Lessons from Angelo and Angelica

Tobago is not the kind of place most people regularly associate with heartbreak. Yet recent encounters with tragedy and grief have provided reason to reconsider how we proceed nationally on matters of personal responsibility, public policy, and collective action.

As of the time of submission of this column, the search for missing baby Angelo remained in progress - a month after little Angelica was killed while wading in the ocean with her parents at Pigeon Point.

The case of Angelo’s disappearance will soon receive judicial attention, and numerous questions will need answering. More soon.

Angelica, we would recall, died when a jetski slammed into her as she waded in the ocean at Pigeon Point in Tobago last month.

Today’s primary focus is on her, which raises issues that demand more than our customary awkward attention. We have been shabbily negotiating a notion of “the right to earn an honest dollar” against legal requirements, and a duty of care in the absence of explicit or ignored regulation.

If we wished we could compile a long list including things such as street vending, traffic light windshield wipers, itinerant food stalls, and an entire informal economy – productive but known for non-compliance with labour and other laws.

You may have however gathered from previous dispatches that I believe the highest form of responsible human conduct can come from actions unaccompanied by regulation. As a society, we need to understand how far we should go.

We have sufficient evidence that more laws and harsher punishment do not necessarily produce better, more principled behaviour.

Then we have instances where impunity appears to be the norm. There is a law or a rule, but the chance of getting away with breaching it is so high that people are not inclined to comply.

We live in a country, for example, where there is a higher probability of getting away with a violent crime than of being caught - an average detection rate of under 30%. And if caught, the chance of competent prosecution and prompt sanction is even lower.

Now imagine the fun to be had in command of a jet ski when the abuse of such an activity is viewed as low-level wrongdoing. Put this together - the “honest dollar”, high impunity, “having fun”, and scant official attention - and you land at the spot where Angelica was killed.

GML Business Correspondent Andrea Perez-Sobers kept the issue alive when she interviewed Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett on the subject at last week’s Caribbean Travel Marketplace in Antigua. Full marks for journalistic persistence on this point.

Tobago - not regularly associated with heartbreak

Endorsement of an offer by Jamaica to help guide an orderly transition from pre-Angelica mayhem has promptly come from domestic tourism actors.

I hope all concerned will pay close attention to what this regional tourism leader has in place for itself to stem the possibility of death, injury, and harm resulting from the misbehaviour of people who own or control what regulations there categorise as “personal watercraft (PWCs).”

For starters, in Jamaica, all PWCs must be registered and licensed. They are also not allowed to be operated from public beaches.

Bear in mind, though, that the concept of a “public beach” is currently the subject of strenuous debate in Jamaica given appalling restrictions on beach access by non-state actors, particularly in the tourism industry.

PWCs are also generally required to operate only in daylight, and under licenses that distinguish private, commercial, and security usage.

In The Bahamas - another serious tourism destination … which T&T is not … regulations are even more extensive: import controls, registration, insurance, regular police vetting, and zoning.

None of these measures equals a ban on PWCs.

In T&T we are moving belatedly toward enforcement of a maritime/small craft policy. Though the focus is understandably on Tobago for now, there are ocean folk in Trinidad who can recite a long list of other transgressions by recreational and other boaters.

We appear to be at a point where a duty of care cannot be reliably and voluntarily expected at all times. Personal responsibility is not always a popular resort. So, Angelica’s case is not only for the Tobago House of Assembly to mull. We are all called to account on this one. Two little angels are among those who brought us here.