Panama's Minister of Economy and Finance, Felipe Chapman, stated that he knows nothing about the supposed toll payments the government makes for U.S. warships to use the Panama Canal, as recently claimed by Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) leader Mitchell Doens. "I am unaware of that," Chapman said. However, Chapman was firm: he pointed out that the matter is directly handled by President José Raúl Mulino and Minister of Security Frank Ábrego, and that as far as he knows, everything has been handled with transparency, without shortcuts or mysteries. According to the minister, these statements caught him off guard. "In what I have been able to investigate within the Ministry of Economy and Finance, that does not match reality," he concluded, as if dismantling a story before it grows. Meanwhile, the administrator of the Panama Canal, Ricaurte Vásquez, eased the tension with hard data: he assured that the presence of U.S. military vessels in the eastern Caribbean has not affected traffic through the waterway. This Tuesday alone, 38 ships passed through, just like any busy workday in the wet season that splits a continent in two. "It seems he has information that I do not have," Chapman said, making it clear that he has no record or document to support that version. Doens, on social media, affirms that these payments come from the Ministry of Security, which ignited debate in political circles and over coffee.
