Robinhood

                        

I was browsing books at Kinokuniya earlier when I chanced upon this quote and suddenly, a part of my DTTB (Doctors to the Barrios) experiences came in a flash. At the time, I had a grasp at how politics is being played not only in my home province but in the whole country as well. I was able to answer some questions on the root cause of our country's corruption and consequent poverty. I found out that it is a mutual give-and-take relationship between the elected leaders and the voters. 

I remember one afternoon when I was backriding a motorcycle driven by a barangay captain in the municipality I served, we were on our way to his barangay to see a patient. Our ride was relatively smooth, thanks to the tire paths (see photo below) carpeting the narrow barrio roads. The captain was telling me how grateful he is to the local chief executive for constructing those tire paths making the transportation to and fro the far-flung barangay easier for his constituents. 

TIRE PATHS. Basically, two narrow concrete roads constructed to fit only the tires of vehicles. This is one of the PAMANA projects of the DSWD. I took this photo when my staff and I were on a convoy to one of the barangays. 

As far as I know, all the developments in that municipality, including the tire paths, are government projects through different agencies such as the DSWD, DA, DILG and DOH. None comes from the personal budget of the local chief executive. And yet, the community people think of it as personal projects of the LCE. I do not undermine the gratitude of the community people, of course we have to consider that without the consent and cooperation of the LCE, none of those projects would materialize. When I was there, I was also beyond grateful for the warm welcome and the kindness that the LCE and his family have shown me and my staff. But I also believe that they should not entirely own up to the developments, in fact, it is something that they OWE to their constituents, and the latter must also understand that being taxpayers (well, only a handful of them) they deserve each and every project in the municipality that alleviates their living condition such as concrete roads (which they majorly lack), educational reinforcement, agricultural/livelihood help, and health support and monitoring.

I have observed that, generally, in the fifth/sixth municipalities (poorest of the poor), most of the constituents rely solely (or shall I say, beg?) from the local chief executive. This starts during the election period where vote buying is not a secret to keep in our country. It is illegal but majority does it. We live in an era where a "clean intention to serve" neither qualifications matter. Money matters. This is where the give-and-take relationship I mentioned starts. The higher amount you give to the voters, the more chance you will get of being elected to the position you're vying. After election, the politician's financial resources is depleted and he now relies on the IRA and other government projects to "save up" again for the next election. Infrastructure and other major developments are compromised in this practice. Since services lack in the municipality, the constituents practically beg to the LCE for personal financial help. This is where the feeling of "helping the people" commences, and the constituents are largely "grateful" to the LCE for the help extended to them. Robinhood, eh?     

Basically, our nation's problem in corruption and poverty is a two-way process. We cannot isolate the politicians as blameworthy, if we have accepted their money when we voted for them, then we are their accomplices. We chose them, therefore, we must endure.

As the national elections come to a close, I fervently pray to God for enlightenment as we vote for those who are capable of leading us to progress and prosperity sans the sugar-coated words and "charitable deeds" while obviously stealing from the taxpayers' money for his personal gain. May God spare us from hypocrisy and following blindly. Ameen.

Quarter-Life Crisis

If you happened to read my previous post about The Secret, it has something to do with me undergoing "quarter-life crisis" pala. I just learned about it when I was reading an article and came across with the word. It summarized everything that I was feeling, I was going through a phase pala that I didn't recognize. What I knew was that I felt a lot of resentment about everything. It happened right after I was deployed in Maguindanao for my DTTB stint and eventually got married. Everything seemed to happen swiftly that I lost track to cope. I thought everything was perfect for me--- I had my license as a physician and earned respect from society, I have a fulfilling job, I married the kind of person I was praying for--- but I was feeling doomed. I dealt with a lot of emotional pains caused by too many factors and here, let me count the ways: 

1.) The hassles of being a Doctor to The Barrio
   
      Being pulled out from one province to another due to a rift with the local chief executive, going to the mountainous terrains, walking under the sun to reach barangays located in what seems to be the endmost part of the world, dealing with hard-headed and delinquent staff, seeing the miserable condition of the people in a municipality forgotten by civilization; and at the same time, witnessing the fabulous and glamorous lifestyle of the handful of people who are supposed to make life easy for those in the far-flung mountains. I was witnessing the irony in my own society. I was disillusioned. I cannot believe how money and power can rip off some people's conscience, rendering oppression to those in the lower strata and how the latter can all be purely innocent of the injustice lashed at them. For two years during my whole DTTB stint, I was in complete desolation. Yes, I have survived DTTB, I am in a good state now, but the people in the municipality I had left are still eating out from one powerful man's hand, struggling through their daily survival, waiting for a miracle to happen.

