Monday, December 03, 2007 Dacawi: A shopping list for Samaritans By Ramon Dacawi Benchwarmer
WE'RE not what we have, and some people out there badly need what we don’t need to have, can’t, or won’t have to use, at least for this yuletide. Christmas will be merrier if their needs are in our shopping list, they who should spend the holidays in a hospital but don’t have the means to be there.
That sounds like a homily, and so be it. As the late ex-Jesuit seminarian and feature writer Freddie Mayo used to say in some of his spirited religious discourses before us, his drinking buddies, even the devil can quote scripture.
Carried away by his passion for sharing, Freddie, then my fellow glorified clerk, shoved part of his Christmas bonus to my side of the cheap gin table. For my bus ticket, he insisted, so I could be with my family. It hurt as he appeared unhurt that he had just denied his own kids some precious toys they were looking forward to having. And then we still had to argue on who would foot the liquor bill.
Manny Gayao, the former PTA president of Barangay Lucnab here, can hardly foot the bill. Yet he’s not what he doesn’t have. So for some years now, he has been walking like he has both feet on the left. He just keeps on looking for ways so his bed-ridden neighbors get back on their feet - freed of life-threatening afflictions. Manny doesn’t mind the clumsiness of his repetitive plea for one patient after another. It meant showing his grace in going native and dancing tribal with his students along Session Road. last year, at the height of the city flower festival, reason enough to pass the hat for a cancer patient.
Yet Manny recently had to borrow cash from a friend to be able to visit his sick mother at the Mountain Province Hospital in Bontoc. It’s easier to seek support for others than your own. Seeing his mom would be all right, he returned to Baguio to push a fund drive for another neighbor -- 15-year old Roldan Lubata Cuyango-an.
Manny is persistent to have the boy be on this shopping list of sorts for Samaritans, with good reason. Roldan’s case is medically identified as Tetralogy of Fallot. It means four congenital defects in his heart -- ventricular septal defect, or a hole; pulmonic stenosis, or obstruction from the right ventricle to the lungs; overriding aorta, in which the major heart artery lies directly over the ventricular septal defect; and right ventricular hypertrophy, wherein the right ventricle is abnormally muscular.
Roldan needs P500,000 to undergo open heart surgery. His mother Esther and neighbor Estrella Charog have opened joint in-trust-for account number 1326809302 at RCBC Session Rd. for Samaritans to course their support. Donors may also ring Esther’s cell phone number 09289515077.
Over in La Trinidad, Benguet, nine-year-old John Lloyd a Fuente also needs the same estimated amount to have his own hole in the heart fixed through surgery. Samaritans may want to be at a dinner-for-a-cause for him on December 7 at the town’s Jack’s Restaurant. They may course support through his mother Noemi’s Metrobank account number 3 222 189862. Her cell phone number is 09207256126.
Still in La Trinidad, auto mechanic Archie Bohong wonders how he was able to pool P50,000 that went to the ongoing treatment of his wife Myrna who was diagnosed for leukemia. The father of a two-year-old daughter and a seven-year-old son now has nowhere else to go to complete Myrna’s six chemo sessions. He’s just a cell phone call away, at 09183651079. Donors may find him at Jack’s Industrial and Development Corp. or at MB 258 Puguis.
Recently, somebody left on my desk a report on Annie Segundo-Habbiling, a 29-year-old mother of three kids who also needs six rounds of chemo for Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, or cancer of the lymph nodes. Her family subsists through farming. Samaritans may get in touch with Tuba Vice Mayor Valentino Carantes who endorsed her case to any individual or organization who can help.
Romeo Belino, 33, of Atok Trail Barangay, needs to undergo twice-a-week dialysis for renal failure, and this will be for life. People who would like to reach out to him, as city councilor Nick Aliping did the other week, may ask where he lives from the storekeeper near the barangay hall.
As of last Friday, three kids are staring up at the ceiling of the pedia ward of the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center:
Six-year-old leukemia victim John Brix de Guzman needs type A blood for platelet transfusion and P7,500 needed for treatment to sudue rioting cancer cells. He has gone this far because Baguio boy Freddie de Guzman in Canada had bankrolled his chemotherapy the past several months. His mother Brenda awaits humanitarian calls through her cell phone number 09108085009.
Seven-year-old John Mark Benedito, sits on his bed, looking more like a miniature Buddha or sumo player than a farmer’s kid. His body has been bloated by nephritic syndrome that is fast destroying his kidneys. His grandmother Elizabeth now and then looks at the prescriptions for his deliverance, unable to purchase them. His grandma can be contacted at 09214717072.
Ten-year-old Ericka Madriaga, with her head fully cleared of hair by chemotherapy, was admitted for tonsilitis. She is due for her sixth and last chemo session for osteosarcoma, or bone cancer, on December 2. Last week, Baguio boy Irwin Ilustre, who has resettled in Canada, asked his sister Juliet to deliver P13,500 for her chemo.
There are other Freddie de Guzmans and Irwin Ilustres out there. They can be individuals or organizations who can whittle down their beer intake or holiday celebrations for these and others wishing to be included in their Christmas shopping lists.
After all, we are not what we own, as succinctly noted by Mike Jacobs of the Grand Forks (North Dakota) Herald in one of his award-winning editorials.-e-mail:rdacawi@yahoo.com for comments
