The idea is to create two new tax regimes while eliminating the possibility of joining any of the current 10 regimes. This change doesn’t affect us currently as issuing of new ZOLITUR permits stopped years ago. The Secretary of the Presidency is correct in the video published: they aren’t eliminating the existing benefits, just any future possibility to affiliate.

In the justification for the proposal of this new law, the legislator also cited corrupt practices by all the regimes. Among other abuses stated, were that under ZOLITUR benefits. There are five companies that import twice the amount of fuel the island can consume.

I would like to know where they got the numbers for this statement. We haven’t had a proper census in years on the island, just an electoral one. I want to see the compiled data for what 1 person consumes in fuel according to this study for the Tax Law proposal.

Here is data I want them to show in this tax proposal. Honduras is projected to generate $600 million in tourism revenue in 2023. With two million visitors expected, vast majority of the income is coming from the Bay Islands.

One third of revenue generated by Roatan cruise ships ends on the mainland and stays there. On the other hand cruise ships that dock here, deplete our resources: our water, roads and beaches.

This could open the door to a spike in kidnappings.

As islanders and resident ex-pats we pay plenty in local and federal taxes. On the other hand, what central government invests back here is very little to sustain the natural resources and protect the tourism industry that produces this income for them.

Personally I think that when it comes to tourism in Honduras, Bay Islands leads the way. When it comes to remembering the island for projects from central government well let’s just say we are far from their top priority.

The new law also proposes to eliminate the bank confidentiality to allow the tax offices to freely have access to our bank records without a court order. Every employee that works at the tax office will have the ability to access your bank information. As information about individual cash assets will become accessible this could open the door to a spike in kidnappings like 20 years ago.

Here is where it gets fun for the islands and the field of real estate. The Honduran lawmakers are pushing to eliminate bearer share corporations. This is a problem, as we islanders pay more capital gains tax here than anywhere else in Honduras. We pay on actual sale value and they pay on cadastral value or an assessed value.

We are allegedly charged only 4% instead of the 10% that is paid on the mainland. We pay that tax regardless of affiliation to ZOLITUR for the benefits. I believe that ZOLITUR is doing a fine job spending our money on its projects in sanitation and infrastructure.

The new law makes it sound like we don’t pay any taxes to the government at all. The companies under the ZOLITUR regime still must collect the taxes and pay them to the government. An audit to weed out those abusing the ZOLITUR system is needed, I’m all for that.

As I write, lawsuits are being filed all over the United States for violation of rights with the mandatory vaccine policies. Meanwhile in our “banana country” here is the run-down of our pandemic and government continued response.

Let’s look back how this all began. In March 2020, all of Honduras began a national lock down. Soon there were no spaces left in rooms at hospitals and not enough respirators. There were no ICU rooms spaces either.

Honduras unveiled the introduction of the MAIZ (Microdacyn, Azithromycin, Ivermectin and Zinc) protocol as prophylactic treatment for COVID with no clue of its effectiveness.

By the end of 2020 we had vaccines donated to the government which promptly declared they were mandatory for all the population without further research, or care.

Then the Honduran government under the state of emergency purchased seven modular or mobile hospitals for almost $48 million. These hospitals have yet to arrive and only two government officials have been prosecuted for this multimillion-dollar fraud. There is nothing better than a world health crisis to bring out the lowlifes who are looking to profit from the chaos and death.

The COVID vaccinations were made mandatory for all Hondurans, regardless of their medical conditions, or religious beliefs. I still ask myself were we made to act like the sheep led to slaughter. Or were our instincts to trust the government, to follow the science wherever it would lead.

The mask mandate that has proven to not be effective and the US has eliminated, is still in effect in Honduras. We are still required to wear a mask to enter the immigration offices when flying back to Honduras, but that is not required on the aircraft you just arrived in. There are many arbitrary, illogical COVID-19 rules. There is no sign when will the madness will stop.

We have lost our minds in one of the most corrupt and uneducated countries.

In no way, shape, or form I am minimizing the deadliness of this COVID disease. I’ve lost loved ones and dear friends to this virus/pandemic. What I am suggesting is that we have lost our minds in one of the most corrupt and uneducated countries in the world. A government of a county such as ours cannot decide what is best for each and every citizen.

Who decides what mandates to keep, and which aren’t valid. We live in a country where government cannot maintain stock of medication in our public hospitals or pay the hardworking medical staff. Yet we are told the authorities somehow know what the best for your personal health is.

