What Happened
In December 1969, a power struggle inside Panama’s military leadership left General Omar Torrijos outside the country and scrambling to return. While he was in Mexico attending a horse-racing event, he learned he had been displaced by his own comrades and urgently needed funds to arrange a charter flight back to Panama.
The request reached Panama through the Caja del Seguro Social and then the Banco Nacional de Panamá, where Enrique “Chino” Jaramillo Alvarado was serving as general manager. The instruction was to charge $100,000 to a state account and move the money immediately to Mexico.
Jaramillo refused. He told those pressuring him that he could not allow anyone to dispose illegally of state money under his custody and responsibility. When he was then threatened with arrest and brought before the National Guard’s command, he stayed at his desk and did not back down.
A Clash Between Power and Procedure
The episode became a test of whether a public institution would follow legal process under political pressure. Jaramillo’s position was not merely bureaucratic; as head of the Banco Nacional, he was responsible for protecting public funds and private deposits. His refusal placed the rules above the urgency of a military operation.
According to the account preserved in his own testimony, the order came without the formal steps normally required to move state money. Jaramillo responded with a firm rejection, and the attempted pressure did not change his decision. The confrontation highlights how financial controls can become a frontline defense of the state during moments of instability.
What Happened Afterward
Torrijos eventually reorganized his return and regained power. He later acknowledged Jaramillo’s conduct and praised him for it. Weeks later, during a meeting of the bank’s board, Jaramillo was replaced as general manager and Ricardo de la Espriella took the post. De la Espriella would later become president of Panama from 1982 to 1984.
The episode has endured as an example of institutional resistance to illegal orders. Jaramillo, a banker by training and musician by vocation, left behind a written account that preserves the incident as part of Panama’s political history. His refusal became a symbol of integrity at a time when obedience to power could carry serious personal risk.
More than five decades later, the story remains a reminder that public office can still require saying no when authority crosses the line into illegality.