Born in Santa Ana, El Salvador, Panamá's mother raised him after his father died a few months after his birth.
Panamá studied music at the Juilliard School and in Europe under Nadia Boulanger and Pierre Boulez.
Panamá also had a short-lived conducting career, directing concerts in El Salvador in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Panamá's main music performance collaborators were Salvadoran composer and conductor German Cáceres, Mexican composer and conductor Manuel de Elías, and Salvadoran guitarist Walter Quevedo.
Panamá's main classical music works included Guitar Concerto Destellos de una Vida and a Symphonic Poem, both of which premiered in the late 2000s.