COSTA Rican lawmakers may take another step toward protecting adopted children after last week’s debate in the Legislative Assembly over proposed reforms to the adoption law in the Family Code.

The reforms aim to put the Child Welfare Office (PANI) in the middle of the process for all adoptions in the country.

PANI should be able to participate “directly, dynamically and effectively,” in the process, according to the Legislative Assembly’s press release.

With a higher level of involvement in international adoptions, PANI would be able to broaden its research into potential adoptive families, help measure their psychological- social aptitude and, in the case of international adoptions, rule out the possibility of adoption within Costa Rica.

The Hague Convention on International Adoptions, to which child advocates say Costa Rica does not yet comply despite being a signatory to it, takes into account the psychological stress that could affect a child who is taken out of his or her culture and placed in another.

ACCORDING to the Hague Convention, the sudden change could deepen the child’s feeling of loss and could cause serious personality disorders. Also, international adoptions make follow-up counseling and professional attention nearly impossible for PANI officials.

For those reasons and others, the reforms will help regulate international adoptions and take into account the importance for adopted children of maintaining contact with their country of origin, as well the “right of each person to enjoy and grow within the family environment.”

The reforms would make PANI’s involvement in all adoptions obligatory and would more strictly regulate the international adoption process.

NOW, Costa Ricans and foreigners can adopt children here either through PANI in a government adoption, or through a lawyer who conducts the process before a judge, called direct adoption.

Since Jan. 1, the only judicial body with authority over the adoption proceedings of minors is the Children’s and Adolescents’ Court of the First Judicial Circuit in San José. Before that date, a number of courts throughout the country ruled on adoptions (TT Daily Page, Feb. 17).

Hilda Castro, president of the National Adoption Council, said the reforms would help guarantee the security of the adopted children and ensure they are adopted into good families.

Castro and Bruce Harris, of Casa Alianza child advocacy group, agreed that the former process opened the door to children’s rights violations and did not adequately consider the well-being of the child or the suitability of the adoptive family.

HARRIS says Casa Alianza is against direct adoptions, the kind the proposed reforms would change, “because they are susceptible to corruption.”

Castro said the legal reforms being discussed by Congress would make the rules of the Hague Convention apply not only to children who are adopted with the assistance of PANI, but to every child adopted in the country.

In accordance with the convention, PANI would become the country’s central adoption authority.

For many years, according to Castro, PANI has worked with experts from abroad, mainly from Italy and Spain, to improve the adoption process and ensure each child is taken into the best home possible. With that help, she said, the process in Costa Rica has improved significantly.

“FOR the moment, I’m satisfied,” Castro said. “But the decision that each parent makes to give up their child for adoption should be better advised, with more access to government aid and counseling. The children’s rights should be taken into account.”

However, those are not issues under discussion in the Assembly, and Castro said it would be difficult to get them on the table.

Deputy Elvia Nav arro of the CitizenAction Party said the proposed reforms “stipulate that adoptions of nationals by foreigners must be monitored, but make it necessary for Costa Rican children to be adopted preferably by Costa Ricans. There are a lot of people who make a large amount of money through adoptions and where is the follow-up? That is why it is necessary for PANI to monitor the process.”

Deputy Carlos Avendaño, from the Costa Rican Renovation Party, said that through the reforms he would like to rein in the idea that Costa Rica is a country favorable for the trafficking of people.

“A few months ago a Guatemalan group was discovered that tried, completely outside the law, to take some children out of the country,” he said. “That is what moves us to impose better regulation on the adoption process, especially the international adoptions.”

He referred to the discovery of nine Guatemalan babies held at an unregistered international adoption agency in La Uruca, San José, in September 2003.

Police and PANI raided the apartment where the agency was based, arrested seven suspects and took the babies into state custody (TT, Sept. 26, 2003).

LED by the National Women’s Institute (INAMU), Costa Ricans on Monday celebrated International Women’s Day through a variety of gatherings and cultural events, all designed to foment the idea of the modern woman, free from constraint by repressive stereotypes and discrimination.

Organizers said it was a day to reflect on issues such as equal employment opportunity, sexuality, freedom of expression and freedom from gender violence and discrimination.