With ever increasing knowledge of the side effects and long-term consequences of the vaccine against COVID-19, some US states officials are finally asking tough questions of Pfizer and Moderna. Until even now the rushing of the vaccine rollout was never questioned.

Many countries were sold the COVID vaccines with the caveat that they could not ever under any circumstances sue the manufacturer. Billions of dollars went into Big Pharma that has now zero liability for any future lawsuits for side effects.

We still don’t know what exactly is in this shot we have all been coerced to receive in this country or be forced out from our workplaces. No Honduran government employee could refuse this COVID vaccine. Even now your child cannot attend school without it. The unvaxed cannot fly on local flights and, at least in theory, are not able to receive hospital attention. This madness has no end in sight.

In an act of absolute brutish force to impose the candidate wanted by the president elect that saw said president herself at the steps of the congressional building with a mob of her supporters. Castro just didn’t like the outcome of the legal elections that voted in the new president of congress.

For the first time in Honduran democratic history the president of congress didn’t swear in the president of the Honduran Republic at the inaugural ceremony. Xiomara Castro was sworn in by a judge. If that’s not an admission of the knowledge that her candidate isn’t the legitimate holder of the presidency of congress, I don’t know what is.

The mob and supporters attacked the congressmen and women who held the legitimate election for the directorate of congress. They threatened their lives and vandalized their homes. ¨Fun times¨ brought to you by “the people’s government.”

There is a light in the tunnel. The lady I am in awe of currently is Beatrice Valle, a congresswoman who is calling the wrongdoers out on their BS and who ironically is a member of the ruling party. She is also the most voted congressional candidate in our history.

Valle is a proponent of the Plan B pill for little girls who are rape victims. She is also an advocate for the legalization of cannabis for medicinal purposes and export. Almost on a daily basis she exposes some new corruption scheme plotted by the government.

Honduras is going to hell in a handbag.

Valle has a twitter account and I recommend you give her a follow to keep current with the state of political affairs in this country. Jeff Ernst is also an English-speaking journalist on twitter who follows the Honduran political circus.

Let me circle back to the Plan B and Cannabis. First let’s talk about the doctors and nurses not getting paid, the campaign promises to cancel the security tax, repeal of the ZEDES law, the invitation to have an International Commission against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (CICIH) established in the country.

The current congress under its illegal directive has repealed the ZEDE law but hasn’t eliminated the regulations that govern them. There is no clear guideline for them to follow moving forward. The question is what happens to investments made under these laws?

The other piece of regulation passed by this congress was a pardon for political crimes that saw some of its members pardoned for their “political” crimes committed in the last 12 years.

The latest Engel List was published by the US State Department has 15 Hondurans on it. They are all accused of acts of corruption and 11 are current congressional representatives. Three are of the LIBRE party and members of the illegal directive of our congress. This is the sad situation.

Honduras is going to hell in a handbag, and we are too busy arguing if gays should be allowed to march in the Independence Day parades. We are being distracted arguing if Plan B birth control should be provided to underage girls who have been raped and if Cannabis should be grown in Honduras for export.

Maybe this is a bait and switch tactic. I wish we could at least get our doctors and teachers paid. Honduras needs to get back on track as the previous government was bad enough. Maybe the current government is seeing if they can double down on the corruption and scandals.

Water isn’t readily available in all areas and it’s a nightmare to keep enough in a cistern. The definition of a plumber is anyone who has seen water run through a pipe.

Trash collection doesn’t happen in all communities, but you pay for it with your operating permit. There isn’t enough garbage trucks for the fast-growing island population and those that we have are in bad shape or not running.

Driving the additional eight minutes I have added to my commute daily, I have passed no less than five tire shops and two new car washes. Seems we have only one idea for businesses at a time.

Back in early 2000s it was dive shops that were the business everyone wanted to open. Now you can’t walk more than 30 steps in West End before you see another one.

There was a stop to licenses for liquor sales in the last Municipal administration. Maybe we should consider this for other fields and enterprises. For instance there seems to be enough real estate offices and agents on the island to service half of Honduras.

As an attorney, every week I meet a new real estate “agent” with some obscure new company. If they aren’t a part of the local Realtors Association there doesn’t seem to be any formal rules to practicing this profession. Same issues apply with home builders. The “builders” just apply and pay for a license and we don’t care if the only thing you have successfully built is a birdhouse.

Also land invasions are at an all-time high on the island.

Every week land developers are breaking ground on a new development. I ask myself how many have their environmental permits. And how many have oversight after the approval of the building permits? I have seen surveys change after approval and no one is the wiser.

