It takes one to know one.
A world champion martial artist who fought poverty early on as a mine laborer’s son in Benguet came to the rescue of three distraught patients, including two girls who were at a loss on how to pay for the next session of their life-time dialysis treatment for kidney failure.
Responding to the women patients’ urgent plea for help coursed through the weekly papers, former world Shotokan karate champion Julian Chees last week sent P10,133.72 that provided relief to four kidney patients undergoing twice or thrice-a-week dialysis treatment for life.
The sum was the latest from Chees, a sixth dan blackbelt and native of Maligcong, Bontoc, Mtn. Province who now heads Shoshin Kinderhilfe, the social arm of his Shotokan karate school based in Germany.
Of the amount, P4,500 covered two sessions of hemodialysis for Jemaima Gac-oy, 22, of Virac, Itogon, Benguet who began her life-time treatment for kidney failure September two years ago.
One session costing P2,200 will be for Erly Dumansi, a 35-year old mother of two, also from Virac, Itogon who was diagnosed for kidney failure five years ago.
The other week, P2,250 was used for the dialysis of patient Marcelo Baccud who had exhausted his resources and was waiting for a Samaritan to enable him to undergo his overdue blood-cleansing session at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center.
Gac-oy earlier received P5,000 support from a retired professor of the University of the Philippines whose late husband arranged the opening by the late Shihan Kunio Sasaki of a Shotokan karate school in Baguio under what is now the Japan Karate Association where Chees honed his skills.
Chees earlier sent P16,452.25 for Marie Joy Ligudon, a 12-year old patient from Ifugao whose twice-a-week dialysis is being shouldered by his adoptive mother, Gina Epe of Bokod, Benguet.
Another Samaritan, Esther Alicoy, delivered P2,000 for the ailing girl, P2,500 for patient Bester Imbentan, and P2,500 for Gac-oy. ** Ramon Dacawi
