Faltering city mayor gets tongue lashed and massive thumbs down

Panama’s Mayor Bosco Vallarino had another weekend facing barbs from all sides about his latest initiatives including school scholarships for boxing prowess to garbage collection. 

The latest of his multiple flights of fancy to raise the ire of large sections of the population from a leading brain surgeon to Panama’s ombudsman was the awarding of school scholarships for winners in a boxing contest for students. The Fight for your Scholarship," event which included children aged 10 years, was held Saturday at at the El Maranon. Lions Club gym
The city Mayor accompanied by former fighters like Roberto Duran, Ismael Laguna, and Hilario Zapata, attended the activity which he had promoted on radio and television.
Through a spokesmen, he said that children who participated were part of a boxing network.
But that explanation did not sit well with the National Network of Support for Children and Adolescents in Panama, Chaired by Chaverri Roderick, who said that such events are counterproductive given the level of violence in the country.
The National Secretariat for Children, Youth and Families, chaired by Gloria Lozano, also disapproved.
A leading neuro surgeon described boxing for young children as as a portential cause for brain damage, and the country’s Ombudsman said the program was an affront to human rights.

The Archbishop of Panama, José Domingo Ulloa, also gave a negative review to the program and a said that boxing is not the best way to encourage a child.
Parents with academically gifted children said the scholarships were an insult to those who studied hard in school.
A deputy, named by Vallarino as a sponsor of the tournament hotly denied his involvement leaving the mayor hanging out to dry after a weekend when he was tongue lashed by leading politicians for his ineffectual garbage disposal abilities, and when a newspaper poll of readers about his ability to solve the waste problem, showed that 85 percent gave him the thumbs down.
The good news is that the country’s cartoonists had another great weekend depicting the mayor’s antics.

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