I was once invested in a townhouse project in a small residential neighborhood and after completing the building the neighbor decided to put in a slaughterhouse behind it. He even decided to keep some grazing cows there. It was not fun having an open house in that residential community for sure.

Also land invasions are at an all-time high on the island. The encroachments on other people’s property by people moving fence lines or downright building on other people’s property are just some relevant issues for property owners today.

I’ve been told not to write about this and scare away potential investors and buyers, well I feel like these are matters that should be known.

I would like to make suggestions for improvements. I have made them to several of the people in the construction industry and to pertinent authorities.

Amazing flying drone technology is available now and we are not taking advantage of it in mapping and land management. A drone can map an area 100 times faster than a three man crew on the ground with a tape and handheld GPS.

We keep throwing manpower at a problem that needs a tech solution. Drones can also monitor for squatters, show illegal constructions, and improve safety… The uses are multiple and worth looking into in my humble opinion.

These elections are especially important in context of the 15 Honduran Supreme Court appointments that are coming up. The candidates to the Supreme Court are nominated by the Honduran bar association and vetted by congress. The sitting government politicos were pushing their candidates and the tensions ran high. There was an alliance formed against the national party and it won big.

Now the party of Xiomara Castro will control both Congress and the Supreme Court along with the executive branch of government. The new Attorney General will also be nominated and appointed by this government. While the justices will begin their terms in February 2023, this year is decisive in their nominations.

The nomination and appointment of the Honduran Supreme Court justices will have a trickle-down effect. All lesser courts have judges appointed by the judicial system under the Supreme Court. The courts under the Supreme Court are nine Courts of Appeals, 66 Courts of First Instance and 325 Justices of the Peace. That is a huge legal influence.

Xiomara Castro will control both Congress and the Supreme Court.

The new justices will also examine attorneys for their notary exequatur. The battle to control the Honduran Bar association and ethics board is likely to begin soon.

In Honduras and most Latin American countries, all notaries are attorneys, but not all attorneys are notaries. The notaries in Honduras play a greater role that in the US. Up North the only requirement seems to be not having a criminal record and filling out the application.

To become a notary, you have to submit a formal petition before the Supreme Court requesting an examination, which may be granted or not. The procedure takes about two years to be granted. It is a bit speedier procedure if you know the right people.

If you are lucky enough to get the call and be given a date for the exam, you will present yourself before the Supreme Court Secretary. You are to wear formal black attire and will be questioned orally for around two hours and forty-five minutes on Notarial Law and any subject over which Notaries have jurisdiction in Honduras. If you pass you get to be sworn in by the President of the Supreme Court and you are named a Public Minister of Oaths for the Republic of Honduras.

A Honduran notary can then marry people just like a justice of peace can, and he may authorize uncontested divorces, probate wills and a bunch of other non-litigious procedures.

The most enviable right of a notary public, the Holy Grail if you will, is the exclusive ability to authorize title transfers. Only notaries can transfer titles in Honduras. Thus, all real estate transactions must by law in Honduras be done before the offices of a Notary. To do otherwise is illegal.

The new penal code article 472 is loosely translated as “professional intrusion. Whoever exercises acts of a profession without possessing the corresponding academic title, or the corresponding qualification in accordance with current legislation, must be punished with a prison sentence of one to three years.”

There are maybe six notaries permanently on Roatan. Some others fly in for closings, but don’t live here. Other off-island notaries unethically “lend” their official stamp and legal paper to local attorneys to use while having permanent addresses elsewhere.

So far no-one has been charged criminally for impersonating a notary public, but it’s just a matter of time. The cave to of the matter is: with a criminal charge you can’t apply to become a notary so an attorney charged with such an offense could never be a notary public in Honduras.

Hondurans chose Iris Xiomara Castro Sarmiento de Zelaya, 62, as the first female president of the country. This was also the first time a nontraditional political party has won an election since democracy was restored in 1982. Castro’s “Libertad and Refundación” (LIBRE) party is relatively new and was established in 2011 as a spin off the traditional Liberal Party. With that party her husband José Manuel Zelaya Rosales was the President of the Republic from 2006- 2009. On June 28, 2009 Zelaya was removed from office by the Honduran military under orders from the Supreme Court.

It won’t be Xiomara Castro’s first time in the presidential palace. She already was our first lady and will now be our President. This is another unprecedented event for this country. I for one am not sure what Mel Zelaya will be referred to as “former president” or “first husband.”

