Netnet Camomot .
IF ever the two Koreas’ peace process will bear good fruit, then, your next Korean tour will now include the North.
Who would have known, huh? That Kim Jong Un is humble enough to finally quit on his nuclear wishful thinking?
After seeing Kim and South Korea President Moon Jae-in holding hands and hugging each other, here’s the Pinoy’s dream-on out-of-this-world hallucination: Wish ko lang Vice President Leni Robredo and vice presidentiable Bongbong Marcos will also adopt peace as their mantra.
My most favorite mantra, though, in case you want to know—haha!—is this: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
If only we could see the invisible part of the two Koreas’ ultimate aim since some people are now predicting that a unified Korea will be stronger than China. There’s this saying, “God created the universe, everything else is made in China.” Someday, that “China” will morph into “Korea.” Wow. That will be the day.
There was no bridge at the Demilitarized Zone where the two Korean leaders met, but you could almost see the invisible bridge there only a week ago, a few days before their meeting. It was the “bridge” that no one would dare cross then, although a few North Koreans did manage to escape to the South after surviving through the heavily guarded zone.
The bridge that did prove to be fatal, though, was not in Korea but in Zamboanga City where a wooden footbridge collapsed together with Zamboanga Mayor Beng Climaco, Zamboanga City Congressman Celso Lobregat, Negros Occidental Congressman Albee Benitez and National Housing Authority officials. The immediate reaction of the madlang pehpohl was a teeny weeny bit below shock and awe, with netizens calling it karma, and a news anchor of its live coverage somehow stuck with this word: “Hala!”
“Hala” indeed.
Government officials were there to inspect the housing project for the Zamboanga siege survivors who have been complaining about the houses’ substandard materials. Thus, the inspection. You know, to see is to believe.
The officials were on top of a particular part of the footbridge when it collapsed. Mayor Climaco was interviewed right after while still drenched with what was obviously murky water, and she said that while walking across the bridge, they were already discussing that it should level up to the concrete kind. Well, what else could she say? Good thing the water level was thigh-deep, otherwise…
While still in the water, there’s this guy removing a dark object from the mayor’s hair, and I don’t want to find out what it was.
President Rody Duterte called Boracay as a cesspool. The murky water in the Zamboanga housing project, however, has definitely leveled up the meaning of a cesspool. I’m now waiting for the president to also close that area not only for six months but forever and ever. People should not be allowed to live there. Talk of “bridge over troubled water.” Eew.
Other government housing projects are also facing the same challenges. In other words, the Zamboanga case is not unique. So, be careful in crossing their bridges.
Dutertenomics’ “Build, Build, Build” will be building bridges to connect some Philippine islands, and we’re guessing the Zamboanga footbridge is now their new model for “Huwag tularan.”
Meanwhile, Boracay is now as serene and peaceful as it was way back when. The government is bent on evaluating the island’s carrying capacity as a basis in limiting number of visitors once it resumes operations. Well, easier said than done, eh? Since tourism is a money-making machine, and the island’s business owners will have to recoup the losses incurred in the shutdown.
American poet and essayist Emma Lazarus wrote “The New Colossus,” the poem that’s on the base of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” That’s what an island is for, to welcome you with all the tender loving care it can provide. The rehabilitated Boracay should have that laidback ambience, a place where one can truly get away from it all.
South Korea, by the way, has Nami Island where the 2002 Koreanovela “Winter Sonata” was filmed. Winter what? Oh, that was 16 years ago. Better visit Nami where you can hopefully compose your own sonata.
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