The celebration came as the

reviews for the fourth time a controversial bill penalizing violence against women. The bill had been debated fervently since its introduction in 1999, but legislators made a concerted effort in recent weeks to speed its passage after a rash of domestic violence slayings this year (TT, March 5).

WOMEN’S Day was first celebrated before Word War I, when Russian women observed it as a part of the peace effort. In 1917, with 2 million Russian soldiers dead, women there again celebrated the day to strike for “bread and peace,” according to a United Nations statement about the subject.

Since then, it has grown in popularity internationally, and now March 8 is used as a time “to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of women’s rights,” the statement said.

Esmeralda Britton, Minister for the Condition of Women, told the press early in the day that increased involvement in technologies in the new information age is essential in achieving gender equality.

Britton pointed to the Worldwide Platform of Action signed at the fourth International Women’s Conference in Beijing, China, in 1995. The platform contains as one of its objectives, she said, the goal of increasing access and participation in new medias and new communication technologies.

“IN the new information age, rapid access to information is indispensable,” Britton said Monday morning. “The access to this technology is key in order to act successfully and promote equal participation of women.”

“I hope this date serves to recognize and internalize the advances woman have achieved throughout history, but more than anything, that it is evidence of the importance of continuing opening doors so that as women we can recognize ourselves as humans subject to rights,” she continued.

Britton’s speech was followed by the presentation of the Angela Acuña Braun prize, awarded to journalists working in print, radio and television who promote “equality and equity” among journalists who show an image of women free from stereotypes.

FEW would argue that Angela Acuña Braun is not a fitting name to bestow upon such a prize. Acuña Braun became the nation’s first woman lawyer in 1925. She organized the formation of the Costa Rican Feminist League and led a movement in 1941 that eventually allowed women to serve as mayors and judges.

She also led a movement that in 1949 granted Costa Rican women the right to vote, became the first female ambassador for the country before the Organization of American States, and in 1957 was awarded Woman of the Americas award. She passed away in 1983, at the age of 95.

The prize was created a year after her death, according to an INAMU statement.

MAYELA Rodríguez, of the women’s publication Huella, won the print category, while Carmen Robles and César González took the radio category, and Ana Lucía Faerrón and Ligia Córdoba won the television category.

The ceremony was just the beginning of a series of activities to celebrate the day, including a concert by renowned women’s artist and activist Guadalupe Urbina in Central Park and a series of films throughout the week at the University of Costa Rica.

Aside from the celebration, however, this year’s Women’s Day saw two brutal reminders of the work yet to be done to stop violence against women.

On Monday, 72-year-old Zeneida Vega was found beaten to death in her Heredia home, while 18-year-old María Flores was found dead, shot at least twice, in a gutter in Alajuela. Police are investigating the deaths.

ALTHOUGH DNA tests show Manuel López is the father of his 9-year-old daughter’s baby, born in October 2003, he was found not guilty of rape in a Desamparados court last month.

López was sentenced to 15 years in prison for two counts of sexual abuse – instead of the 48 years he would have faced if convicted of the three counts of rape he was charged with.

After evaluating the results of medical exams, judges determined on Feb. 11 that what led to the impregnation of the 9-year-old was not rape because there was no penetration, according to court spokesman Sergio Bonilla.

A medical exam in July 2003 showed the girl’s hymen was intact “without breakage, either old or new,” La Nación reported last week.

“It was a medical question – for there to be rape, there must be entry, but what happened was he ejaculated over the vulva of the minor,” Felipe Montealegre, public defender for López, told The Tico Times this week. “There were no lesions of any type.”

HOWEVER, representatives of the National Women’s Institute (INAMU) refute this definition of rape.

“The presence of the girl’s hymen does not discount that there was rape, because there are hymens that are more flexible, so there could have been this type of penetration without any ruptures of the hymen,” said Sylvia Mesa, a psychologist of violence for INAMU.

“Furthermore, the consequence of the girl’s pregnancy seems to me should implicate the application of the full force of the law,” she added.

The argument that the sperm entered the girl’s vagina from the vulva without penetration “is just justification for a lower punishment, he should have had the maximum sentence,” Mesa said.

