OPINION: A pilgrim reality check.

By Corina Rueda Borrero*

Dear Pilgrim, I imagine that at this moment you are anxiously packing your bags, buying small necessities and saying prayers because your dream of knowing Pope Francis will come true, and no wonder. You have been involved in activities in your parish to be able to afford the buses and planes that you must take to get to Panama. But I am writing this because you may not know that your joy is not shared in the country that will receive you, even if you have been told otherwise or have seen government promotional videos of smiling Panamanians because there are dark realities behind this great celebration of the world’s Catholic youth.

**Varela and Lorena Castillo exchange gifts with Pope .**

For many Panamanians, World Youth Day is nothing more than a multi-million dollars whim of President Juan Carlos Varela, who travels abroad as a good Samaritan and whose wife, Lorena Castillo, faithfully attends all papal activities that can be paid with State taxes.

Both speak of love for their neighbors without missing a “God bless” them at the end of their speeches, but they are the same ones who endorse orders to repress farmers’ protests for the right to food sovereignty and a decent living and sanction budgets reducing the amounts destined to culture, science, health, education and technology, and assure that there are no funds to investigate reported cases of sexual abuse in areas of difficult access.

Smiling masks
Juan Carlos Varela, dear pilgrim, is the one who will receive you and publicly say that Panama is showing its best face but will not dare to tell the truth: that what they are really wearing are smiling masks, because on that great platform of $12.4 million where he and the Pope will stand, you will not see the teachers who have not been paid for months, nor the patients who missed appointments due to lack of funding nor the retirees who spent more than four hours in a line to pick up medications that they did not receive due to lack of budget.

Every time I receive a new piece of news about what is being spent on World Youth Day, I get a lump in my throat because most of the hiring is being done directly, while there has never been money for the roof that is falling in a school or in the emergency department of the Hospital del Niño, nor is it that there are no funds for the athletes’ shoes or gloves for the boxers going to the Olympics, because none of this seemed a priority.

That $14,000 for a carpet to receive the Pope, that $18,000 for six dogs, that $1.5 million for metal railings , that almost $1 million in luxury hotel rooms for “special guests”, that $145.000 in smart cards for drivers and each day new expenditures of which we have no more information than what appears in the portal of Panama-Compra, without logical justification of its acquisition and without responding to the citizen’s right to demand and receive information on the proper use of its taxes.

Do not misunderstand me, pilgrim, I really understand that an event of this magnitude should have its expenses, however, do you think that all Panamanians, even non-Catholics, must pay for the World Youth Day to be celebrated? Do you think that all Panamanians should change their way of life for almost two weeks because of this event? Do you think it’s right that the officials of the health system and the security system have been denied their right to request free days or vacations during the whole month of January? Do you think it’s fair that they gave orders to hospitals to postpone appointments when there are patients who take up to three days to reach a specialized hospital? Pilgrim, I know you have your heart in the right place.

They tell us that this will “benefit” everyone, but I don’t see it in that way. They tell us that it will “activate” the economy, and in theory you, pilgrims, will generate profits for the country by staying in hotels; But instead, Archbishop r Ulloa tells us on television that we are not sufficiently supportive in opening our homes to pilgrims and that we should host those who do not sleep in schools, and then they reiterate what income there will be because you will spend in restaurants and pharmacies, and This also implies that the small business owner benefits directly, but when I check the Panama Purchase page I see that within the bids there are calls for preparation, transport, and delivery of food and groceries for the pre-, WYD events, from which, the Pro-Mundi, benefit .

I am sincere, pilgrim: I believe that it would be just for the Church to pay for it. We all know that they have enough funds to eradicate world hunger, so I do not think that a small event represents greater spending; This is an event that is done for the faithful to come together. Therefore, dear pilgrim, I ask you: Do you believe that Jesus, who was a great revolutionary, who faced the hegemony of the Roman Empire, would participate in an event that more than benefits represents the hypocrisy of those who use his name in vain?

*Corina Rueda Borrero is a writer, lawyer, feminist and