Radioactive Threat
The threat of a nuclear disaster has become one of man’s greatest fears since the first A-Bombs where exploded in Japan during World War 2. The care needed to handle nuclear energy and materials has always been of utmost priority whether it be for scientific, military or commercial use. However, there are just some people or organizations that really don’t care about the danger of radiation to the human race probably out of dubious or selfish reasons.
At the time of the EDSA Revolution, one of the popular controversies of the day was the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant which was mothballed before ever seeing the daylight of operation. Honestly, as the author of Project Pawai, I try my best not to indulge too much in political issues especially nowadays that I have errr…matured through the years.
However, with the situation we have today, one can just imagine the threat of an operating Bataan Nuclear Power Plant which to date avid proponents of a certain political family and ardent supporters blame the Cory administration for aborting it. The effects of the washed out Daiichi Nuclear power plant in Fukushima (again, Japan gets nuked) has left so much damage to marine life and the surrounding waters which are now being felt today with the emergence of contaminated and mutated marine life slowly spreading from the original area of destruction.
Not only that, the threat from North Korea and the huge possibility that Kim Jong-Un might really be goaded into launching a first strike, that is if Trump doesn’t end up doing it first, has thrown the globe into a strenuous situation as a World War 3 scenario would definitely affect almost all life on the planet.
These events however are happening today but way back in the time of Project Pawai, it was chiefly the US and USSR Cold War and the danger of accidents and the mishandling of nuclear energy and materials that was the perceived danger. The Bataan nuclear power plant issue with the substandard materials and design used and the danger it posed to the Philippine environment gave me the idea to work-in a similar concept in the the Pawai story line.
Project Pawai the story, was about stopping a nuclear threat. Project Pawai was the threat, a top secret endeavor between corrupt elements of the then overthrown Philippine administration and an environmentally irresponsible US nuclear power firm to dump their nuclear waste incognito into the Philippine Sea specifically in the area surrounding Polillo Island. Pawai was derived from the words Philippines (or Polillo) and Hawaii as it so happens that the company headquarters was based in Hawaii.Transaction documents as well as inventory and maritime navigational info regarding the said project where stored on a then 5.25 inch floppy disk used with an Apple //C micro-computer. Through a series of events, the disk was snatched up by a retiring FBI agent and passed on to an unsuspecting Filipino youth who happened to be good with computers and had an Apple computer of his own.
Thus the twisting ins and outs of a reluctant young computer nerd as he stumbles onto the dangerous plot and has to find a way to save country, self and an innocent American teenage girl high-tech style right smack in the middle of the EDSA Revolution of 1986.
Tracy Higgins plays a very important role as a developed love interest of our protagonist. After all, as for the youth of the time, who would bother with a boring tale of national espionage without a leading lady. A super sexy American teen was enough to make the late 80’s and early 90’s computer geeks of the time green with envy.
Anyway, the subject of The Girl behind the boy will be tackled extensively at a later post. For now, let me end this one with a few parting thoughts. Project Pawai was the result of an over imaginative mind of a youthful Pinoy computer nerd who was concerned for his country. The story was a message to the youth of the time that no matter the mistakes of the past or the dire circumstance of the present, if something good could be done to make things better for everyone, then, it must be done.
Thanks for the read once again as I will be sharing more about the development of Project Pawai. Soon, I hope =)
