It has happened; I have fallen in love with the Philippines. I know this to be true because at the CHD health sector picket to demand access to cheaper essential medicines outside the Department of Health I feel such a passionate anger that I have to pace around to burn off the energy. What I see painted on the walls of the DOH is in such stark contrast with the reality I witness in the community that I rename the DOH the ‘Department of Hoodwinking’.
Why hoodwink? The government propaganda is everywhere in Manila, convincing the middle class and the upper echelons of the working class that the government responds to the needs to the people and provides adequate health services. Check this out!
First I see a mural lauding the DOH clinics in the community. OK, I am confused. No community I have visited has had a clinic, but rather the odd Barangay health centre, which, when it exists, is far too often little more than a room with a very few supplies, occasionally staffed by an over-worked, under-paid midwife (cum doctor, cum nurse). Patients often have to walk very far for the few services, such as vaccinations, which are offered. Although in government propaganda TB medicines are provided for free for all infected, in reality even if there are TB meds, they are very expensive. Most do not complete the multi-drug formula for the necessary 6 months. What else can the Community Health Workers do but teach about preventing communication! In San Isidro, there is actually an ambulance, which looks terrific; in practice the fee is 1,500P paid in advance for the trip to the hospital! The average daily wage, when sugar work is available, is less than 100P per day, so that explains why the ambulance still looks so shiny and new – people can’t afford to use it!
Next I pass a beautiful mural lauding the provision of safe drinking water. It’s a joke, right? What community is that? Any place I have visited that has safe drinking water, it has been the People’s Organization, and NOT the government, which has ensured clean water to drink and bathe by piping water down from upland springs, or building enclosed cisterns over deep wells to prevent contamination from shallow ground water. Most rural communities I have visited have few toilets so people use the fields as their toilet and then use ground water or stream water to drink and to bathe. Given the incidence and death toll from diarrhea, the 3rd leading cause of death in children, this isn’t merely about good health, but a matter of basic survival.
Now, my personal favourite! The DOH Superman delivering iodized salt to the people. This really is a joke – the irony is sadly hilarious. I can’t even keep track of the number of women I have seen in the mountain provinces with goiter. Keep in mind, women of childbearing age, having many babies, with such a terrible risk to a diet inadequate in iodine; as the mural explains: still birth, cretinism, dwarfism, poor cognitive development to name a few. Women struggle to use iodized salt, as there is little incentive for sari-sari store owners to sell it as they make less profit from it.
Another beauty, the smiling kids with lovely white teeth, visiting the what? The dental clinic? I never saw one, personally, in my many months of travels to rural communities. I did, however, see countless children with poor dentition and many carries, in terrible need of dental care. I saw children who were refusing to eat due to pain from rotting teeth. It was heartbreaking. I can think of several great programs that would increase prevention and provide basic dental care at the community level – but alas, despite the lovely propaganda, the DOH does not really care for children’s dental health.
There were many lovely murals to describe, but in the interest of brevity, I will conclude with the mural lauding environmental protection. Can anyone say “PhilEx”? Let our coming testimonials on the impacts of multinational mining operations attest to the GMA position on ‘environmental protection’ in the Philippines.
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