According to the Law Against the Sexual Exploitation of Minors, “persons who carry out or have carnal access orally, anally or vaginally with a person of whichever sex in the following cases will be sanctioned with a prison sentence of 10 to 16 years: when the victim is under 12 years old, when the victim is incapable or found to be incapable of resisting, when they use physical violence or intimidation.”

The same sentence can be imposed if that action includes the introduction into the vagina or anus of fingers or objects.

LÓPEZ was found guilty of two counts of sexual abuse against a minor. The sentence for this charge, when it involves someone under the age of 12 and a relative or guardian, is between four and 10 years. López was sentenced to 10 years for the first charge and five years for the second.

The abuse happened in the evening, while the child’s mother was at work at a restaurant, according to Patricia Porras, who works with the 9-year-old mother and her 28-year-old mother in the group Recycling Hopes, a support group for young mothers (see separate story).

The girl is in the second grade and is still learning to read, Porras said. She suffers from some mental retardation. The girl’s daughter was born physically healthy.

“She really doesn’t even realize she is a mother,” Porras said, as the girl played with a doll at a recent meeting of Recycling Hopes.

WHEN Patricia Porras places children’s books in the outstretched hands that encircle her at a Recycling Hopes meeting, it is unclear by whom “The Three Little Pigs” and “Picote, the Happy Bird” are meant to be enjoyed: the babies who crawl around the floor, or their young mothers.

Many of the mothers who attend the meetings are barely out of elementary school and hardly read above a second-grade level.

Improving literacy is one of many goals at Recycling Hopes, a support group for children and teenagers who are pregnant or have children. By handing out books, Porras says, the mothers are encouraged to learn to read, both for their benefit and the benefit of their children.

THE group meets every Monday afternoon for two hours in a park in San Francisco de Dos Ríos, a suburb in southeast San José. It is a chance for young mothers to share their stories and learn how to better care for themselves and their children.

Depending on the week, between 10 and 20 mothers attend the meetings, and many travel for several hours to arrive, Porras said. About a quarter are victims of rape and nearly all are raising their children without the help of the fathers.

“I call the fathers athletes, because as soon as they find out the girl is pregnant, they all run away fast,” said Porras, a 50- year-old poet and retired teacher. She is married and has four kids and two grandchildren.

At Recycling Hopes, in addition to learning about breastfeeding and hygiene, members of the group often are given donations of strollers, cribs, combs, clothes and food. But more than any of this, what these girls need is hope, Porras said.

“WE want people to respect them, and them to respect themselves,” Porras said.

“Sometimes they are so young, they don’t realize what they are facing.”

Nineteen-year-old María has barely spoken since she was raped more than a year ago, Porras said. But the support group has slowly gained her trust and at a recent meeting, she read aloud from a book she was given.

“We want to give them their life back,” Porras said.

Porras started the group 17 years ago when she overheard a girl crying at a public phone, telling her friend over she was pregnant. Porras offered to take the girl to the doctor.

Porras soon learned the 10-year-old girl’s sister also was pregnant – at 11 years old.

“Slowly we met other girls in the same situation, and there began the group,” she said.

FOURTEEN-year-old Pamela was informed about the group by her school. She said the group “makes her feel really good” about herself and her 3-month-old daughter.

Pamela has been offered words of encouragement from women dentists, writers and community leaders who visit the Recycling Hopes meetings.

Karen Mejía, who got pregnant when she was 17 and now has a 2-year-old son, also has found support within the group, however, she believes real strength must come from within.

“In the end, you have to look within yourself. You just have to continue forward,” she said.

How To Help

For more information on Recycling Hopes, or to help, call 283-2626 and leave a message for Reciclando Esperanzas at account number 134320 or call Patricia Porras directly at 259-0053.

THE Legislative Assembly has agreed to allow up to 35 U.S. airships to land in three of the country’s airports between Feb. 15 and May 15 of this year, the official government newspaper La Gaceta reported Monday.

The plans are allowed to land at JuanSantamaríaAirport in San José, DanielOduberQuirósAirport in Liberia, in the northwestern province of Guanacaste, and the Limón airport on the central Caribbean coast.

The planes will land for refueling, the transfer of people and transport of goods in search-and-rescue missions and support of Costa Rican authorities.

