Seoul, 28 April 2014 – Around 300 members of the Filipino community in and around Seoul gathered on Sunday afternoon to offer songs, comfort, prayers and flowers to the casualties of the tragic sinking of the passenger ferry MV Sewol in a symbolic gesture of unity, sympathy and solidarity with the Korean people now experiencing national mourning.

“We are all gathered here this afternoon to express gratitude and sympathy for the Korean government and people during a time of great difficulty and tragedy,” Chargé d’Affaires Iric C. Arribas told the solemn gathering of Filipinos at the KAISA Day of Prayer for Korea, held at Hwarang Park in Ansan City, where most of the casualties of the capsized ferry was from. “We will never forget the kindness and generosity Korea extended to the Philippines after the unprecedented calamity caused by Typhoon Haiyan in November last year,” he continued. “This is our way of telling our Korean friends that we are with them in their grief.” The memorial gathering started shortly before 5 pm, when Filipino residents of Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, dressed in mourning colors of white and black, started singing inspirational songs and church hymns in memory of more than 300 people who perished in the capsizing of the Sewol in waters off the southwestern coast of Jindo. Half an hour later, five community representatives began a series of prayers, each one dedicated to a specific group or subject: affected families; the people of Ansan; the rescuers, police officers and volunteers; the MV Sewol crew members; the Korean government, and for unity for the Filipino community in Korea. The participants then lit white candles, bowed their heads and received the final blessing given by Fr. Alvin Parantar of the Hyehwadong Catholic Church, located in the Little Manila district in Jongno-gu in central Seoul, before starting a 2km march under the rain to Danwon High School, which lost 260 students and teachers in the April 16 accident. In their quiet, somber procession through the gloomy and subdued streets, the Filipino mourners were assisted by officers of the Ansan Danwon Police Station, who stopped traffic to let the several hundred meter-long train pass and move without interruption. At the gate of the bereaved school, the Filipino participants filed past briskly and wordlessly to each place a single white chrysanthemum as offering at a makeshift memorial before continuing on their way. “They felt grateful (for this symbolic gesture),” said community liaison officer Annabelle Castro of the Foreign Affairs Section of the Ansan Danwon Police Station, referring to local police and community officials. Coincidentally, Danwon-gu is the area of assignment of Pangasinan-born Castro, who became in 2008 only the second naturalized Korean to join the local police in South Korea. The KAISA (solidarity in Filipino) Day of Prayer for Korea in Ansan, conceptualized by Pastor Levi Arnan of Onnuri Community Church on 20th of April, Easter Sunday, was participated in by eight Protestant and two Catholic church communities, four Filipino NGOs and sectoral groups as well as individual workers, missionaries and members of multicultural families. There were also two off-site events the same day by churches in Paju and Incheon to support the gathering.