Panamanian congressional representative praises Cuba's social model

Panama City, February 10 (RHC)-- On Wednesday, the president of the Foreign Relations Committee of Panama's National Assembly (Parliament), Mariano Lopez, praised Cuba's social model and the participation of women in all spheres. 

Lopez received the Deputy Yolanda Ferrer, Head of the International Relations Committee of the legislature of the Caribbean nation and the ambassador of the island in the isthmus, Lydia Margarita Gonzalez.

In a fraternal dialogue, Ferrer thanked this meeting on behalf of the deputies and the people of Cuba and expressed her affection for the people of Panama by virtue of close historical ties, as well as expressed interest in consolidating relations between the legislatures and invited her counterpart to visit Cuba.

She also expressed her gratitude for Panama's support for the work of the Revolution that triumphed in 1959 and its current challenges and an expression of this are the contributions of the Parliamentary Group of Friendship with Cuba, headed by Congressman Juan Esquivel.  She also explained the impact of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States, which became official 60 years ago on February 3rd. 

The current administration of Joe Biden, maintains the 243 coercive measures approved by his predecessor Donald Trump, even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which deprives the Cuban people of access to medicines and technologies. However, she stressed, the spirit of resistance and the development of science, as conceived by Fidel Castro since the 1960s, has made it possible to present five vaccine candidates and approve two such drugs to achieve independence and immunize so far 88 percent of the population, including two-year-old children. 

In this sense, she indicated that in the scientific centers more than half of their workers are women, but women occupy a majority and leading role in various sectors of society, based on the academic training acquired and their qualities as professionals. On the other hand, she also commented on the system of popular consultations that endorses the approval of important laws, such as the current Constitution of the Republic and offered details of a similar referendum on the new Family Code, initiated last February 1.