Friday, May 2, 2025.
The Psychology of Corruption: When Good Institutions Fall, and the People Pay the Price
By Brett Mikkelson
Corruption rarely announces itself with fanfare. It creeps in slowly, like a shadow at sunset. often unnoticed until the damage is done. In recent years, we’ve witnessed a disturbing trend: the dismantling or defunding of organizations that once stood as pillars of service, support, and integrity. From AmeriCorps to community-based programs aiding veterans and volunteers, institutions that once empowered the underserved are being hollowed out, sometimes from within.
It’s not just mismanagement. In some cases, it’s outright fraud. AmeriCorps, a once-robust force for community service, reportedly failed eight consecutive audits and couldn’t account for over a billion dollars in funding. It’s hard to justify continued financial backing of an agency that repeatedly fails to meet the most basic accountability standards. But what’s even harder to accept is that the consequences of that corruption are not borne by those responsible, they’re borne by the people who were depending on those services to survive, recover, or rise.
And this isn’t just an American story. In Panama, corruption between a private corporation and local authorities caused the closure of the Quantum copper mine, once considered a major source of economic stability. The fallout? Schools have closed, street protests have intensified, and businesses are hemorrhaging revenue. Meanwhile, politicians talk about “collaborative reopening” while avoiding any real ownership of the chaos their deals caused. The people suffer. Again.
Corruption, at its core, is not just a legal or political issue, it’s psychological. The question we should be asking isn’t just how corruption happens, but why. Why would someone betray the very system they’re sworn to uphold? Why would a U.S. judge, entrusted with enforcing the law, commit obstruction to protect an individual already charged with domestic violence, a federal offense in its own right? Why do people in positions of power risk their reputation, freedom, and careers for something as shallow as influence or a short-term payoff?
The answer is layered. For some, corruption begins with rationalization, the quiet voice that whispers, “Everyone’s doing it.” For others, it’s born of desperation, ego, or a misplaced sense of justice. What starts as a small favor, a blind eye turned, a fund diverted “just this once,” can quickly spiral into institutional rot. It’s a slippery slope where decency is slowly traded for self-preservation or gain.
But make no mistake: corruption has victims. When systems become compromised, those who rely on them, the single mother seeking housing aid, the veteran hoping for mental health services, the community rebuilding after a disaster are left stranded. The integrity of a nation is not measured by its wealth or its weapons, but by how it serves those with the least. And when corruption flourishes, that service dies.
The bottom line is that we need to stop feeding the machine. Because if we don’t, the collapse of trust may prove more devastating than the corruption itself.
TOP NEWS and TIDBITS:
How Do Strikes Affect Student Performance?
In response to the insistence of some social unions on maintaining calls for strikes, education authorities state that each work stoppage is equivalent to three days of lost knowledge for students. Therefore, so far this school year, around 12 days of learning have been lost, as classes have been suspended at least four times.
Parents express concern about their children’s future, since despite the Ministry of Education (Meduca) having decided to resume classes, some teachers have failed to return to their duties.
Guardians are urging teachers to return to their posts or seek alternative solutions that do not affect students’ academic futures, such as virtual or modular education.
Aldo Bazán, a representative of the regional educational community of Panama Centro, points out that intermittent strikes undermine students’ education. He therefore calls on both parties (Meduca and the teachers) to continue the educational process.
“We know there is a situation in the country and that everyone has the right to strike, but we also defend the right to education for our children,” he reiterated.
According to Bazán, the work stoppages have been concentrated mainly in secondary schools, since in most other educational centers, the majority of teachers have chosen to continue attending to students.
There is still no exact figure for the economic losses from the first day of protests, but the Ministry of Commerce and Industries (MICI) estimates they could be around 90 million dollars.
Minister Julio Moltó believes the strike by teachers and the Single Union of Workers in the Construction and Similar Industries (Suntracs) “makes no sense,” since the issues raised by these groups have already been addressed by the authorities.
“Let’s not deceive the public — we’re injecting ideology and political opportunism, trying to fool the people,” he said.