Twenty types of planes, with capacities from two to 10 people, were granted permission.

The U.S. Embassy made the request to the Costa Rican government through the Foreign Ministry.

THE Costa Rican Electricity and Telecom Institute (ICE) has contracted Swedish firm Ericsson to install 1,092 kilometers of fiber-optic cables across the country, “from border to border and coast to coast.”

The $65 million project seeks to provide high-speed voice and data telecommunications services to the entire country, the daily La República reported.

The project, known as Border to Border, includes the installation of 244 km of fiber optics from Peñas Blancas, near the border with Nicaragua, to the central town of San Ramón.

An additional 326 km of cables will be placed between Tarbaca, on the outskirts of the Central Valley, and Paso Canoas, near the border with Panama. Another 522 km are planned from both the country’s coasts to the eastern and western edges of the Central Valley.

These four cables will interconnect with the Central Valley’s existing fiberoptic network.

The project’s main goal is to provide the country with high-capacity (up to 10 Gigabits per second) transmission infrastructure that can be used simultaneously for local, international and cellular telephone calls, as well as high-speed Internet data-transmission.

ICE officials say the new fiber-optic network will complement the country’s long-awaited and much-delayed Advanced Internet Network (TT, Dec. 19, 2003).

The project is part of Costa Rica’s commitment to the Puebla-Panama Plan, which aims to interconnect the highways, electrical systems and data-transmission infrastructure from Southern Mexico to Panama.

APPROXIMATELY 800 law-enforcement officials from across Latin America are in Costa Rica this month for a three-week seminar addressing the issue of legal and illegal arms trafficking in the region, according to the Public Security Ministry.

The event was inaugurated on Monday – just days after Costa Rican Legislator Rolando Laclé, president of the Legislative Assembly’s Permanent Foreign Relations Committee, said a U.S.-fundedInternationalLawEnforcementAcademy (ILEA) in the country had been virtually nullified because of its potential military character (See separate story).

The training course is a product of a joint effort by the Public Security Ministry and the UnitedNationsCenter for Regional Disarmament, and is supported by the University for Peace and the International Police.

Officials attending the seminar will receive training on techniques of arms identification, as well as the role arms trafficking plays in terrorism and drug trafficking, according to the Public Security Ministry.

Public Security Minister Rogelio Ramos said Costa Rica was chosen as the location for the seminar because of its longstanding democratic civil tradition and because the University for Peace is located here.

IN the wake of an alarming study of the danger a large eruption would pose to the tourists and people who live around the base of the active Arenal Volcano, in the country’s Northern Zone, the Municipal Council of San Carlos this week approved a motion to review all construction permits granted in that sector.

The investigation of the permits is expected to determine if structures are planned in zones where lava and hot ash are most likely to flow, according to the Monday decision.

The National Emergency Commission (CNE) invited vulcanologist Robert Tilling, a member of the Volcano Hazards Team of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), to study the risk of an eruption and the capacities of the nearby hotels and resorts for an emergency evacuation.

Tilling conducted the study in November 2003 and submitted the report in the end of December.

SEVERAL years ago, the Emergency Commission coordinated a joint effort between two university-based geological  institutions and the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity, the result of which is a map of the probable danger zones around the volcano.

The map is a legal zoning plan that, since its publication in 2001, should have prohibited any new construction in the high-risk areas, according the CNE.

However, it has not been consistently enforced – one of the problems that Tilling’s report highlighted – and is the reason the Municipal Council decided to review all new construction permits.

“Any new construction in those zones must undergo a study of volcanic risk,” said Lidier Esquivel, Chief of Prevention of the CNE.

The map breaks the zones of risk into four levels, R1 through R4. R1 is the most likely to be devastated in a strong pyroclastic flow, and CNE recommends that it be free of all structures, roads, hiking trails and people. The high-risk area should be open only to scientific research and monitoring of the volcano.

The other three zones are considered de-escalating degrees of risk, but none should be the site of any new constructions.

BECAUSE the map was created only three years ago and the tourism industry has steadily grown during the last 10 years, there are resorts in those zones, even in the R1 high-risk area.

The most notable are Tabacón Resort and Hot Springs and Hotel Los Lagos. Esquivel said it is not possible, economically or politically, to move those resorts out of the R1 zone.

