<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'><b style="font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">Jeju</b><br>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">When my sister
finished nursing school, I recruited her to my Journey to the Center with the
Ecumenical Institute (EI) and the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) in a
human development project on Jeju island before it became a tourist
destination. This was prior to Uncle
Sam’s anti-ballistic missile shield Naval Base at Gangjeong village in
Jeju. She then went on to the US to join
the international staff and later, served with her dentist husband in Kenya
until the Journey dissipated. They now
practice their craft in Hawaii.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">We’ve playfully
designated SoKor as the 51</span>st<span style="vertical-align:baseline"> State
of the Union since citizens do not need visas to enter the United States. Thirty-five percent of SoKor appropriated the
traditions of Calvin, Luther, Wesley, and the Vatican II, so their selfhood no
longer approximate that of their cousins in the Mangyongdae hoopla in the north
as they are to the “Praise the Lord” crowd of Southern California!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">The EI/ICA project in
Jeju was quickly absorbed in President Park Chung-Hee’s <i>Saemeul Undong </i>(New Community Movement) that swept the nation
beginning 1970. Chastened by the local
energy already on the ground, our international staff made a strategic retreat
and left the tinkering on the socio-human psyche to the local’s nationalist fervor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">I never made Jeju but
I spent two months in 1972 in Suwon at an International Training Institute,
before the farming town became a suburban bedroom for Seoul. I visited the
capital city again in 1978, but the international airport moved from Kimpo to
Inchon, so rejuvenated Seoul that allegedly looks like an extension of Los
Angeles is only a picture in my readings.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Jeju is back in the
news with the tragic sinking of a ferry with 325 students on a field trip to
celebrate spring from Seoul. The sinking
was rapid. It took an hour for the boat
that sailed from Inchon to submerged after it reached the channel between the
peninsula and the island. The chaperone
school vice-principal who survived felt too guilty that he committed suicide;
the boat sinking will be like the <i>Titanic
</i>when less than forty percent of the passengers survived.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Two items in the news
touched my insides. One was the picture
of a teacher, one of the first three casualties identified, and the description
of her well-received and pleasant relationship to her students. Being a pedagogue who insists on treating
students as unique individuals rather than as impersonal digits in a numbered
roll call practiced in many classrooms, her reputation resonates.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">The other is the boat
trip itself. As a project director of an
Orientation for Peace Corps Volunteers for Muslim Mindanao I led in Zamboanga
City in 1984, I took our whole training participants and staff to a weekend
trip to Jolo, Sulu. This was when
Muslims began to harass Gringos whose presence in the southwest region of
Mindanao became more pronounced after USAID funds was shifted to the area. Menzi, the paper company, was in neighboring
Basilan Island whose natives were earlier Christianized by missionaries so
security was not a major concern. Manila
PCV central office thought otherwise, and after the orientation, I was not
asked to return to do another one, not withstanding the volunteers’ evaluation
that the field trip was a highlight of their training. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">The Jeju tragedy
reminded me of what I was accused of being too indifferent about, the
possibility of tragedy that might have occurred during the overnight ferry trip
going and returning. We did not have a
tragedy so I was dismissive then, and knowing how US Federal agencies focus
more on the “checks” than the “balances”, I took the word of reprimand as par
for the course.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">The current Jeju
incident’s tragedy creeps into our existential consciousness with electronic
speed. One girl texted her father “not
to worry for she was wearing her life vest.”
When her father asked her to get to a window, she answered back that she
“could not move as the hallway was full of people.” She is still missing. The Jeju tragedy has since deteriorated into
finger pointing; the captain and his crew are now the subject of criminal investigations. To check the state of the stables after the
horses had fled into the field is the usual practice. I did not expect this one to be different. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">The transcript of the
exchange between the ship and the island’s security office is now used to portray
confusion and indecisiveness during a 30-minute of chaos. “If only …” is again the armchair
quarterbacking’s phrase.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4">In a planet
increasingly getting democratized, with local folks raising their voices to be
heard, clamoring for honesty and truth, central authority is harried to
investigate aberrations and rhetoric of blame is the favored copout, from Kiev to
Kabul, Brussels to Bangkok, Cairo to Rio, Nairobi to Tokyo and, yes, KL to
Seoul.</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">The Jeju incident
needs investigating but we can get to the truth without being stuck on trying
to determine who is to blame. Let the
tears flow but tragedies in life come with the territory. We are better off turning them into lessons
for the morrow!</span></div>
<br>
<div style="font-size: 18px; clear: both;"><i>j'aime la vie</i><br>
<a href="mailto:pinoypanda2031@aol.com">pinoypanda2031@aol.com</a><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
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