how to heal zamboanga?

Last weekend, we went to a medical mission in the remotest and most mountainous part of Pasonanca known as Muroc. The Pasonanca that i know (im sure this was also the content of public elementary school reference books) is all about the famous Tree house, the Jamboree site lined up with pyramidal camps reminiscent of shelters of the American-Indians known as teepee, the Climaco park, Maria Clara Lobregat park, the mini Aviary, the swimming pool, and the water source.
But Muroc elementary school is different...
Its like discovering about the civilization of cave people
in China...in a little exagerated sort of way.

The place is about ten kilometers of rough road from the main Pasonanca, only reached by "habal habal", which is a common form of transportation in the mountainous areas in Mindanao.
Along the way, you get one of the best scenic views in the peninsula...below is the downtown pueblo, against the vastness of the Sulu seas, the two santa Cruz islands, and the clear blue unpolluted skies.

The school is situated on a hilltop. We were greeted by some of the teachers and barangay health workers who facilitated this activity. There were very few patients when we arrived because some still attending the Sunday mass, while the others are still on their way (at least a mountain or two away)..

While waiting for the others to arrive, i tried to entertain myself by clicking on a few interesting sights and people...
The school children were amused once their faces registered from the LCD of my digital camera...
Then the patients started to come..

There arrived one by one, the usual cases of respiratory tract infection, diarhea, malnutrition.. some children were brought only for the usual vitamins and anti-helminthic tratment...what can we expect from a medical mission.. ? Do we really expect people to get ill just to be benefited when a specific medical mission is conducted?...so the people's main purpose is to ask for medicines that they do not need yet... but in preparation for future use...some sort of self-medications...

The medical mission was sponsored by the foundation of WMMC. We were joined by dentists, nurses, midwives and some volunteers from the same hospital... At least the dentists were very useful.. several teeth were extracted...

Wanted: ciudad de zamboanga's foundation for children with cancer

its really ironic that a certain group of patients - children with cancer- were not as lucky as children with hydrocephalus (of whatever cause), patients needing rehabilitation therapy and recently, older patients with cataract of what ever cause. What do these later patients have in common?


They are being supported by a foundation originally based in Taiwan.. Of course the group have been here in the city for quite sometime...and they have provided great support for the community...they founded the first referral rehabilitation center in the region...


this year, they opened the first eye center in the region to hopefully help people with eye disorder which can be cured by eye surgery-cataract surgery- basically an illness of the elderly, and people with diabetes....well this is lucrative for the hospital (philhealth is offering quite a sum for every operation)...



why not offer some support for the curable cancers of the innocent children...anyway they are the hope of this city ...who knows these cancer surivors would be better leaders than the present crops that are plagueing this society... acute lymphocytic leukemia is the most curable of all malignancies ( whether pediatric or adult), wilms tumor, retinoblastoma if caught early, and lymphomas are generally cured with currently available chemotherapeutic regimens...



complete treatment for favourable stage 3 wilms' tumor in a 2 year old child can cost up to 50 thousand pesos. the same goes for 6 cycles of retinoblastoma chemotherapy...



compare that to operating in a child with hydrocephalus...the cost of VP shunt is about 20 thousand... the operation expenses is about 10-20 thousand..? of course the professional fee is probably free... but what if the shunt got infected? (which happens 100% of the time)... the cost of antibiotic can reach between 50-100 thousand..then what happened next? VP sunt failure, removal of the shunt...and eventually probable demise of the patient...



can we give these cancer patients a chance? please...

Maria Clara revisited

Tuod Art: Bakawan reinvented itself?

What is bakawan or mangrove trees?

This from Encarta online-Mangroves are trees or shrubs that grow in shallow and muddy salt water or brackish waters, such as those along shorelines or in estuaries. Found worldwide in tropical and subtropical areas, mangrove swamps provide excellent nesting and feeding areas for a variety of marine fish, invertebrates, and birds. The Philippines which is composed of 7, 1007 islands is ecologically dependent on its diverse functions both for maintenance of marine life and sanctuary and lately as a form of human shelter and art form...

mangrove divan

mangroove lamp

Typically they produce tangled masses of arching roots that are exposed during low tides. Some mangrove roots extend above the water. These specialized vertical branches, called pneumatophores, act as aerating organs. The most common and most important species, the red mangrove, is so named because of its reddish wood. It has been exploited as a source of charcoal and of tannins, which are used in preparing leather.

There are four common species. The red mangrove belongs to the family Rhizophoraceae and is classified as Rhizophora mangle. The white mangrove and button mangrove belong to the family Combretaceae. The black mangrove belongs to the family Verbenaceae and is classified as Avicennia germinans.

Breastfeeding Stations

I saw a 2 months old baby weighing 1.5 kg (birth weight of 3 kg) this morning. He has acute diarrhea...The mother is a 17 year old single mother...He is her only child... The baby looks ill. He has sunken eyes with very thin pale skin...he cries weakly...his mother was trying to bottle feed him with a diluted milk formula... i saw a can of Alaska at bedside...i almost died of heart attack!

I still wince at the thought of earlier onset of malnutrition or "failure to thrive" as early as one month old in this part of the world...this is almost unheard of in the richer cities in the country... not unless a baby is afflicted with other systemic illness. A good example of this is a baby born with heart problem... but "failure to thrive" or babies who did not gain its expected weight for age because of poor feeding practices?... that is another story... specially in this day and age where every coin should be spent wisely, then the practice of breastfeeding is a must....

A 17-year old teen-age single mother, or a 30 year old mother of ten children, a Tausug or Samal mother of two living at Rio Hondo or a newly-wed with first baby from Sangali..The risk factors are there... ignorance, poverty, religious conflict, tradition or just plain stupidity ? ( i don't believe in that)

Coffee mate or water with sugar as breastmilk substitutes? Ehhww!

The efforts of some concerned citizens, institutions, foundations advocating breastfeeding practices is commendable...Lets thank their simple yet significant contribution for the sake of this country who's main treasure is its people...

As simple as encouraging a young nursing mother is a small task... but it can make a BIG difference... by forgetting the bonna, s26, enfalac, nan, nestogen, etc... this is not only the task of the doctors or pediatricians who first "catch" the baby when he/she was born... this is also the responsibility of the hilots, midwives, lolas and previously nursing mothers to spread to the 7,107 islands of this country that breastfeeding is the best for babies!

there's an elevator in my apartment

Guess what....?

a. helicopter

b. washing machine

c. electric fan

d. exhaust fan

e. none of the above

Its probably nearest to letter D. Its a piece of an electric device situated on top of your head when you try to visit my flat and be subjected to the most gripping and awesome 24- second ride of your life.... going up this dilapidated lift. The building was only about a decade old... but this thing was most probably created when Magsaysay crashed his plane...