Let’s help Yosef Andrei

Yosef Andrei Sagrado, 7 months old, needs a heart operation as soon as possible. He suffers recurring pneumonia which is stunting his normal growth. This results from a problem with the arteries of his heart. His condition is called Patent Ductus Arteriosus. The required operation costs P200,000. Yosef needs help from us to raise the amount.

His parents are Julius and Honeylyn Sagrado. Julius is an artist, a recent graduate of the Fine Arts program of the University of the Philippines Cebu College. He now teaches part time at the University of Cebu. He is a talented and hard-working person. There is no doubt at all that in time he will be better off than he is now. And problems like this would be well within his means to solve by himself. But as he has been married only for a year and began his art career only for just as long he cannot now afford the cost of his son’s operation.

And he cannot wait. His son’s doctor, pediatric cardiologist Rudy Amaton advises an operation as soon as possible to prevent complications spreading to his lungs and other organs. The baby’s organs are not receiving as much oxygen as they should. The possibility of early death is possible. And so Julius has been exhausting all possibilities for raising the amount needed for the operation including approaching Kinutil to help save his baby.

For one person, especially a young struggling artist who is only starting his career, P200,000 seems like an unreachable amount. And yet, it is only a small amount in exchange for a human life, especially a baby’s. The amount seems even smaller when we reckon in terms of the community getting together to help raise it.

And we might imagine it translating to a peso from 200,000 people, which translates also to a thousand from 200 people. 200 people does not seem like such a big number. But the problem is always to reach the 200 people and get them to go a bit out of their way to save baby Yosef’s life.

As in the old days we artists might have organized art exhibits and performance art presentations to raise the amount needed. But such an enterprise takes time to organize. And it is time which baby Yosef does not have. And so his father, Julius, is better off finding other options. Are there government agencies and foundations who might be willing to help? Are there private people out there willing to chip in cash or relay this message to others who might help? This is good opportunity especially for artists to practice community spirit.  Most artists do not have insurance. It is their loss. We might as well note here how artists should buy insurance as soon as they can afford it and before its too late. But failing that, artists have only themselves to lean to in times of trouble.

Which is the main reason why artists should always band together to build themselves into communities that work. Unfortunately, artists are not always the best people to do this. Artists are usually very competitive and become worse that way the older they get. And yet from time to time they do demonstrate the capacity to go beyond the competitiveness and work together  to help a fellow artist in need. Now is a good time to do this once again.

But as somebody already said: “Art is too important to leave to artists.”

The public too has a big role to play to support art in our city. And the readers of Kinutil especially so. We don’t need much from each one. Even a small amount will do for as long as we reach enough number of people. And there are so many ways now to reach good people. And we know we are out there. Please help.