Tabacón has been threatened before. In May 1998, it had to evacuate its guests following a huge eruption and 23 volcanic avalanches that stopped one kilometer from its site. The CNE placed the area on Red Alert for 24 hours following the eruption (TT, May 8, 1998).

If relocation money were available from the government, those resorts would be moved out of the danger zone, according to Esquivel, but since it is not, they will remain until a better solution is available.

Meanwhile, no new structures may be built in the R1 area, rather, they must be built in safer zones, and could, in the case of the Hotel Los Lagos, migrate slowly out of harm’s way through additions.

NUMEROUS phone calls by The Tico Times to representatives of the Hotel Los Lagos and Tabacón Resort received no response. However, Francisco Vargas, head of public relations for Tabacón and president of the La Fortuna Chamber of Tourism, told Al Día after reading Tilling’s report that there will be more dialog and contact with CNE and other organizations that will help with development of emergency plans.

Fabio Cedeño, owner of the Hotel Los Lagos, told Al Día “It’s not a secret to anyone that Arenal is an active volcano, and tourists like to look at it… But, do you think it’s fair that, after all these years, someone comes to us and tells us to remove what we’ve made? Why didn’t they tell us before we made the investment?”

He said only 30% of the Los Lagos buildings are in the R1 zone.

“You can move hotel rooms or a restaurant, but the cost is huge. The state has to help with the investment,” he said.

THE Commission’s map is dotted with 36 hotels, hot springs, trails and lookouts, all within 5.5 kilometers of the volcano’s peak.

Tilling’s report warns that volcanic flows could sweep down the flanks of the volcano and destroy tourist facilities within five minutes of an eruption.

“It is imperative,” he wrote, “to allow the preparation of realistic mitigation measures, including rapid evacuations if necessary.

Tilling praised the creation of the land-use map, calling it “well-prepared” and on a “solid scientific foundation.” He said its legal backing makes it, perhaps, unique in the world.

Still, in some places it seems “inconsistent and illogical,” Tilling said, saying apparent political criteria influenced the creation of the zones. Though such a zoning plan must take into account the people who live in the area, the map should have been made after the area underwent a purely scientific volcano-hazards assessment, and thus not be tainted by economic or political factors, the U.S. geologist said.

ESQUIVEL said no political pressure was felt during the creation of the map, in the sense that politicians demanded to place zone boundaries in certain areas.

“A plan like this affects certain interests. There are estates in those zones,”

Esquivel said, but added he didn’t understand Tilling’s comment.

“I wouldn’t know where it comes from – the study was completely scientific,” he said.

Tilling said there are “no quick or easy remedies in reducing volcanic risk,” if the mountain continues to erupt. The volcano is one of the few in the world in a continuous period of activity.

Eruptions began in 1968 and are still ongoing, with large eruptions an average of two times every year, Esquivel said.

Esquivel said the businesses in the area have already started making evacuation plans and considering the possibility of a disaster as a result of the map and Tilling’s study.

TILLING recommended both shortand long-term measures for disaster prevention. In the short term, he said, the Emergency Com-mission should create a new topographic map on a much smaller scale, as well as a hazard-zoning map to assess the best evacuation routes and the likelihood of certain buildings being in the volcanic flow.

Esquivel said CNE should complete the detailed topographic map within four or five months.

CNE should better publicize their current land-use map, Tilling said, and also create a post for an Arenal-hazard specialist who would be an envoy to the public about the risks of the volcano.

Should the volcanic activity at Arenal die down and shift to another peak in the country, as it likely will at some point, that specialist could then take charge of safety in the other region, Tilling said.

ESQUIVEL said CNE plans to masspublish the map this year and will place 35 signs in the most-frequented areas around the volcano and delineate the danger zones within four or five months.

For more information or to get a copy of the map, call CNE at 220-2020 ext. 3, or e-mail prevencion@cne.go.cr. The map also is available at the ArenalVolcanoNational Park office.

Tilling also recommended Costa Rican authorities improve their monitoring of the volcano and focus on better “real-time” observation to give people the most time possible to evacuate before or during an eruption.