Mrs. Castro has published an ambitious plan of governance, and what she hopes to achieve in the first 100 days of her presidency. Incidentally these plans seem to mirror the plans her husband/campaign, manager/party leader and ex-president Manuel Zelaya had for the country 14 years ago.

Most controversial in her plan, is the establishment of a committee to review and change the current constitution. The same plans that got her husband that one way trip to Costa Rica in pajamas in 2009.

These plans seems to mirror the plans her husband
Manuel Zelaya had for the country 14 years ago.

Castro’s political party appears to hold a majority in congress. Some results are being contested and the final tally isn’t available yet. A clear majority or three quarters of votes is needed to amend or change the constitution with members of the traditional blue and red party, as well as congressman from the newly created “Salvador de Honduras” party that is also holding seats in congress. Can she push her agenda through and actually change the constitution?

The campaign manager for the “Salvador de Honduras” party, Mr. Pedro Barquero, has emphatically stated that now is not the time to even think of constitutional reform. Barquero says it’s time to rebuild the country and end corruption, time to combat extreme poverty and streamline the tax code and make Honduras attractive to investment. Mr. Barquero is the former president of the chamber of commerce of Cortes and a person to watch for a presidential run in 2025.

The Honduran Supreme Court’s seven year term will be up in 2023 and the 15 new supreme court magistrates will be elected by this new congress. Mrs. Castro’s government will be watching this very varied congress elect the new members of our supreme court.

Another controversial item on our president elect’s agenda is the derogation of the law for ZEDES or special zones for economic development (“charter cities” such as Próspera that exist on Roatan). What happens to the ZEDES that have already been chartered and approved by the current congress? Can the new congress revoke their status? Will the current Supreme Court uphold their ruling and keep them? What will the new Supreme Court of 2023 rule in this regard? Many exciting and controversial issues coming soon to a congress near you.

My 3-year-old niece was bragging to her fellow daycare inmates about her upcoming trip to the Cayman Islands for the Holidays. It sounds pretty, it evokes images of white sand beaches and piñas coladas. There are the sting rays and picturesque boating and diving activities. My mother tells me tales of the Cayman of old and how they would import pineapples from us here in the Bay islands. Their fresh produce was scarce and there was nothing there.

So how did they come so far so fast and why we in the Bay Islands, while we have much more to offer, we just have gone backwards. Maybe the answer lies in the fact that they are miles away from the country to which they are tied to. Or perhaps it’s that a developed nation such as the United Kingdom recognizes the jewel that Cayman Islands are.

I’m unsure of the answer. The truth is that the Caymans have left us in the dust. Having no hills, no water sources beyond a few wells and desalination facilities, no agriculture. Their biggest island is smaller than Guanaja, yet they have managed to have global appeal.

The Cayman Islands citizens are well cared for and their government works for them. I had forgotten the date of my last visit when I arrived at immigration in Cayman over the Christmas break. Their entry system was quick and suggested I had been there last in 2017 on a business trip.

They handle this information at the touch of a button, while we can’t even stop criminals with warrants for their arrest from coming across on the ferry, or the plane from the mainland.

Cayman Islands require stating who you are visiting or name the hotel where you are staying with a reservation. Now that is an immigration control that works.

While we belong to Honduras, we cannot stop the mainlanders from coming over or ask them where they will be staying or what is the purpose of their visit. I know I’m harping about the same issues over and over.

The Colombian government owns two small islands off the coast of Nicaragua: San Andres and Providencia. The Colombian government is aware these islands have limited natural resources and limited jobs, so they do the logical thing and restrict access to them. You may visit San Andres to vacation at any time, or enter with a job offer or as an investor. This is logical, not like our mass influx of people who have no place to stay and no job to come to.

We don’t have the infrastructure necessary to even begin to compete with Caymans. They have branched themselves into medical tourism now with their Health City. Here on Roatan, we can’t even get our hospital built. In brief words: the government has no interest in developing our Islands.

Why should they care if we represent less than 2% of the country’s population? Voting wise we are insignificant. I’m told we also represent very little for them tax wise. They would have us believe that the taxes brought in by the cruise ship passengers, airline passengers, ferry passengers, real estate sale tax, capital gains tax, and security tax don’t represent a significant contribution to the country’s economy. Well, I for one don’t think that is true. I want some transparency and accountability with these numbers. I want transparency.

I want to know what the actual amount of taxes is paid by Bay Islands to Tegucigalpa’s coffers. If we don’t, who has this information and why can’t we access it?