Moltó reiterated to the public not to be misled by these social groups, stating that their claims regarding the law reforming the Social Security Fund (CSS) are incorrect — the approved reform does not raise the retirement age nor does it change the regime for teachers.
ATTT Announces Road Closures for the Transfer of the 1903 Panamanian Flag from Herrera to Panamá Pacífico
The Land Transit and Transportation Authority (ATTT) announces the temporary closure of several roads due to the solemn transfer of the National Flag, known as the “Wounded Flag.” This historic 1903 flag, a symbol of Panama’s separatist movement from Colombia, will be transferred from the Fabio Rodríguez Museum in Herrera to Panamá Pacífico.
The road closures began this Tuesday to ensure logistics for the transfer, which will take place this Wednesday, at the following intersections:
- Belisario Urriola Street and Julio Arjona Avenue
- Belisario Porras Avenue and Pérez Avenue
- Melitón Martín Street and Julio Arjona Avenue
The procession will begin at 10:00 a.m. The vehicle carrying the “Wounded Flag” will depart from Julio Arjona Street, in front of the Fabio Rodríguez Museum. The route will continue along Paseo Enrique Geenzier, merging onto the Economic Center (Belisario Porras Avenue) toward Divisa. From there, it will take the Inter-American Highway en route to Panamá Pacífico.
Citizens are urged to take necessary precautions and use alternative routes during the closure period to avoid delays.
The second phase of the transfer is scheduled for Monday, May 26, 2025, when the flag will be transported from Panamá Pacífico to Tocumen International Airport, bound for Madrid. There, it will remain for an estimated 18 months for restoration.
NASA Aircraft Arrives in Panama to Capture Images of Tropical Ecosystem Diversity
A NASA aircraft is flying over tropical forests and oceans, capturing colored pixels invisible to the human eye using a specialized camera. On the ground, scientists collect canopy leaves corresponding to those pixels, which represent vegetation from various ecosystems such as mangroves, montane forests, and tropical dry forests. In coastal areas, they gather water samples. Meanwhile, orbiting the Earth, spaceborne remote sensors provide a panoramic view to map these ecosystems.
This is all part of the AVUELO project (Airborne Validation Unified Experiment: Land to Ocean), a campaign led by NASA. The project’s name cleverly plays on the Spanish word “vuelo” (meaning “flight”).
The campaign took place in February 2025 in Panama and Costa Rica, with the goal of collecting land and airborne data. Its mission: to understand the unique characteristics of tropical vegetation and ocean systems in order to create a mathematical formula—an algorithm—based on real data collected both from the ground and the air.
This algorithm will be used by spaceborne remote sensors to improve our understanding of tropical forests and ocean ecosystems across the globe.
The campaign was conducted in collaboration with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and the Costa Rican Federation of Fishing (FECOP), with additional contributions from various scientists and institutions. It was coordinated by Erika Podest, a Panamanian scientist from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
STRI played a key role in the project, having monitored and identified trees since 1980. This initiative inspired 78 similar sites in 29 countries, all part of the GEO-TREES project, which aims to understand the impacts of global change on forests.
The fact that researchers already knew the locations and species names of trees in these areas was essential to the project’s success.
As Erika explained, “There are many vegetation maps, but they don’t really provide detailed information about biodiversity, and this campaign will be key to obtaining that kind of data.”
Additionally, as Helene Muller-Landau, a staff scientist at STRI and one of the campaign’s leaders at STRI, stated: “Panama offers a wide variety of environmental conditions and forest types that cover nearly the full range of variation found in tropical forests worldwide,” making it an ideal location for the project.
At the heart of the project were about 80 people who made it possible, including students, interns, postdoctoral researchers, pilots, NASA engineers, and scientists from STRI, NASA, and other organizations.
Collecting the data was no easy task. A key piece of the puzzle was NASA’s King Air N53W aircraft, equipped with a cutting-edge spectrometer called AVIRIS-3 (Airborne Visible InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer).
As described by AVIRIS operator John Chapman, this sensor is like “a very, very sophisticated digital camera that can take what you think of as green and break it down into 120 different shades of green.”
