Dr. Jaja Sinolinding —PHOTO
FROM ELVIE CALUB’S FACEBOOK PAGE
Shocked by the death of another rural doctor in Mindanao, Senator Risa Hontiveros now wants the Senate to look into the spate of killings of doctors, calling it a “crime against the people.”
“Konti na nga lang ang mga nagboboluntaryong doktor sa mga baryo, pinapaslang pa (Only a few doctors have been volunteering to the barrios, yet they are being killed),” Hontiveros said in a statement on Thursday, reacting to the recent killing Dr. Sajid “Jaja” Sinolinding, a volunteer of the government’s Doctor to the Barrios [DTTB] program.
Sinolinding was reportedly gunned down inside the Cotabato Doctors Clinic on Tuesday morning by a suspect who pretended to be a patient.
READ: DOH condemns killing of doctor in Cotabato City
“Nakakalungkot dahil sa bawat volunteer doctor na pinapatay, isang bukaspalad na tao ang inaagawan ng buhay, at isang komunidad ang pinagkakaitan ng serbisyong medical (it’s saddening, because as one volunteer doctor is killed, a generous person is robbed of his life, and a community is denied medical service),” the senator said.
Hontiveros then called on authorities to conduct a “full-scale” investigation.
READ: Security cam failed during doc’s slay
She said she would file a resolution to urge the Senate to look into the killings of doctors in the communities.
The senator believes that the spate of killings victimizing volunteer doctors was no longer an isolated incident but “a crime against the people.”
She noted that Sinolinding’s killing happened just less than two months after Dr. Dreyfuss Perlas, a fellow volunteer doctor, was killed in Sapad, Lanao del Norte.
Hontiveros said the climate of killing under the Duterte government posed a serious threat to the people’s access to public health, and a mortal danger to the lives of the already small number of volunteer doctors.
As of 2016, she said, only 320 of 946 slots were filled in the DTTB program managed by the Department of Health (DOH). IDL/rga