Caja de Ahorros Comments on Demolition of Arraiján Viewpoint

Andrés Farrugia, general manager of Caja de Ahorros, accompanied by Minister of Culture Maruja Herrera and members of the Chinese community, toured the land of the former Mirador de las Américas viewpoint, which was demolished by the mayor of Arraiján, Stefany Peñalba, sparking a wave of criticism and complaints against her. Farrugia took the opportunity to clarify that the aforementioned land has belonged to Caja de Ahorros since 1993, but that 'in an act of goodwill, a kind of administrative concession was granted to the Panamanian-Chinese group that was going to carry out this project.' 'We have remained gentlemen with them to carry out the necessary reviews to establish something beautiful, modern, and that allows for multiculturalism and even has the possibility of having spaces for samples of Panamanian artistic expressions,' Farrugia stated. 'We are with Minister Herrera and with representatives of the Chinese community seeing the possibilities of resuming some kind of park, monument or similar that values and highlights the contributions of Chinese society in Panama,' said Farrugia. And indeed, the manager of Caja de Ahorros highlighted that 'they are of Chinese descent, but they are also Panamanians, and we are highlighting the Panamanian culture that has been formed with the support of several communities,' he specified. However, the manager of Caja de Ahorro said that although the concession term expired, that banking institution had no participation whatsoever in the demolition of the monument and the viewpoint. 'We did not participate, and it really caught us by surprise just like the rest,' he assured.