This spectrometer measures the radiance of a given surface—that is, the amount of sunlight transmitted and reflected by that surface—in wavelengths far beyond the human visible spectrum, including ultraviolet and infrared. The result: hyperspectral images that contain crucial scientific data. Since various chemicals, such as chlorophyll or methane, have unique spectral signatures—essentially, their own fingerprint—this sensor can identify which chemicals are present in each pixel of the image.
Clear skies are essential for AVIRIS-3 to function effectively. Although the team faced unexpectedly cloudy and rainy weather during the dry season, they were still able to fly and successfully capture high-quality images.
Another essential part of the puzzle was the ground data collection. Helene Muller-Landau coordinated teams to collect canopy leaves detected by the NASA aircraft and bring them to the lab to measure their spectral signatures.
Collecting canopy leaves was straightforward in Panama City’s Metropolitan Natural Park and in San Lorenzo National Park in Colón, thanks to STRI cranes that allowed access to the treetops. In other locations, different techniques were used, such as a long pole pruner and a special slingshot to launch a rope with a saw to the treetop. A team led by STRI scientist Rachel Collin also focused on collecting leaves from a particularly important ecosystem: mangroves.
During the campaign, the ground team worked tirelessly to collect a total of 941 leaf samples from 456 plant species, covering 307 genera and 96 families, while the aircraft completed 64 hours of flight, and AVIRIS gathered 20 terabytes of data.
Three Panamanian students had the opportunity to collect leaves on Barro Colorado Island (BCI), one of the most studied tropical forests in the world. The students were:
- Paola Arosemena, a second-year biology student at the University of Panama (UP)
- Mara Demarsan, a forestry engineering student at the Technological University of Panama (UTP)
- Génesis Villareal, a biology student at the Autonomous University of Chiriquí (UNACHI)
“Ever since I visited Barro Colorado on a school trip, I always said I’d like to work here at least once. Being able to stay here feels like a dream,” said Mara.
“I met wonderful people from all fields—botany, zoology—and the scientists from NASA and STRI were very kind and taught us so much. It was an incredible experience, and I think it definitely set the course for my career,” said Génesis Villareal, AVUELO intern.
The STRI-NASA team didn’t only focus on collecting hyperspectral data from air and ground; they also aimed to study plant functional traits—leaf characteristics that reveal information about a plant’s life strategies, such as how much it invests in photosynthesis. This part of the project was led by Andrés Baresch, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and Natalia Quintero, an affiliated researcher at the same center. With a large team, they collected data on various leaf traits, including water content, mass per area, leaf shape, chemical composition, and stomatal features.
At the same time, two additional fascinating data collection efforts were underway. The first, led by Yoseline Ángel, assistant scientist at NASA’s Goddard Center, focused on measuring spectral data from flowers, with plans to incorporate citizen science to help monitor the phenology of tropical trees. The second effort involved photographing leaf samples to study their vein patterns, which can reveal evolutionary history. This work was carried out by paleobotanists Liliana Londoño and Laura Puente, from the lab of STRI staff scientist Carlos Jaramillo.
NASA has been studying carbon absorption, forest quality, and mapping carbon sources and sinks in the tropics for decades, using advanced satellite technology to monitor and measure these ecosystems globally. Tropical forests are vital to stabilizing the global climate by absorbing carbon dioxide and supporting biodiversity. As Helene Muller-Landau explained, “Tropical forests are tremendously diverse in species composition and structure,” and “data from satellite remote sensors have already greatly increased our understanding of large-scale patterns in tropical forests, but extrapolating from the small field sample we have is problematic.”
The results of this project—the first of its kind in the tropics—“have the potential to provide a wealth of new data on geographic variation in the functional and taxonomic composition of tropical forests” and will be crucial for designing future conservation efforts.
All data collected during this campaign will be open access and available to anyone around the world.
Authorities Warn of Attractive Job Offers Abroad That Could Lead to Serious Crimes
The rescue of a Panamanian woman who was a victim of sexual exploitation in Spain and the dismantling of a network allegedly recruiting women in Panama to take them to Europe for trafficking purposes have raised alarms about how these criminal organizations operate.
According to authorities, the Panamanian woman was deceived with the promise of a job offer. However, once in Spanish territory, she became trapped in a human trafficking network.
