Leaving Panama

To say I’m leaving Panama is a relative term. I’m officially checked out, but I probably won’t actually leave port until tomorrow. Then it will take a whole day to get down the river, then a night at Boca Chica, then a night out in the islands, then finally around Punta Burica into Costa Rica. So I won’t actually be leaving Panama for four days, but this is my last hurrah at the Internet cafe.

Since I’m officially checked out and it’s not likely that the officials visit this website, I can declare that they are corrupt theiving bastards! Actually the Port Captain’s office and Port Authority are on the up-and-up, fast, efficient, and friendly. The agricultural inspector, the immigration guy, and the customs guy are slime.

The agricultural guy asked me for $35, which I gave to him, then he gave me a receipt for $15. I balked and he made up some crap about another inspection and said he would give me a reciept if I had a piece of paper. He scrawled out a reciept on a piece of notebook paper which means nothing. He scammed me out of $20 and there’s no way I’m getting it back. So now I can tell the world: Santiago Ruiz is a bad man! He abuses his authority! I guess it’s not really corruption because corruption would mean he’s stealing money from the Panamanian people. The Panamanian people got their $15 bucks, but I lost another $20 that went into his pocket, so I guess it’s abuse of power to con and steal.

The immigration guy now has thousands of retired Americans living in the area so he’s ‘in business.’ He is famous for kicking people out of the immigration office for wearing shorts: You must be respectibly dressed to be in a government office. Meanwhile he is unshaven and usually wears a white, but yellowed, sweat stained, short sleeved polyester shirt.

I went into the immigration office at 4:30 one day, just before the office closed. He asked me what time I got into port and I stupidly said 7:00. Since this is outside of business hours he said I’d be charged overtime charges of $45, payable in cash to him, plus I’d have to go to the national bank and pay $10. There was a long standoff and he came back with the ubiquitous, ‘¿Que hacemos?’ This is Spanish for, ‘Show me the money and you’re done.’ Since I’m on a strict anticorruption policy, I said I’d go to the bank in the morning when it opened and see him afterwords. Funny thing, the next day when the office was packed with employees and visa applicants he didn’t mention that $45.

The customs guy has been scamming every boat for $20. I just said, ‘No, there’s no charge for customs. Never has been. I’m not paying.’ He was furious, but there was nothing he could do.

Sadly, Panama has been the most corrupt country I’ve visited in the world. It’s the only place I’ve ever paid an all-out bribe, $100 to a Port Captain eight years ago. In hindsight, I don’t know if I actually did anything wrong, but he’d confiscated our passports, arrested me, and alluded to confiscation of Condesa, plus he had a gun.

Some argue that a corrupt system is still a functional system, that it’s just our cultural bias that prevents us from accepting it as it is. Sorry, corruption is bad. It means jobs don’t get done and money doesn’t go where it’s supposed to. The victims and the Panamanian people suffer for it. I guess I’d be singing a different tune if I were buying myself out of some jail time, but strangely enough, I seem to usually be on the right side of the law in these situations.