From Jorge Bogarín to “Tratito” Ovelar: The “degradation” of UNA’s Law Faculty

Jorge Rolón Luna says the Law Faculty at Paraguay’s National University of Asunción has suffered a severe decline, abandoning academic excellence for clientelism and political control. In his account, the faculty no longer functions primarily as an academic institution. It has become a network that allegedly rewards loyalty with grades, positions and access to the state.

The lawyer and former student made the claims after WhatsApp chats attributed to Alejandro “Tratito” Ovelar, a student leader and son of Colorado Party senator Silvio Ovelar, were leaked. The messages allegedly show requests for “help” and arrangements with lecturers to adjust grades for students connected to Ovelar’s circle.

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This is a model that has been built over time and has turned this into a den of corruption; the Law Faculty is anything but an academic unit.

Rolón Luna said the situation worsened sharply with the emergence of figures such as Jorge Bogarín. The United States government has designated Bogarín as significantly corrupt over alleged influence peddling and illicit enrichment. A Derecho UNA lecturer, he later became a member of Paraguay’s Council of the Magistracy and its Magistrates’ Disciplinary Tribunal.

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Clientelism is what ultimately votes for and anoints these leaders who distribute favors and teaching posts.

According to Rolón Luna, the faculty became a political launchpad for placing loyalists in state institutions and securing control of elections to the Council of the Magistracy. He described a system that begins with student delegates offering grades and promises that students will never fail. Those beneficiaries later vote for leaders who distribute favors and teaching posts.

“Clientelism ends up producing negligent lawyers,” Rolón Luna said, arguing that such lawyers can be placed in public jobs before seeking elected positions such as councilor or deputy. He recalled that clientelist practices existed among some professors during Alfredo Stroessner’s dictatorship, but said they had limits and remained exceptional. In his view, politics and mediocrity now take precedence over merit.

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They end up distributing negligent lawyers, who are placed in public positions and then run for councilor or deputy; it is a clientelist network that begins corrupting its members when they are still students, and they cannot escape it.