Panama Business Wants Public Holidays Moved Back To Fridays and Mondays

Sources: La Estrella and Panama public holidays. Panama business leaders of the hotel industry, joined by business leaders from Panama's hinterland, will formally request that President Martín Torrijos Espino restore the so called "días puentes" or "fines de semanas largos" whereby public holidays were moved from their fixed date to adjoin the nearest weekend, hence creating long weekends that promote internal tourism and consumption.

Background: The concept of bridge public holidays, or long weekend public holidays, common in many countries of Latin America, was introduced to Panama by President Ernesto Pérez Balladares in 1996, but the law was abrogated in 2000 under the presidency of Mireya Moscoso.

Analysis: The trend in Latin America is definitely towards moving public holidays to adjoin weekends or to create bridge public holidays on Mondays or Fridays, for public holidays that occur on a Tuesday or Thursday (not to mention many countries in Eastern Europe, such as Hungary and Bulgaria, as well as The Philippines and Indonesia). So from that point of view, it is quite possible that the current petition will be considered by Panama's current president.

However, one should note that in Latin America, there is a strong current resisting the moving of fixed dates public holidays to adjoin weekends. This very influential segment of the population, which already had many such holidays laws partially repealed throughout Latin America, considers the moving of fixed date religious public holidays as sacrilegious, and similarly considers the moving of fixed dates historical public holidays as un-patriotic.