Bottom line is we have an albatross tied to our neck. The stench of corruption and mismanagement of funds reaches across the small stretch of sea that separates us from the continent. If we represent so little to Tegucigalpa both financially and democratically why not release us? I think we could manage just fine.

My recent foray into the Honduran medical system has been extremely edifying. I am one of the lucky small percentages of Hondurans who have private health insurance via my Association as an attorney and via co-pay with the Honduras Medical Center (HMC) in Tegucigalpa. In the past year, I’ve seen eight doctors total and had multiple expensive and unnecessary tests done: EKG, EEG, Holter, Doppler ultrasound, chest X-rays, nine pages of blood work results from a laboratory, a CT scan with contrast (allergic to the dye) and pulmonary stress test.

All this brought me is confusion. I was presented with a plethora of diagnosis: pulmonary embolism, cognitive heart failure, asthma, fibromyalgia, thrombosis, liver disease and when all else fails the standard diagnosis is stress and anxiety. Indeed, this process and false diagnosis has brought on plenty of stress and anxiety.

Having grown up in a small town with no medical doctor I have a very high regard for physicians. For the first seven years of my life I suffered at the hands of an overzealous nurse who enjoyed administering endless injections.

While there was a time once when doctors and physicians cared and listened, that time is long gone. Of the eight physicians I’ve visited: General Practitioner, internal medicine, cardiologist, radiologist, cardiovascular specialist, pulmonologist, rheumatologist, OBGY, No one has my full medical history as he took the time to collect the data and write it down.

Eventually I had the privilege of knowing the most caring, calm and compassionate doctor I’ve ever had the privileged to meet, Dr. Humphreys. He takes time with his patients, takes their clinical and family history and genuinely listens. I spent roughly 18 minutes with each of the specialist and honestly, I’ve filled out government forms that have more of my clinical history than they requested.

Now the insurance insanity was a whole other matter. You must pay upfront for the bar association insurance then send the receipts with a request for reimbursement. Not good if you don’t have a credit card or other means to pay up front and wait for the reimbursement. The co-pay system with the hospital means you pay cost price for the tests and “minimal” fees for the doctors’ appointments. In case you were counting there were four on my last visit.

Real culprit of all my maladies is quite surprising.

I was told when CEMESA hospital took over the second floor at the Mall in French Harbor that they would offer insurance locally, but as far as I know this hasn’t happened. As of last week Thursday, it takes 30 minutes for them to check you in if you’re paying cash and 40 minutes to check out if they don’t intern you. I’ve heard horror stories about insurance billing but haven’t used my coverage there.

The real culprit of all my maladies is quite surprising, if you are experiencing shortness of breath, chest pain, vertigo, brain fog, fatigue, blurred vision, headache, joint pain, excessive thirst and a slew of other symptoms, please don’t let a doctor tell you it’s stress, or anxiety if you know different. I’ve been sent away with no clear diagnosis and what I am now inferring were guesses as to what ailed me.

Please don’t dismiss your concerns and write it off as stress or mental health, at one point I was called a hypochondriac. After this last bout with the doctors and insurance I was about to start seeing a mental health professional.

Turns out all you need is a friend and you can diagnose yourself better than any CT scan can. A friend with severe allergies sat and brainstormed with me. Another friend, a journalist, induced a non-medical epiphany over lunch.

The conclusion was I have mold! Yes, that’s right… mold. That type of mold that is the toxic kind and lives hidden in the walls. That mold can silently poison you. For many people mold disease is real and very serious.

Mold can make you very, very sick. So please check your home, office or a unventilated bathroom for its signs as the rainy season kicks into gear. An ounce of caution can save you a pound of cure. And if you find any traces of mold have a professional come remove it or move out till it’s all gone.

The sad part of Hurricane Mitch was the aftermath few want to talk about. There were bodies that washed up on beaches and in the mangroves. These remains were given a Christian burial but never identified. There was the daunting search for survivors. There was the lack of clean drinking water, there were no medical supplies, and no electricity. Nothing was clean or dry. Roofs had been ripped from above you.

To top things off a special hybrid breed of mosquitos appeared. More ferocious than any you’ve ever seen before, happily sucking away your blood. All that as you are sick, you are tired, and your soul is weary.

Then there are the heartwarming parts. That was the time when neighbors banded together to help each other. There were stories of the inhabitants of the small community of Mangrove Bight on the North Side of the island of Guanaja. Their homes were on stilts over the sea and with a massive storm surge their homes get swept away. The people tied themselves together with rope and wandered to higher ground. They ended up spending 72 hours lying flat on an old abandoned airstrip praying for Mitch to finally move on.