After identifying the victim, Spanish authorities coordinated with their counterparts in Panama to carry out a joint operation with Interpol, the National Police, and the Spanish Police.
César Pittí, from the National Directorate of Judicial Investigation (DIJ), explained that the most common method of deception involves foreign job offers that promise high salaries, passports, and even airline tickets.
Pittí warned that such offers should raise suspicions, as they may hide more than just a simple job opportunity. Although he emphasized that such cases in Panama are rare, he reminded the public that this is a complex crime and people must remain vigilant.
In Operation “Puerta del Sol,” two other Colombian women were also rescued, and six people were arrested: five Colombians and one Spaniard.
As a recommendation, he urged individuals to verify the legitimacy of the hiring company in the destination country, discuss the offer with someone they trust, and be wary of job promises with unusually high salaries.
What Are the Causes of the Increase in Influenza Positivity?
In the 16th epidemiological week (SE 16) of the current year, the influenza virus positivity rate was 52.1%, a statistic that has surpassed the “alert threshold,” according to the Ministry of Health (Minsa).
By SE 15, 12,000 cumulative cases and 26 deaths had been reported, leading to expectations that the respiratory virus will continue to spread, a situation influenced by certain factors.
Health authorities, according to epidemiologist Israel Cedeño, have identified that low vaccination coverage due to lack of attendance at centers, risk conditions in the population, predominance of influenza A and B, and the active circulation of the virus are contributing to the increase in cases.
These factors are also influencing the rise in hospitalizations, combined with delayed medical attention seeking and intense viral circulation, with high influenza positivity (52.1%) and respiratory syncytial virus (66%).
Severe respiratory infections such as pneumonia and bronconeumonia (rate of 8.3/100,000 in SE 16), exacerbation of chronic diseases (diabetes decompensation, heart or lung diseases), bronchiolitis in children (rate of 5.5/100,000, with greater risk in children under one year), and respiratory or multi-organ failure (in severe cases, especially in unvaccinated or immunocompromised patients) are the complications that have led to hospitalizations.
Regarding the deaths, Cedeño, manager of the Senior Adult Health Program of Minsa, explained that all those who have died so far had conditions such as old age, chronic diseases (metabolic, cardiovascular, respiratory), or immunosuppression.
In light of this situation, authorities are urging the population to follow preventive measures because it is expected that cases will continue to rise due to historical trends (the epidemic curve shows that these tend to increase during certain weeks of the year). The positivity rate has doubled, and there is simultaneous circulation of viruses such as influenza, SARS-CoV-2 (with a positivity rate of 2.6%), and respiratory syncytial virus, which may increase the hospital burden.
Behavior
Influenza cases in Panama tend to rise during cold or rainy seasons, especially towards the end and beginning of the year. In 2025, an unusual increase was observed in SE 16, possibly due to factors such as low vaccination rates or new variants.
Vaccination
Since the vaccines arrived in mid-April, 139,389 doses have been administered, of which 98,895 were administered by Minsa and 40,494 by the Social Security Fund (CSS).
Semi-Pedestrian Day in the Old Quarter Generated $1.2 Million, Reports the Panama City Mayor’s Office
With attendance surpassing 60,000 people, the Panama City Mayor’s Office, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture (MiCultura) and the Panama Tourism Authority, celebrated this Sunday a new edition of the semi-pedestrianization of the Old Quarter, transforming the iconic streets of the historic center into a vibrant cultural, tourist, and commercial space.
The massive public participation not only brought to life a day filled with art, gastronomy, and tradition, but also generated a significant economic impact for the capital district. According to official estimates, the event generated approximately 1.2 million dollars in sales and consumption, reported the Panama City Mayor’s Office.
Restaurants, cafes, local businesses, artisans, and entrepreneurs reported a notable increase in their income, highlighting the potential of such initiatives to strengthen the local economy.
This event, held on the last Sunday of each month, is part of a joint effort to revitalize the Old Quarter and position it as an economic and social engine for the city. In addition to promoting domestic tourism, the initiative strengthens the commercial fabric and fosters community interaction in public heritage spaces.
