By Tedler D. Depaynos, MD
Dr. Eleazar Sarmiento is a low profile doctor whom I admire and one of those who made me decide to join the medical profession. His family is one of the originals of Baguio and their ancestral home is located at Happy Glen Loop.
His father was a pastor in a local Baptist Church. Being raised in the same church, he also became a pastor after finishing a Theology course in a Baptist Seminary. He used to conduct a Bible study every Saturday morning in our neighborhood. The classes were held in the sala of the Aragones family in New Lucban and after classes, we could see him scrubbing and sweeping the floor to remove the dirt we left behind. I was a little boy then attending his classes and there were times when he would carry and lift me up alternately with my playmate, Ben Aragones, making us smile, laugh and jerk with our feet. I cannot recall if he did that also to the other boys or girls attending his classes. Perhaps, we were his favorite.
He then became a missionary going to the different Benguet towns preaching the words of God.
It was quite some time and when he was in Kabayan, he got sick. There were no roads then so that when the town folks decided that he should see a doctor, they literally carried him to the mountainous adjacent Sayangan Barangay of the town, Atok where the Halsema Road is locat ed. Because of the terrain and the kilometric distance, the journey took nearly the whole day. Thru a Dangwa Tranco Bus he was brought to the city.
Recalling this incident, it made him decide to become a medical doctor so he could also treat while continuing his work as a missionary. He was much older than most of his classmates but he eventually graduated from the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Medical College (UERMMC).
He then continued his missionary work and then worked in a Banaue Clinic. Treating patients was no problem. It was only when a pregnant patient was brought to the clinic that needed an emergency ceasarian section that a major problem arrived. Because he was the only doctor around, he just said that he prayed so hard and tried to remember what the surgeons did when he was assisting this kind of operation when he was a medical intern at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH). He said he operated on top of their dining table and used a Coleman as a light because during those times electricity was not yet available. Despite the lack of equipments and personnel, the mother and child survived and this made him closer to the Lord. This incident also made him decide to become a surgeon so he went back to PGH to learn the specialty.
It was again quite some time when we met. It was just the following day after my graduation at UERMMC when we joined him for a medical mission in Mayoyao, Ifugao. We took a Pantranco bus and reached our meeting place in Tuguegarao. From there a small piper cab fetch us and brought us to our destination making several trips. We landed in a cleared grassy mountain top near where we had the medical mission. He brought with him a sack full of surgical equipments but fortunately, no surgery was done. We stayed overnight and in the wee hours in the morning we could see him in an elevated portion in the hilly terrain commuting with the Lord.
In going home to Baguio, we took a plane and landed in Loakan Airport. It was an experience I could never forget not only of the medical mission but of the airplane ride especially when we took the piper cab plane which is just as big as a Volkswagon beetle.
I later learned that he retired in States with his family. The last time we met was when he came home because his mother finally rested and was taken by the Lord. It was probably a decade ago already.
All of this came back to me when one morning Atty. Nicasio Aliping together with his older brother, Joel invited me for lunch at Manor Hotel together with my idol, missionary doctor, Dr. Eleazar Sarmiento. Due to emergency circumstances I was not able to join them and missed their company especially my idol doctor. He was the one who inculcated in me that our profession is mainly of Service. How I wish I would have another chance to meet him again.**
