Teacher, 81, joins US Peace Corps

MANILA, Philippines – An 81-year-old retired American teacher is among the latest batch of United States Peace Corps volunteers currently undergoing training to help Filipino public school English teachers gain better language skills.

Sally Porter is among the 69 US Peace Corps volunteers who arrived last Aug.16 for a three-month training now taking place in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental. They will replace the volunteers who left last June 6 at the end of a two-year tour of duty.

The latest batch of volunteer-trainees were met yesterday in Dumaguete City by US Peace Corps Director Ronald Tschetter who arrived in the Philippines on his global round of visits to countries that host the US Peace Corps.

Before proceeding to Negros, Tschetter met the press at the US Embassy in Manila yesterday, and said the retired American teacher volunteer is the result of their new program adopted in September last year to enlist the participation of retired professionals and tap their spirit of volunteerism.

Since the program was launched, Tschetter said there has been a 65 percent increase in applications last May as more Americans want to join the Peace Corps.

“I do not see it as a replacement of the young people. Our corps of the Peace Corps would always be the younger people of college and university campuses or early in the development of their careers,” Tschetter pointed out.

“If we bring a little higher component of this (age) group together with this group, it will just make the Peace Corps stronger. But the impact to the country we are serving will get stronger as well. So it’s really a win-win situation,” he stressed.

The US Peace Corps, the biggest American organization of volunteers, recruits volunteers to work in countries that request assistance for language education, sustainable skills training, health promotion and disease awareness and prevention, and environment protection, among others. The US Peace Corps assigns the volunteers to the requesting country, which in turn will find host homes for them.

Tschetter said more than 190,000 people have served as Peace Corps volunteers in 139 countries, including the Philippines, since its establishment in 1960. Tschetter and his wife Nancy were Peace Corps volunteers who worked as community health workers in India from 1966 to 1968. He is the third director in the Peace Corps’ history to have previously served as a volunteer.

Despite the brutal slaying of Peace Corps volunteer Julia Campbell last year, Tschetter said this “unfortunate” incident has not dampened the interest and enthusiasm of American Peace Corps volunteers to be assigned in the Philippines.

“We cannot protect against unforeseen incidents such as the Julia Campbell situation. We had other situations in other (parts of the) world but not very many fortunately, and from time to time we have situations and accidents of one type or another involving volunteers,” Tschetter said.

“But there is no effect in essence, certainly not in the morale here in the Philippines, not with the current volunteers. So we keep moving forward,” he said.

Campbell was a Peace Corps volunteer in Albay and one month before she was to end her tour of duty, she went on vacation in Ifugao province and was murdered in early April 2007. Army soldiers found her remains on April 18, 2007, or 10 days after she was first reported missing by her host.

Campbell’s confessed killer, Juan Duntugan, was convicted for her murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment last June 30 by the Ifugao regional trial court. Judge Ester Piscoso-Flor further ordered Duntugan to pay Campbell’s family P39.67 million ($889,000) in damages.

In his defense, Duntugan claimed his killing of Campbell was not premeditated. He said he had just had a fight with his neighbor when Campbell bumped into him, making him drop what he was carrying. In his anger he hit Campbell with a rock.

Prior to her Peace Corps stint, Campbell worked as a freelance journalist in New York City. She was 40 years old at the time of her death. Her remains were cremated in Manila on April 25, 2007, and flown back to her hometown in Fairfax, Virginia. Her brother-in-law, Ed Morris, speaking on behalf of the family, said her greatest contribution was her Peace Corps service in the Philippines.

Tschetter recalled he was on official business in China at the time Campbell was reported missing, so he flew to Manila to personally look into the situation and lend support to the Philippine government and Peace Corps staff here, whom he described as “shaken” by the events.

“I cannot express enough my appreciation to the government of the Philippines, to the people of the Philippines, for the way they handled the situation,” he stressed.

“Certainly, it was very quickly that we were able to find the body and moved forward from that. It has not affected our opinion and our presence here in the Philippines and I do not see that happening,” Tschetter said.  

The case of Campbell will not have negative effects even in the long-term, and the Philippines will remain a popular choice for Peace Corps volunteers, Tschetter added.

“I can tell you it was a very sad time for the volunteers... They were very sad because she (Campbell) was a very popular volunteer and doing wonderful work in her community. So from that standpoint, it was very much a personal loss,” he said.

In the 47-year history of the Peace Corps, Tschetter said there were other cases of deaths of Peace Corps volunteers, mostly due to accidents and sometimes homicide.

“But those circumstances happen unfortunately, we can’t protect them all from everything,” he said.

“So we continue to refresh our volunteers’ memories, not just at the beginning of their training, but on an ongoing basis where there are volunteers to keep them aware of the risk exposures that they have,” he said.

He said Peace Corps volunteers are reminded “to respect” and closely abide by the travel advisory that the US Embassy issues for American nationals to stay out of areas that pose danger to their personal safety.

Tschetter said the Peace Corps would maintain their current policy to stay out of conflict areas in Mindanao as part of security measures for volunteers.

“I did not come with regard to Mindanao whatsoever,” Tschetter said.

“So I really can’t bring any new perspective to that situation. I’m aware of that, of course. I’ve read about it in newspapers. I’ve been briefed about it. But on the other hand, I’m not the expert. I’m not the person that can answer any Mindanao questions that would bring value,” he said.

Instead of deploying volunteers in Mindanao, however, the Peace Corps bring the public school teachers to Cebu or Manila for training, he said.

The Peace Corps is an independent American federal agency and Tschetter said he reports directly to the Office of the US President.

“And so foreign policy, that is not our role. Our role is friendship and understanding and bringing in the skills as I described as the three goals of the Peace Corps. We really do not meddle in the foreign policy situation as such,” he said. 

US Peace Corps country director in the Philippines Sonia Derenoncourt noted the last time they deployed Peace Corps volunteers in Mindanao was in 2003. But since then, they have stayed out of southern Philippines.

The American government suspended for at least two years the deployment of US Peace Corps to the Philippines sometime in the 1990s after one of the volunteers was kidnapped but subsequently released unharmed by New People’s Army rebels.

Tschetter, accompanied by US Ambassador Kristie Kenney and Derenoncourt, paid a courtesy call on President Arroyo at Malacañang last Wednesday.

He cited the fact that the Philippines has the biggest bulk of volunteers – 8,000 of them have been deployed here out of the worldwide presence of the US Peace Corps during the past 47 years.