Author: Sebastian Pieper

Under the carved wooden eaves of the Municipal House in San Felipe, 30 women glided across the floor in crisp cotton skirts, their head wraps crisp and gold chains catching the afternoon light. This was the debut of the Concurso de la Montuna Santeña, a cultural program of the Casco Peatonal that shifted attention from Panama’s famous gala pollera to the hardworking country cousin from Los Santos. Organizers packed the colonial venue with residents and tourists alike, eager to see ancestral dress celebrated inside the capital’s historic core. From Country Fields to the Colonial Stage The montuna santeña emerged generations…

A controversial maximum-security prison project slated for the Divisa area of Santa María District is moving forward despite firm resistance from local authorities, setting the stage for a tense community debate in the coming weeks. The Government Ministry confirmed the initiative remains a state priority after a private meeting ended with municipal leaders voicing their objections. Mayor Iván de León emerged from the Friday sit-down with Minister Dinoska Montalvo carrying a clear message back to residents: the project is happening, and the government wants to sell the community on its benefits. A State Mandate Meets Municipal Resistance Santa María’s mayor…

For Santos Ortega, a Boquete resident, the approaching rainy season used to bring a knot of anxiety. He has watched torrents of water barrel down from the El Salto highlands, overwhelming drainage channels and creeping toward homes. That unease is finally easing as crews from Panama’s Ministry of Public Works (MOP) rush to finish a long-awaited stormwater rerouting system. “We’re hopeful these works will stop the damage once and for all,” Ortega said, expressing a sentiment shared across this corner of Chiriquí province. Residents Voice Relief as Drainage Channels Take Shape A sense of guarded optimism is spreading through the…

Angelo Solanilla’s boats are ready. Just minutes from the coast, humpback whales are arriving in Panamanian waters, and the tour operator from the Azuero Peninsula isn’t waiting for travelers to find him. He’s bringing the experience straight to the capital’s most visited historic district. A new pedestrian zone showcase in Casco Antiguo is putting destinations like Pedasí, Boquete, and Isla Caña directly in front of the more than 100,000 tourists who have already entered Panama this year, marking a deliberate pivot away from the well-worn paths of Panama City toward the country’s less-traveled interior provinces. A Strategic Stage in the…

A single hectare of Panama’s tangled mangrove forest can trap four times more carbon than a towering tropical forest on land, a biological superpower that turns these coastal wetlands into prized blue carbon vaults. On July 26, as the world marks the International Day for the Defense of the Mangrove ecosystem and to recover mangroves, officials and communities are staring at a hard truth: the country has already lost roughly half of its original mangrove cover, and the race to save what remains is accelerating. The date honors environmental activist Hayhow Daniel Nanoto and was fixed by UNESCO in 2015,…

Barely 285 travelers passed through the Enrique Adolfo Jiménez Airport in the first five months of this year, yet its location at the doorstep of one of the hemisphere’s busiest free trade zones has business leaders pushing for a dramatic overhaul. Representatives from the Colón Free Zone want to wrest control of the terminal from Panama’s main airport operator and fold it into a sprawling logistics expansion already reshaping hundreds of hectares next door. A Terminal Stuck in Low Gear Official data from Tocumen S.A., the state entity that manages Panama’s airport network, reveals just how quiet the Colón airfield…

A creek in northern Panama had its natural flow violently twisted, its banks clawed apart by crude tools and its water siphoned away. When authorities closed in on the Río María Prieto waterway on July 25, 2026, they found a group of people actively extracting gold from the streambed, leaving behind a swath of devastated terrain. The surprise enforcement action, undertaken by the country’s specialized environmental task force, netted six individuals and a cache of equipment that painted a stark picture of how unlicensed mining continues to gnaw at Panama’s ecosystems. Environmental Devastation Along Río María Prieto The operation was…

Inside the vaults of Panama’s National Bank, a set of electoral records from Venezuela’s 2024 presidential vote sits under lock and key. For Panamanian officials, those documents are more than paper, they represent the presidency of Edmundo González and a roadmap back to democratic legitimacy. Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha pointed to that physical evidence during an interview from India on Tuesday, making it clear that Panama will not restore diplomatic relations with the government led by Delcy Rodríguez anytime soon. “We keep the tally sheets that certify Edmundo González’s victory in the July 28, 2024 elections in the vaults of…

Every day, nearly 74 million gallons of treated drinking water vanish beneath the streets of Panama Oeste, never reaching a single family, school, or business. The staggering loss, which represents half of the province’s daily production, has pushed officials to launch an emergency repair blitz in Arraiján, a district where chronic shortages and dismal water pressure have become a way of life for thousands. Crews with heavy equipment rolled out to Loma Cová alongside the Pan-American Highway this week, kicking off an aggressive campaign to patch more than 150 leaks and pipe fractures that for years have bled the region’s…

A bright Aeroregional jet broke through the coastal haze this week and landed at Scarlett Martínez International Airport, carrying more than just inbound tourists. It delivered a long-awaited direct link between Ecuador and Panama’s Pacific Riviera, a sun-soaked stretch that has often played second fiddle to the capital’s Tocumen hub. With the new Quito-Río Hato Flight, now, officials say that dynamic is about to shift dramatically. The Pacific Riviera’s Growing Air Gateway Sitting just minutes from the all-inclusive resorts and white-sand beaches of Coclé province, the Río Hato airport has traditionally handled seasonal charters and a handful of regional connections.…