Giving Love to Others (Part 2)

Ni Oggie Medina

Even before I became a journalist, I did my own mission of uplifting the lives of the poor in the small, best way I could.

During my student days at De La Salle University-Manila, I joined game shows on television to share my winnings to those persons who needed help. Outside the De La Salle University in Manila campus, I would go to depressed areas. I would also go to Rizal Park, formerly Luneta, at early in the morning during weekend to feed the homeless. One time, I tried to explain the song “Lift Up Your Hands”. As I sang it, I was also able to convince a married man to return home to his wife after their quarrel for he could not find a job. As I accompanied him home, I was praying earnestly, and their marriage, thanks to God, was saved. Later, a job offer came to him. I was also able to help financially some males and females not to sell their bodies, and I helped them find decent jobs.

I used to visit in 1987 the burn unit of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) where I tried to help Maribel T. Suarez (a malnourished child), Rosemarie Garcia (an epileptic) and a young man from Pampanga. The money given to me by the late famous hairdresser Jun Encarnacion, who I featured in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, National Midweek Magazine and Philippines Daily Journal, was given to these children. I wrote to concerned institutions and persons, including Atty. Flerida Ruth P. Romero (former Supreme Court associate justice), Jaime Cardinal Sin, businessman Jose Concepcion Jr., Joker P. Arroyo (former executive secretary and senator), Br. Andrew Gonzalez, FSC (former president of De La Salle University-Manila and education secretary), Mita Pardo de Tavera (former social welfare secretary), and actor Edu Manzano, to help the burn patients.

When I returned to PGH, the three burn patients were not there anymore for, according to an attending nurse, an American philanthropist sponsored their treatment abroad. And I was very happy. In fact, I met the said philanthropist in Manila.

On January 25, 1988, on the eve of my birthday, I was at San Lazaro Hospital (SLH) in Manila. I was assisting Alvin Caccam Doloritos, a scholar of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, of 606 K. Tirso Cruz Street in Gagalangin, Tondo, Manila, who was hit by a passenger jeepney. The driver did not have a second thought about speeding away, leaving his victim still unconscious and bloodied on the pavement. We first brought the victim to PGH (at that time Ms. Dana Batnag, then a reporter from the Manila Chronicle where I also contributed articles, arrived at the hospital after I talked to her over the phone to report the incident), but later, the doctors advised us to transfer the bumped victim to SLH. As expected I was asked so many questions as if I were a relative of the poor, hit-and-run victim. I was told to do the usual routine, from the information desk to the emergency room, to the x-ray room and so forth.

After going through the red tape which must have lasted until around midnight, we decided to report the incident to the police so that they they could inform the relatives and family. We proceeded to the traffic bureau on Atlanta Street in Port Area, Manila. It was January 26 (my birthday), in the wee hours of the morning.

The police promised us that they would contact the relatives immediately, but to my knowledge, several hours had passed and the doctors were still unable to talk to any relative or nearest kin. Hours passed and still no parents, no relatives came to Alvin’s rescue. Alvin was still in limbo, where patients would simply wait for death to come. I became very impatient for the police authority’s slow action. Later, I decided to act on my own.

My search for Alvin’s kin, at these crucial moments, was like experiencing Homer’s Odyssey in Tondo, a place which was believed unsafe by common folk. I scoured the entire Gagalangin, Tondo – not a squatter area at all as what some people might think it is. At 606 K. Tirso Cruz Street, maybe by God’s will, I met finally Alvin’s mother. Inside the spacious and comfortable house, she appeared to be a real spartan, keeping her emotions to herself. She rushed to the San Lazaro Hospital where another child of hers worked as an aide, but to no avail. I learned later that Alvin passed away that fateful day. He died in his mother’s arms. A few days after, I accompanied Alvin’s mother to DZMM, where she pleaded to the culprit to surrender.

In later years, I made a personal request to some showbiz celebrities and friends I featured to donate whatever they could to ABS-CBN’s “Bahay Kalinga”, a public-service TV program that assisted sick children. It was then hosted by Vicky Garchitorena and the late Frankie Evangelista (Gretchen Tanada Ocampo-Recto, granddaughter of the late Sen. Lorenzo Tanada, was then the executive producer). I was ABS-CBN’s Bahay Kalinga volunteer public relations officer.

I also tried to help Rechelle Garcia, a one-year-old child who had no anus, through the late Betty Go-Belmonte’s column “Pebbles” of the Philippine Star by giving my one-half month salary from the Office of the President’s Office of the Press Secretary where I worked as Information Officer III in Malacanang.