   For two years, I have witnessed how corruption from the lowermost level occurs and how the people from the grassroots suffer the consequence and worse, how they tolerate the powerful ones as if stealing the money rightfully owned by the mass is a normal thing to do. And the worst feeling is knowing that you are not, by any means, capable of doing something about it. I came to a point of wishing DTTB would end soon so I can get out of the loop to stop witnessing everything. 

2.) Long distance relationship

      Before my husband and I got married, he already talked me out of the DTTB stint and offered to pay back my scholarship so I can join him in his post in Nigeria. I vehemently refused because I was really looking forward to DTTB and I know I will regret it if I wouldn't join the program. I have already accepted our LDR set-up thinking that I have never been emotionally dependent to one person so it wouldn't be a problem. One month after we got married, he left for Africa and we were both back to our pre-marriage routine. Much to my huge surprise, I had a severe separation anxiety that I had occasional outbursts of crying!! Adjusting with the contrasts in our personality with a seven-hour time difference, it was one hell of a crazy LDR. Thanks to technology, but it wasn't enough to make up for the physical absence. Facetime or viber cannot detect the real mood or environment we were in so there were plenty of times when I would burst into outrage and he had no idea why, and then later on he would find himself profusely apologizing for something he did not understand. I was just PMS-ing lang pala. Hahaha! Thank God, he was/is very patient with me. Oh well, he now has a broad understanding of women and he had my mood swings to thank for. Haha!

3.) Pressure from attending to social obligations

      I was never a social butterfly as opposed to my own mother. Being labeled as "the physician daughter of *insert my mother's name here*" and immensely after I got married, I forced myself to pretend to be the social butterfly that I am expected to be and forced my brain to memorize family genealogy. It is quite difficult to be in the Meranao society, I tell you. You are forced to be who you are NOT because of  certain expectations coming from certain labels, and if you fail to live to that expectation then expect murmurs about you behind your back. Guess I will have to live with those murmurs and just shrug my shoulders as I live my life because honestly, I cannot live to pretend. 

4.) Pressure from the masteral classes

       The biggest perk (the ONLY perk actually) of being in the Doctors to the Barrios Program is being enrolled for free in a masteral classes in the prestigious Development Academy of the Philippines. The classes, which we call the Continuing Medical Education or CME, are conducted every six months for two whole weeks in the DAP Convention Center in Tagaytay City. CMEs are always being looked forward to as a breather and a refresher, it is what every DTTB loves. Upon returning to area, we were bombarded with assignments and action plan and projects (APPs) that needed beating a deadline. With the fluctuating internet connection in our place and with the impending works in the rural health unit, it was hard juggling my role as a student, head of unit and subordinate all at the same time. 

5.) The chaotic world

        Everywhere I looked at was chaotic--the core of the society I live in, my country, the whole world is in the verge of war. Natural catastrophes ground us to rubble because of man's own doings. My eyes opened up to the real world and how miserable it is. Negativity started to sunk into my being, it was eating me from within and my whole perspective about this world started to change. I was letting the happy girl in me slip into a hopeless being. Everything, including my own room, was in chaos.


It never occurred to me that the transition from my extended adolescence to adulthood would be a formidable one. I realized that I actually underwent a life-changing phase when I already emerged out of it. Haha! Yeah, it was quite late but I'm just glad that I managed to get through everything unscathed. I am grateful I'm surrounded by the positively-energized people who peppered me with relevant advice and it also helped that I read self-help books. I read all the three books of Rhonda Byrne: The Secret, The Power and The Magic, I read the entire Qur'an (the English translation) for the first time and tried to understand it by consulting some verses with my father who has better understanding of the Holy Book and of Islam and I listened to lectures of Islamic scholars particularly Mufti Menk and Yasmin Mogahed. Perhaps when you're conscious that something is going wrong in your life, it is a reflex that you try to bind yourself together by looking within you the purpose of your very existence. I clung to my faith and by counting my blessings, all the chaos and negativities hovering above me gradually disappeared. The greatest thing that happened to me while I was in crisis was accepting that what is happening in our lives is way beyond our control, that we can only do so much, and recognizing the power of The One Above who is The Best Planner, The Most Gracious and The Most Merciful. I believe I understood more things now about my faith than I do before, and there are still a good measure that I am yet to learn and understand.

I am grateful to three people who got my back while I was in crisis, the three people who made me see how blessed I am and who returned my positive outlook in life, they are the ones who I constantly talk to about my problems, who had awkwardly seen me crying, and despite my tantrums and everything, they still loved me unconditionally: my father, my husband and my brother J. I love you three!! 

The Complainant

This is perhaps normal for people who extended their adolescent stage and woke up one day, forced to act like an adult, and thrown into the world of the unknown. It wasn't normal for me to complain for the things happening in my everyday life, I grew up to accept all the tiny bits thrown my way. And then all of a sudden, boom! the opacity of life disappeared and I got to see through it and saw the crippled form in everything. Here are the list of things I complain about almost EVERY SINGLE DAY.

