By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
I wrote about herbal medicine way back in 2014. That’s 10 years ago, and it’s funny how not much has changed over how we are using these natural medicines around us.
Herbal medicine was a component of the Primary Health Care strategy way back in the 1980s when member countries of the World Health Organization (including the Philippines) had a vision to have “Health For All by the year 2000” and committed to attain it. Well, we are now in 2025 and what happened apparently is not “health for all” but “disease for all.” As for herbal medicine, it did not really progress the way we (or I and the likes of me) envisioned it. We envisioned it to be popularized and accessible after some years. Starting 1982, we enthusiastically trained the barangay health workers on the common medicinal plants, gave out planting materials and expected self-reliance on treatment of common ailments. At that time, too, Dep-Ed (then DECS) was also enthusiastically establishing herbal gardens in the schools and most of which are existing up to now in their Gulayan sa Paaralan. However, to my disappointment, we still had to see the plants propagated or used at home. Sigh…
Herbal medicine is as old as people so there should be no problem with its popularity. I was using herbal medicine as far as I can remember (that makes me an herbolario). Well, it is not only me but my siblings and others in the “ili”, as well. As kids, every time somebody got cut, we would automatically get either camote leaves, sunflower leaves or “sigis” leaves, pound it with the nearest stone we could get hold of and apply the poultice on the wound. No tetanus. No problem, we didn’t run crying for Mama to put iodine or mercuchrome (which was banned many years later because it contained mercury!) We found out that among the three plants, camote leaves were the gentlest medicine and sunflower leaves had the most sting but not as bad as iodine. I don’t remember who taught this herbal medicine to us, it just seemed common sense. I am happy, though, that the generation of my children have this common sense, having grown up in the province.
Medicinal plants are all around us, even in the sidewalks of highly-urban Manila. You will notice that they will also grow in the narrow cracks of walls. Wow! Even the little dust that accumulates in these tiny spaces is enough to sustain them! That makes us reflect how powerful they are, right? And if you come to use herbal medicine more and more, you will observe that medicinal plants are easiest to grow. Look at your “weeds” and count how many have medicinal value. And still we are discovering more and more common plants having medicinal value. Like guyabano and turmeric are quite recent discoveries. Tawa-tawa is a traditional medicinal plant but it was only after we had dengue epidemics that we discovered that it also increased platelet count. We are blessed in the Philippines with an abundant variety of plants many of which are medicinal, especially, here in the Cordilleras. One time, the famous Filipino botanist, Leonard Co, was gushing over the existence of so many medicinal plants in the Cordillera which he didn’t not find elsewhere in the country.
Why is the use of medicinal plants not popular? Well, it is ,undoubtedly, easier to buy a tablet and pop it in your mouth than having to gather leaves from your garden or your neighbor’s garden and boiling for 15 minutes. And, of course, drinking a decoction that tastes “grass” at best could be an unforgettable experience. What we don’t realize is that the time and effort invested in “making” the medicine adds to its therapeutic value. That loving energy poured into processing it has added healing value, believe it or not.
Herbal medicine also works differently from western medicine. By “western medicine”, I refer to those pills and injections popularly used in modern medicine. Examples of western medicines are paracetamol and other painkillers, cefalexin and other antibiotics, amlodipine and other antihypertensives. Western medicines are concentrated chemicals, usually synthetic, which when taken in, alter the function of the cells, thus they have some side effects which are usually undesirable. Herbal medicines, on the other hand, are whole leaves, seeds, bark or whole plants. They are not concentrated so they are gentle medicine. They are used as is, we don’t take away one active ingredient from the others, because the medicinal effect is the result of an interplay of innumerable components of the whole leaf or bark, not from one chemical that can only be extracted by the laboratory. I don’t believe our Creator would make life so difficult for us as to require intricate and super-expensive laboratory equipment to process medicines for our use. God is good!
Most of the time, medicinal plants work by cleansing. At this age of toxic eating, that is exactly what we need – cleansing. We accumulate a lot of excess food and toxins in our bodies leading to the diseases prevalent today – hypertension, rayuma, allergies, diabetes, cancer, kidney failure, chronic cough, etc.
What happens when our bodies are cleansed? Naturally, those diseases caused by accumulated excesses and toxins go away, not only one disease but many diseases. Thus medicinal plants are usually seen as cure-all. Somebody asked, “Then why are commercial herbal medicines labeled ‘No therapeutic claims’”. Well, Filipinos can’t afford the expensive and stringent requirements of the Food and Drug Administration to have these plants certified as “therapeutic”. But people know better so we are calling on the Department of Health to approve more medicinal plants. We were told years back that DOH will come up with “20 halamang gamot.” At the moment, DOH has approved “10 halamang gamot” to have medicinal value. These 10 medicinal plants are sambong, akapulko, niyog-niyogan, bawang, lagundi, ampalaya, tsaang-gubat, bayabas, ulasimang-bato and yerba buena. Still something to be thankful for. The question is, are we using them? ***
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“Glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope.” Ephesians 3:20