The Hurricane finally did move on. On the mainland of Honduras there were exceedingly more casualties, than in Guanaja, which took the full brunt of a category 5 hurricane for three days and nights. As many as 7,000 Hondurans lost their lives on the mainland due to flooding and moving debris.

The humanitarian aid that came in was overwhelming and not surprisingly, from foreigners. The unsung heroes of that tragedy on Guanaja are the crew members of the HMS Sheffield, a type 22 Frigate that was in service of the British Royal Navy at the time and was monitoring the hurricane as it was supposedly headed to Belize

You are sick, you are tired and your soul is weary.

The HMS Sheffield ended up coming to the aid of Guanaja. It’s crew quickly and efficiently removed the debris from the airport landing strip. They also loaned and then donated generators for the health clinics. The British sailors established the water supply from the reservoir. In short, they saved their bacon. I had the pleasure of flying over to Guanaja a week after the storm with the then British ambassador to Honduras. I thanked him profusely for the efforts being made by the crew of that HMS Sheffield on behalf of the people affected. We landed on a desolated island with not even a green blade of grass visible. They were trees snapped in half by the high winds. Even their bark was stripped bare from the trunks by the sand and salt. I had never seen anything like it before or since.

The Honduran government received a pardon of more than 60% of the national debt after the devastation left by Hurricane Mitch. You would think we would be far ahead 20 years after this extremely generous gesture, but alas we are not. We live in a third world country and at last check Honduras’ official debt for 2018 was over nine billion dollars.

You may ask if Guanaja received any government funds to help rebuild, any of the pardon of debt or incentives to rebuild the crippled economy post hurricane. Let’s put it this way: none of the major businesses that operated prior to that hurricane are in business now. That includes the hotels that operated for decades on Guanaja prior to Mitch: Posada del Sol and Bayman Bay Club. These were premier dive resorts that boasted celebrity visitors in the 1980s and 1990s. My heart brakes for the forgotten island of Guanaja.

As we live in the path of these ever-increasing massive hurricanes, we must all be prepared for a possible disaster. This is also an opportunity to discover the resilience of the human spirit.

The Bahamas have my best wishes for a speedy recovery and my condolences for the lives lost. There are so many examples of neighbors helping neighbors and foreign governments lending a hand. A catastrophe like this is also an opportunity for rebuilding and strengthening.

Bukele is a37-year-old man who doesn’t like neck ties, tweets his presidential orders and is cleaning up his country. Crime is way down as he has implemented a no communications policy for prisons and forced the cell companies to block signal to the penitentiaries.He is now talking about self-sustaining prisons where the inmates would produce their own food.

These could be exciting times for our neighbor. He’s reinforcing the country’s military and police in an effort to eradicate gangs. To be honest I wasn’t sure what to expect of him given his family background and previous party.

This whole thing makes me very happy for El Salvadorians as compared where I live. I would love to see these measures implemented in Honduras. Bukele’s new Motto is “El dinero alcanza cuando nadie roba,” roughly translated: Money reaches when nobody steals. That is a motto we could use here in Honduras.

He has also fired all government employees who were related to the previous president and he vows to end nepotism wich is endemic in El Salvador.

The transparency with which he is governing is impressive; it’s all on tweets that can be followed by his fellow countrymen and to those observers around the globe. He is charismatic and I’m looking forward to seeing how far he will go.

Decentralize government, make it smaller and more efficient.

It’s difficult not to make comparisons with our country. Our system is also broken and corrupt and we need a new leader, and perhaps a millennial. It could be said that San Pedro Sula is the industrial capital of Honduras, but the islands live from fishing and tourism and Tegucigalpa just produces politicians.

We absolutely need to decentralize government, make it smaller and more efficient. I remember under a previous Honduran president each municipality was independent and most government offices were also decentralized. Nowadays you can’t go to the bathroom without permission from bureaucrats.

The new cabinet members in the Salvadoran government spend their time in the field. These officials are out in the towns that need help and work with the people there no matter whether they voted for President Bukele or not.

The government is not there to offend them, to give them a handout, but to empower them. It is there to build needed infrastructure, repair schools and supply Hospitals with medications. If they can do it; so can we.

Campaigning will soon start in our beautiful country, I really hope we can find a candidate worthy of this country, who will love and respect its people. I hope that candidate will battle corruption and impunity to their final breath.

 I’m tired of watching my fellow Hondurans risk their lives in migrant caravans fleeing the crime and corruption in our country. Let’s make our country a better place to live.