DAUGHTER WEARS TAX THE POOR SHIRT AMID BANK COLLAPSE
The daughter of Paraguay’s ousted former president is facing intense online backlash after a photo surfaced of her wearing a Tax The Poor shirt. Columbia University undergraduate Constanza Peña posted the gym selfie to Instagram while her home country reels from a massive bank collapse that locked nearly 3 million people out of their savings.
The image shows Peña posing in a mirror while wearing a white T-shirt printed with the phrase “T.T.P Tax The Poor”. The photo was reportedly posted to her private Instagram account, which had 152 followers, before spreading across multiple social media platforms on November 5, 2026, according to the New York Post.
The fashion choice arrived at a spectacularly bad time for her family. Paraguay’s central bank seized Ueno Bank, a digital lender that had rapidly grown into the country’s fifth-largest, on November 3, 2026. The collapse left approximately 2.9 million customers unable to access their money.
While the central bank announced that at least 97 percent of depositors are protected by insurance, customers still cannot withdraw or transfer funds. At least 33,000 retirees will now have their pension checks routed to a different bank.
Constanza’s father, Santiago Peña, announced his resignation on November 5, 2026. Congress rejected his resignation and proceeded with an impeachment trial, with the Senate officially removing him from office the next day.
Lawmakers accused the former president of using his political influence to direct public funds to Ueno Bank, and of allowing the state pension fund to deposit $355 million there beyond legal limits, the Associated Press reported.
Online users quickly pointed out the contrast between the Ivy League student’s shirt and her father’s political scandal. An anonymous poster on a student-run Columbia University confessions page called the display genuinely embarrassing.
“It’s so unbelievably tacky to flaunt wealth while having no regard for people who have far less (especially when they’re the reason you have money),” the anonymous student wrote.
Another commenter, who said their family lost their savings in the bank collapse, wrote that “constantly mocking the poor when we are the ones they benefit from is absurd and it cannot go unnoticed.”
Constanza did not respond to the New York Post’s request for comment, and Columbia University declined to comment due to student privacy restrictions. Her father is currently under house arrest on suspicion of breach of trust and influence peddling.
