Adventures in discovery

The medical missions that my foundation participates in takes me to different places in the country and have become my adventures in discovery.

(I was out of town on a medical mission, the reason this column didn’t come out on Thursday.)

The government sets aside billions of pesos to give away to the poorest of the poor, but it doesn’t take care of their health and the education of their children.

At the government hospital in Laoang, Northern Samar province, members of the Colorado-based International Surgical Missions (ISM) headed by Dr. Paul Radway found the operating room barely usable for surgery.

The operating room was not sterile, making patients liable to infection.

And you know how  the hospital surgical personnel sterilize the surgical instruments? They boil them in a vat on a stove.

ISM doctors, nurses and paramedics  brought their own sterilized instruments.

My foundation provided antibiotics and pain-killers for the medical mission.

While the hospital director’s office was fully air-conditioned, the recovery rooms and wards were steaming hot.

The toilets were unsanitary.

I didn’t ask, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many patients at the Laoang District Hospital died of infection.

In Lavezares, a few towns away from Laoang,  is Bunga Elementary School, which is representative of the government’s neglect in educating the children of the poor.

Bunga Elementary School, some 300 meters from the highway, has only two classrooms for its 46 students from Grades I to VI.

One classroom has one teacher handling students from Grades I to III; the other, from Grades IV to VI.

Maria Jovel Calais,  a teacher of Grades I to III students, writes lessons on one blackboard for Grade I pupils learning  English, then steps sideways a few meters  to teach Science to Grade II pupils, and later goes to the other end of the room to write Math lessons on the blackboard for Grade III pupils.

The school has one book for each class. The book remains in the room after class, leaving the  students to work on  their assignments at home without books.

The government has skewed priorities!

Instead of doling out money to the poor, which makes them lazy, why not make them healthy and educated by improving the sanitation in  government hospitals, building more classrooms and buying books for the children?

I learned from talking with concerned citizens in Northern Samar province that many of the beneficiaries of the government’s poverty alleviation program have a feast at the end of the month when they draw money from the Land Bank.

They go on drinking binges or place bets in sabong (cockfights).

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This administration, as well as the one it replaced, spoils the poor so that its candidates will win in the next election.

That’s the principal reason behind the Conditional Cash Transfer program.

The government promotes laziness in  children who see their parents receiving  money from the government for doing nothing.

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To politicians and government officials:

I never solicit money for my foundation’s medical missions.