He suggests observation will be easier if the existing geological institutions share their seismic data from the stations around Arenal. Currently they are independently operated. He also recommends that hotels and resorts stage drills to test their abilities to evacuate people quickly. He is skeptical that Tabacón Resort and others in the danger zones can remove their guests in less than five minutes.

IN the long term, within 10 years, Tilling suggests the maps be updated, the businesses in the R1 zone be removed, and that the area develop a region-wide contingency plan that would include the possibility of huge eruptions that the current landuse plan does not take into account.

CNE chose Tilling because he is known as one of the most experienced vulcanologists in the world, Esquivel said. He has worked with the USGS for more than 30 years around the world and has been published on the subject extensively.

Tilling volunteered his time for the study, asking only for payment of his expenses, Esquivel added.

HIGH international oil prices could make it difficult for the Central Bank to meet the macroeconomic targets it set in its 2004 monetary policy, according to General Manager José Rafael Brenes.

Brenes said the current price of crude oil is 25% higher than expected when this year’s monetary policy was announced, the daily La Nación reported.

On Jan. 14, the Central Bank unveiled its annual monetary policy, which predicted economic stability with 4.4% growth and 9% inflation (TT, Jan. 16). The bank’s calculations were based on the assumption that the average price of a barrel of oil in 2004 would be $28.

However, in recent weeks it has hovered between $32 and $35.

Central Bank President Francisco de Paula Gutiérrez said the bank would wait to see how the price of crude evolves before revising its goals.

If the high prices continue, it would likely result in higher inflation, Brenes said. During the last five months, the country has registered a monthly inflation higher than 1%.

Experts worry that in addition to higher inflation, high oil prices could increase the country’s current account deficit – the overall balance between imports of goods and services (not capital).

This year, the Central Bank was expecting the country’s current account deficit to be equal to 4.4% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

However, higher oil prices will increase the price of total imports and the total size of the deficit. For example, Brenes said, if oil prices remain $5 above the Central Bank’s estimate, the deficit would increase by approximately $80 million.

To counter the deficit and prevent the Central Bank from depleting its foreign currency reserves, it would be necessary to increase the colón’s rate of devaluation against the dollar or sell bonds on the open market, according to Brenes.

DESPITE setbacks with the new tax plan, Finance Minister Alberto Dent says the government is firm in its resolve to push the plan through the Legislative Assembly by the end of April.

Following nearly a month of heated debate between the country’s political factions, the nine-member legislative commission charged with reforming the proposed Permanent Fiscal Reform Package on Saturday announced it was unable to reach an agreement on changes to the bill.

Since no agreement was reached, the tax plan is right back where it started last year. The original tax package, approved by a mixed commission in December, will go to the floor of the Legislative Assembly to be voted on by all 57 deputies.

COMMISSION chairman Mario Redondo, of the Social Christian Unity Party, stressed the urgency of the fiscal reforms.

“This is a project of national importance,” he said. “Schools’ and communities’ needs are not being met because the government lacks the necessary resources.

“Let’s say it clearly: this is a country with a taste for champagne but a budget for agua dulce,” he said, referring to a typical Costa Rican drink made with hot water and raw cane sugar. “We can’t aspire to develop if we don’t have resources. We have the option of choosing between being a beggar country or one with solidarity.”

Pressure on legislators to approve the tax plan has been mounting since President Abel Pacheco and Finance Minister Dent warned they would withdraw their support for the bill if it is not approved by April 30. Instead, they warned, they will move ahead with “Plan B” – slashing ¢72 billion ($171.4 million, roughly 1% of the country’s gross domestic product) from the budgets of 15 government ministries and several social programs (TT, Feb. 13, 20).

“We are obligated to have many alternatives,” Dent pointed out. “We, as any good executive, can’t find ourselves in a position where we don’t have anything to do. We have a clear conception of what we have to do and we’re going to do it.”

DENT, the tax plan’s main proponent, said he had mixed feelings about the latest commission’s final results.

“I expected more discussion of the bill’s content,” Dent told The Tico Times on Tuesday. “What they voted to approve was the same text we had agreed on in December. However, some advances were made. We’ve finished one phase and are ready to begin another one.”