1. My brothers' messy stuff thrown all over the house.

I hate it when upon arriving at home, they'd leave their bags at the sala, used (and smelly) socks on the floor, and leaving their shoes wherever they feel like taking it off. Why the hell can't they just bring their stuff inside their rooms because I seriously do not care if their rooms looks like a storm had came to pass. Just please spare the sala. 

2. The unruly pedicab drivers in Marawi City.

Oh, Marawi City. I love my homeland, no doubt, that's why I struggled and did my best to get pulled out from Maguindanao and transfer my area of assignment here in Lanao del Sur to be able to enjoy the cool weather and the company of my family. BUT, everyday I am bombarded with unpleasant sights and experiences making Marawi a loathsome place to live in. For one, the unruly, choosy and abusive pedicab drivers. Our main means of public transpo here are pedicabs and jeepneys. They know nothing of road rules and etiquette. Oh, almost everybody here including jeepney drivers and even owners of private cars. Pedicabs are like parasites that infested the entire city (the cityhood of this place must be revoked) and even creeping into my beloved MSU. There are NO traffic lights and NO policemen to regulate the flow of the traffic. Sometimes, you can see policemen standing under the shade, watching the cars go by or try to regulate the traffic by waving their uncoordinated hands causing more knotting of the traffic. 

3. No proper disposal and collecting of garbage in Marawi City.

 Wherever you go, it is impossible not to notice mountain of stinky garbage and even spewed on the roads catching attention. I sometimes wonder where are the people that we have voted for public office. Where are those who promised to give their public service? Why are they not doing something about this? And why are the people so irresponsible to be just throwing their wastes wherever they want to? No shame, at all?  

In my own home, my father taught us since we were kids to separate our trash into biodegradable and non-biodegradable (true!!!). The biodegradables are thrown into a pit at our backyard and the non-bios are either recycled, burnt or sold to junk buyer passerbys.  

Our beloved public servants, how do you feel when you go out of your house and greeted by the stench of trash at the corner of your street? Do you just look and drive past it? No concern at all? 

4.  About my job as a Doctor to the Barrio in ARMM. 

I can probably write a whole novel about my job but let me start on how the DOH central office made us contractuals instead of having plantilla items which was enjoyed by senior DTTBs. Being on a contractual status bereft us of the benefits that we deserve including hazard pay in which we are fully entitled of. Our workload has no difference with that of our seniors, the only difference is that we are being treated unjustly by the agency which is supposed to take care of us considering that we are being fed to the lions in the geographically isolated areas in the country. 

Being a DTTB is worse due to the mandatory political ties in implementation of  the health programs but it is worst in ARMM. I am sorry to say this and to frustrate each and everyone who, like me, was very hopeful in trying to initiate change in the community. It appeared to me how powerful politics is, not just in the political arena per se, but in public agencies as well. Life in the Philippines revolves around dirty politics but worst in ARMM.

Almost a year later, being a doctor to the barrio is far from the fulfilling job I expect it to be. I was pulled out from my area in Maguindanao due to the erratic peace and order situation (political war) and I was subtly ousted by the local chief executive himself (aka Mayor) after defending my staff on our absence at the RHU during the heat of the midterm election period where firefight encounters occur almost everyday. Truth be told, nobody wants to risk his life for a nonsense reason (read: political greed). That untoward incident deserves a whole entry. Nevertheless, I got transferred to Lanao del Sur (Alhamdulillah!) in the comfort of home and of my family. I am still waiting for my next deployment. 

One year left for DTTB and I can plan my life again with my love. :)

               

Doctor-ing to the Barrios

Two years after being a First Gentleman Foundation Inc. (FGFI) scholar under the Doktor Para Sa Bayan Program and eventually earning our license as physicians, it's payback time. As beneficiaries to the scholarship, we are supposed to render service as community doctors through the Doctors To The Barrios (DTTB) Program of the Department of Health. Together with the Pinoy MD Scholars, we were deployed in the doctorless municipalities all over the country, from Batanes down to Tawi-Tawi, to fill in the lack of health specialists in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDA). Entering the program is like hitting THREE birds with one stone. For one, I need not confuse myself after boards if I have to directly go on to residency or do some moonliting jobs. I already have a job at hand waiting for me with a relatively good compensation. Second, alongside with being a DTTB is a Master's Degree program at the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP). Our Master in Public Management Major in Health Systems and Development (MPM-HSD) aims to prepare and mold us into the role of a health leader that we are in our community. Our classes at DAP occurs every six months for two straight weeks until the end of the DTTB program when we are expected to have an Action Plan and Project (APP) in lieu of the thesis required for a masteral degree in other institutions. Third, during the whole deployment time, I get to hold my own schedule leaving me a lot of time to spend at home, to be with my family and friends, and do the things I love. Had I went on to residency, I don't think I will consider getting married yet due to the incredibly tight schedule demanded by the training program. DTTB time is more like me-time for two whole years before proceeding to another phase of my career which is the residency training. 

