Pro-Train Committee: build in stages, shield the project from politics

In an op-ed, Comité Pro Tren members Carlos Ernesto González de la Lastra and Julián Rivera Shelton argue the railway is a work of state that must survive government cycles, propose a "Triple Helix" governance model, State, Railway Secretariat, and citizen committee , and back construction by stages.

Background & context

The "Triple Helix" proposal is worth taking seriously regardless of who is proposing it, because Panama's infrastructure history includes projects that stalled or reversed on a change of administration. A railway planned for delivery in stages over 7–8 years will span at least two more presidential terms after 2029.

The Committee's argument is essentially that engineering plans do not protect a project from politics, statutes and standing institutions do. The Secretaría Nacional del Ferrocarril already exists as that kind of standing body; what the op-ed adds is a citizen-oversight layer alongside it.

Worth watching: whether any of this translates into an actual bill or decree, since op-eds by advocacy committees are inputs to policy, not policy itself.