OFF THE CUFF: A park by any other name

Panama’s city council has renamed the park that stands at the Paitilla end of the Cinta Costera. The symbol of one of the early scandals of the Martinelli era, it had been named after CD loyalist and former governor of Panama Mayín Correa while she was still in office. It will now be called “Plaza de la Democracia”

  The decision to change the name was published in the Official Gazette on Friday May 15.
The document states that the name is “in honor of Guillermo Endara Galimany, Ricardo Arias Calderon and Guillermo Ford, leaders of democracy, who in 1989 were elected by the people to govern the country while the military regime in place and at a time serious economic, social and political crisis. “
Roberto Troncoso, president of the Panamanian Association of Business Executives (APEDA), was pleased with the initiative and recalled that just over three years ago, he and Enrique de Obarrio had proposed the name of Guillermo Endara Galimany for thegreen area.
Troncoso said the new name is a tribute to the first president and vice presidents elected by the people after the dictatorship and US intervention.
“We consider it fair, because we always want to do a monument, especially, to remember that the Civil Crusade movement was a national sentiment,” he said.
The project, built at a cost of $ 1.6 million and opened in 2013, revolved around one of the most striking scandals of the administration of then-President Ricardo Martinelli and was known as “the case of the florist.”
The controversy broke through the investigative work of La Prensa, which revealed that in 2011 the National Authority of Land Management transferred free , 11,495 square meters of the area to florist César Segura.
La Prensa investigations concluded that one of the true beneficiaries of the free transfer of land was real estate developer Gaby Gabriel Btesh in partnership with Pipo Felipe Virzi, both businessmen linked with the Martinelli “zero circle.” The florist was just a “front” and for a time was the fall guy in a prison cell.
Now, with another name the park will smell sweeter as it is distanced from the whiff of the CD insider scandal.
Next on the list for renaming: the floundering mega hospital project named after Ricardo Martinelli while he was still president, by a group of CSS sycophants.