October 2012. First CME (Continuing Medical Education) at DAP before deployment. A photo of the Habagats (DTTB Batch 30. Us.) with Former DOH Secretary Dr. Alberto Romualdez and the academic officials of DAP. 

With DOH Secretary Dr. Enrique Ona visiting the new members of his workforce. Driven by our ambitions, we were still full of idealism and vigor. We were so excited to be in the field, to impact changes, to educate, inspire and motivate people. We were yet to experience what is really happening down in the field. 

After several deliberations with a huge twist of fate, I was assigned to the far-flung municipality of Talitay, Maguindanao.  It seemed to me like I got into an another dimension with people who share the same religion but with a different culture and language. Everything turned out to be what I wasn't expecting. Being a DTTB in ARMM with a non-devolved health system is far from what was being taught to us at DAP. I cannot find a single hole to fit in what I had studied in the master's class.

With my PHN, Ma'am Rizza who accompanied me to Hon. Mayor Sabal's residence during the signing of my Memorandum of Agreement with the LGU. Yes, ako pa ang naglakad ng MOA ko. Something that should have been done and prepared for us by the DOH-ARMM or the IPHO at least. Well, this is how we roll here in ARMM. And yes, if you have something to lobby for to the local chief executive, don't go to the municipal hall. He's not there. He's at the comfort of his home. 

January 7, 2013. First day at work. What I have highly appreciated being a DTTB though is the staff. They are a whole bunch of dedicated workers who, despite the meager salary and being taken for granted by the local government, they still do justice to their work. The RHU-Talitay now has one doctor, one public health nurse, three regular midwives, one RN Heals, two RHMPP and another two MECA (Midwife in Every Community in ARMM). We have also have Barangay Health Workers (BHWs) who work voluntarily without any allowance from the LGU. 

Talitay is a 6th class municipality consisting of 9 barangays with a population of approximately 12,000. The main source of livelihood is farming and fishing. Poverty, similar to other ARMM municipalities, is a normal thing here. As far as I am concerned, I don't see how the local government or even the regional government is helping the people improve their livelihood. Parang kinalimutan na sila ng mundo. Seriously. 

Houses are made of light-weight materials. You don't see a decent house here. Bahay lang ni mayor. I don't think this only happens in Talitay. I've been to several municipalities in ARMM and I have seen and observed the same thing. 

This is our RHU, this is where I work. Most days of the week I only stay here. I don't do frequent barangay visits due to the unstable peace and order in the area. My staff are always on the look out for my safety. FYI, this was a former rebel den (I guess they still exist here) so a gunshot or two isn't surprising at all. Or even seeing a half-naked man with a rifle gun hanging on his shoulder. 

In spite of being geographically isolated, we have a decent Rural Health Unit with a room for the MHO. That's me. :)

This is what we traverse everyday----unconcreted, bumpy and muddy road to Talitay. Um, I wonder where do the IRA goes? Isn't this a major project supposedly?

After six months of being here, I feel like I have been drained despite having done none at all except seeing patients at the RHU everyday. It's difficult to implement health programs in an area with an erratic peace and order, highly politicized, unsupportive local government and with people who are passive and contented merely by selling their coconut produce for a few cents. These are people who are being chased down by midwives and nurses to get their children vaccinated or to have their sick family members be seen by a doctor at the RHU. With mental passiveness comes poor-health seeking behavior. That is difficult to address but as health workers, we keep on giving them health education in our hope that maybe someday, their attitude towards their health will change. 

After six months, I honestly have the urge to give up. I would either proceed to residency or fly to Nigeria to be with my husband. I seriously do not know yet. My life is at suspension at this very moment. Plus, there is a high probability that I will get transferred in Lanao del Sur (yay for that!! close to home!!) so I will be back to square one. 

And oh, I missed the hospital. I missed having real patients. I don't wanna deal with politics or with politicians anymore. Le sigh. This isn't supposedly how I should end an entry on my supposedly noble work. But honestly, I cannot feel any nobility in what I do. I feel so strangled and limited in my work by a lot of factors that all the idealism in me vanished in a span of six months. I lost hope for the health system in the same manner as I lost hope for the country. Everytime I hear politicans speak, I hear all lies. I don't think I can stay here for long, I am only waiting for the passing of time so I can live the life of a real doctor saving lives and be a wife.