction.” The European Commission proposed this measure, considering that Panama “has corrected deficiencies” in this area and improved “the transparency of information on beneficial ownership.”
Panama, the Commission indicated, “has demonstrated, in particular, that its competent authorities are responding effectively to foreign requests for cooperation in identifying and exchanging basic information relating to the beneficial ownership of legal persons and legal instruments .”
Last year, the European Parliament rejected a European Commission proposal to remove Gibraltar, Panama, the United Arab Emirates, Barbados, and Uganda from the list and include Namibia and Kenya, forcing the Commission to submit a new proposal.
The updated list presented last June, however, includes the changes that had been criticized by the European Parliament, as well as some additional ones.
The Panama Canal is preparing to expand its business model beyond ship transit, investing in strategic projects such as the development of a gas pipeline as part of an energy corridor.
It also seeks to resume the construction of new ports to expand its logistical capacity, according to an announcement by the interoceanic waterway administrator, Ricaurte Vásquez, during the inauguration of the new board of directors of the Panama Maritime Chamber.
“We must respond to the needs of global maritime trade, as we did with the expansion. It is our obligation to generate ever more resources for social investment in Panama. Now we will have more water for citizens and for the Canal, we will transport fuel without using the transoceanic route, and we will make more ports available to the world ,” Vásquez announced, referring to the three projects: the Río Indio reservoir, the energy corridor, and the construction of new port terminals.
Vásquez emphasized that, after more than two decades of successful Panamanian management, it is time to move toward a new stage of logistics development.
” We need to start considering the transit of cargo, not just ships, to generate greater added value, more employment, technology, and sophistication within a framework of environmental sustainability ,” he said.
The Canal administrator also emphasized that the reservoir project on the Indio River is not just a water infrastructure project, but also an opportunity for social development for the communities in the basin.
He noted that beyond securing water for the Canal’s operations and for millions of Panamanians, this is an effort of ongoing participation and collaboration with communities, which includes productive activities such as coffee planting, silvopastoral systems, and forest protection.
He emphasized that the community management model, which has already yielded positive results in other areas of the country, will be replicated.
” We Panamanians will be successful if we simultaneously increase access to drinking water, guarantee water for ship transit through the Canal, and improve the living conditions of the residents of the Indio River basin in a real and measurable way,” he emphasized .
He reiterated that the ACP’s work in that area will be to “build trust, with the support of the communities, to advance the project. The communities should be the primary beneficiaries of this Canal project.”
A total of 1,527 packages of suspected illicit substances were seized this Monday, July 7, 2025, at a Panamanian Pacific port during a joint operation between the National Customs Authority, the Global Container Control Program (GCCP), and the National Police.
The seizure occurred after a routine inspection revealed anomalies in a container registered under the export regime.
According to the documentation, the shipment was destined for Senegal and was declared to be carrying jewelry, footwear, and household goods.
The investigation was carried out in the presence of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which is now assuming responsibility for the investigation to determine the exact composition of the seized substance, as well as any potential criminal liability.