A WEALTHY Korean businessman is looking for a family in Bataan province who gave shelter to his father when he deserted the Japanese Imperial Army in 1942 after refusing to fight Filipinos defending that peninsula during the Second World War.

Dukshin (D.S.) Park, in his early 60s, said his late father, Park Shung Shuk, was a second lieutenant of the Japanese Imperial Army sent to invade the Philippines.

In an  interview in Sta. Barbara town last Saturday as a guest of retired PNP deputy director  general Reynaldo Velasco, the Seoul-born Park said his father told him from boyhood to look for the family of a Filipino farmer who hid him for three months from the Japanese Army that was doggedly looking for him.

Had he been located, he would have been summarily executed for desertion or made to fight in the battle against Filipinos and Americans that would have cost his life.

The elder Park was able to return to Korea before the war ended and went on to become a multi-millionaire, operating a wine refinery and other businesses of his family.

“I’m the second sibling in the family. I was sired after my father came back from the war,” Dukshin said, through an interpreter, pointing out that his father personally chose him to pay his debt in the Philippines.”

While in the country for this mission, he is also managing several investments as well as exploring more business opportunities including building a world-class golf course in Subic.

Dukshin explained a Korean tradition that if the son cannot pay his father’s debt, the grandson will have to carry out the service.

Park is here with his eldest son who is helping him manage their business in the Philippines, with offices in Manila and at Cubi, Subic Freeport in Zambales.          

Mr. Park said his earlier efforts to locate the Filipino family who helped his father ended in vain.

“I guess, they may have died already,” said Park, through his interpreter and business associate Mr. T.H. Lee.

 Initially frustrated in his desire to find them, Mr. Park resorted to helping other Filipinos by investing businesses in the country and employing Filipinos in his company as a way of paying his family’s debt of gratitude. – LM

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