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Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Speak out: Volunteer life savers
By Ramon B. Ceniza
Cebu
(This is a message delivered at the Christmas party of the Regional Blood Coordinating Council.)
The cause we have chosen to embrace deserves reflection. Wittingly or unwittingly, before you and I decided to embrace the cause, we must have done some reflection.
I understand that more than the material rewards of joining and supporting the RBCC (Regional Blood Coordinating Council) movement, we were told that we were coming in as volunteers.
But what is voluntarism? The word voluntarism comes from the verb “volunteer.” And to volunteer is to “offer, sign up, donate one’s services, step up, come forward, present, proffer, tender or contribute.”
Movement
The dictionary offers as antonym “go kicking and screaming, resist, refuse” — as if to further amplify the meaning of volunteer in a rather funny way.
When we joined the RBCC movement, I am sure that we were aware, in one way or another, that we were joining a movement above and beyond our own little individual concerns. For indeed, the RBCC movement is about saving human life.
There is something especially poignant by the mere mention of saving human life. For human life these days seems to have little value. Human life, which is priceless, is being treated as chattels to be bought and sold or to be used as pawns in the political and economic chess board.
All of us have joined the movement not to destroy or belittle human life but to uphold, defend and protect it.
Contribute
And our weapon is not money or guns or lethal injection but our voluntarism. We have contributed our hands, minds and hearts to the cause of gathering that precious liquid, which when introduced into the veins of a human being under surgery, more often than not spells the difference between life and death for the patient.
You and I in the RBCC movement gather up to 8,000 blood bags a year from a supportive and exemplary community.
Throughout the years of its existence, you and I have therefore saved countless human lives – many of whom were strangers to us. While they will remain nameless and faceless, it does not matter. The important thing is that we did something to save lives. And saving the life of a human being is akin to participating in the divine act of creation.
Replicate
Having learned of the success of RBCC in Cebu, the Department of Health had long wanted to replicate the movement in the other regions of the country. But they have done so without any success.
I wondered why they have failed in this all important project which is to distribute free and safe blood following the closure of commercial blood banks.
Of course there are always hospital-based blood banks. But at what cost to the people, especially the poor who, in many instances, have had to sell their last carabao, cow or pig in order to pay for the life-saving blood to save a loved one.
We have to give tribute to the Cebuanos. Without their magnificent support, we would not be here celebrating Christmas. And in celebrating Christmas, we are not just celebrating the birth of the Child but the strong seeds of voluntarism that you in RBCC have planted in this community.
(December 27, 2005 issue)
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