Change? What change?

As I read today's El Tiempo here in Bogota, I am reminded of the story of a friend in Montreal whose father had visited Bogota in the 1960s. He visited again in the early 1990s and said, "Do they just keep printing the same newspaper over and over? Colombians are still arguing about building a metro and they are still talking about the guerrilla."
Well, things have changed...somewhat. Today's El Tiempo reports on the "divorcio expres" or quicky divorce that is now available. And divorce is a relatively new phenomenon in Colombia. It essentially became available after the Constitution of 1991. (Before that, Colombians could get a civil separation and some would remarry abroad.)
Yet, while access to divorce is undoubtedly an advance for the many who find themselves in matrimonial limbo, there are still so many mired in an endemic poverty in this country. The paper also reports on the case of a mother whose 14 year old son was murdered in 1997 by a serial killer, Luis Alfredo Garavito. Authorities here identified the boy and turned over his remains to his mother several months ago. The woman, a maid, has several other children; they all live in a single room. She has been unable to bury her son because she does not have the 400,000 pesos-about US $150- to do so. So she keeps his remains in a box next to the bed, the only bed in the house.
It struck me as such a poignant and tragic story. I also find it interesting that El Tiempo gave it so much play - on the front page, below the fold.