By creating new taxes and improving the collection of existing taxes, the government hopes to increase revenues by an amount equal to 2.56% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and permanently reduce the country’s fiscal deficit.

In December, after 15 months of debate, a mixed commission that included representatives of every legislative faction, business chambers, unions and other groups unveiled what was believed to be the final version of the tax proposal (TT, Dec. 5, 2003).

The Pacheco administration adopted the plan and submitted it to the Legislative Assembly as a bill on Jan. 19. The ninemember legislative commission was created Feb. 5 to study and modify the tax plan so it could be voted on. The commission was given until Feb. 26 to make last-minute changes (TT, Feb. 13), although the deadline was later extended until last Saturday (TT, Mar. 5).

TOWARD the end of last week, it appeared that the majority of the commission – deputies from the Social Christian Unity Party, National Liberation Party, Citizen Action Party and Carlos Avendaño of Costa Rican Renovation – had reached agreements on several main aspects of the tax plan.

The proposed changes would redefine income tax brackets, create additional exemptions to the proposed 13% valueadded tax, change the corporate tax rate and create a special tax system for small and medium businesses.

Agreements were reached during informal meetings between legislators outside the commission. Commission member Federico Malavassi, of the Libertarian Movement, blasted the meetings as a “parallel commission” that undermined the efforts of the real commission.

Redondo said the meetings were necessary to speed up the commission’s work. Malavassi paralyzed the commission, Redondo claimed, saying that during the last month, the Libertarian deputy had issued a barrage of more than 400 reform motions, many of which had no validity.

“IF we created a parallel commission it was the result of the circumstances,” agreed commission member Bernal Jiménez of National Liberation. “One deputy came in every day to issue 25 motions and speak for 15 minutes on each one of them. He repeated this behavior every day. Precious days that could have been dedicated to useful debate were lost.”

President Pacheco also blasted Malavassi’s antics. During his weekly television and radio address on Feb. 15, Pacheco singled out Malavassi and his party as the main reason he was threatening to resort to Plan B.

Malavassi fired back the next day, sparking a public war of words between the two (TT, Feb. 20).

The informal agreements reached during the final meetings were included in a 480-page motion that, once approved by the commission, would replace the majority of the December tax plan.

HOWEVER, on Saturday morning, shortly after the commission convened for its last day of debate, Citizen Action deputy Epsy Campbell announced her party was withdrawing support for the agreement.

Campbell said the motion failed to include her party’s main proposals — namely increasing the corporate income tax from 20% to 24%. She also argued deputies had not been given enough time to properly study the huge motion, and Citizen Action would not sign a document it was not familiar with.

Redondo said everything in the motion had been agreed to by the four parties, following hours of discussion and debate.

“Nothing in there is secret; everything is transparent and crystal clear,” he said. Jiménez and fellow Liberation party member Nury Garita accused Citizen Action deputies of going back on their word and delaying a bill of vital importance to the country by making a “political show” out of the commission.

THE 480-page mega-motion was not voted on, nor was it amended to the tax plan. Once the commission’s final deadline expired at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, the commission voted 5-4 to endorse the original December tax plan.

Citizen Action, which last December voted to endorse the very same tax plan, voted against it this time. Garita said she was outraged at this.

“I voted for this bill because I voted for the original project,” a visibly upset Garita told reporters shortly after the session ended. “When I reach an agreement, I keep my word.”

Unity, Liberation and Renovation on Tuesday issued a majority report with recommendations on what changes the plan needs. Citizen Action, Patriotic Bloc and the Libertarian Movement plan to issue three separate minority reports, which must be submitted by March 22.

While the bill is debated on the floor of the Assembly, legislators will have a chance to make changes to the bill. Jiménez and Garita have announced they will attempt to make all the reforms contained in the “mega-motion” through regular motions.

Saturday’s setback is the latest in a long series of delays to the plan, which was originally presented to the Legislative Assembly by the Pacheco administration in mid-2002 (TT, Aug. 2, Sept. 6, Oct. 18, 2002).

To give legislators more time to discuss and reform the Permanent Fiscal Reform Package, in December 2002, the government approved a temporary Emergency Tax Plan to raise funds during 2003 (TT, Dec. 20, 2002). Those extraordinary taxes expired at the end of last year.