By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
A few days ago, I came across an online frontpage article on DOH Secretary Duque being the No. 1 cabinet secretary. I don’t recall anymore if that was the result of a survey or whatever. I tried to search again for that article but was in vain. You see, like many older people, I am still set in my dinosaur ways. As if that was a hardcopy of a newspaper I could just pick up again when the need arose.
That article caught my eye because the DOH-CAR had been abuzz with activities. Just the past few weeks alone, it had invited the media for numerous press conferences. A press conference is like a way to report to the public what an office was doing or had done. So, by and large, you don’t call a press conference if you have nothing to report. Meaning, the DOH-CAR was achieving a lot and was proud to report through the media.
The last DOH-CAR presscon I attended was months ago and I rued every one I missed after that due to conflict with my trial schedules. That was in the presence of an assistant secretary and it was good because it was about programs on the barangay level. The regional director then was Dr. Lakshmi I. Legaspi who traveled a lot to check on the agency’s local programs. she was here and there in the “bundoks” which was impressive to check on the implementation of health programs. As I pointed out in the presscon to the assistant secretary, “give your local officers the best transportation available but they should be made to travel to the hinterlands to check on the implementation of programs and projects, whether it be for the establishment of birthing facilities, implementation of immunization efforts, etc.. For the history of this country on projects and programs is replete with nice ones on paper gathering dust in offices but seldom reach the grassroots.
Our new DOH-CAR regional director, Dr. Amelita M. Pangilinan, was present in that presscon. We are very hopeful that more programs will be effective and implemented, and this appears to be, as she knows the countryside of this region, she being from Mountain Province. As she pointed out, in some areas in this region there are no comfort rooms that people would have to go out to relieve themselves while it is dark to have some privacy.
Reminds me of one incident several years ago, where the media were invited to a remote area in Kalinga. The newshens and the younger ones would have to go in pairs while it was dark to relieve themselves. The pigs there were roaming around freely so one of them had to have a stick to drive away the pig or pigs (they love to eat human shit and would go crazy just by the smell of it) while the other was squatting on the ground doing her thing, trying to relieve herself.
One of the ladies did not have a pair so she had to go in the dark by herself holding a stick. As she was squatting, she heard the pig– huh! huh! huh!— going towards her back where it expected the manna to fall. She turned while squatting to try to whip the pig away with her stick. The pig would back off, goes around and then would go again towards her back. The merry go round must have gone on for a while and she must have been able to relieve herself, somehow.
The incident was funny and sad. How can diseases be avoided in such unsanitary conditions? So I remember that the DOH-CAR had been trying to enable the people to have sanitary toilets and they were making a remarkable headway.
Well, some changes in lifestyle are necessary.
In another development in Kalinga, it was announced last week that Balbalan had opened one of its caves for tourists. In fact, some had already visited the area. There is one thing that people in such areas should not do if tourists were expected to keep on going back.
I heard of some bad practice in some areas (Was it in remote areas in southern Philippines or was it in Kalinga?) where local residents were seen spreading palay or rice on the road so their chickens would go there in the hope that they will be run-over by a vehicle. They would then extort big money from the owner of the vehicle because, they would say, the chicken could have produced some offspring capable of wining big amounts in the cockpit arena.
For the same purpose, they would drive their pigs to the road.
We might already be in the internet or cyber space age but others still have the whole wide world as their CR or as their pig pen.**
