Why Coordinate? (Post 1 of 3)

Last week, I had the amazing pleasure to attend a TEDx Talk. For those of you who don't know, TED aims to share ideas worth sharing and they do that by organizing talks. x stands for an independently organized TED event. Yesterday was my first, and hopefully not last time attending TEDxADMU and this year's theme is "Why Coordinate." The organizers provide us with a brief explanation behind the theme:

"This year's theme seeks to emphasize the value of remembering that we are together as people, that we share the very fundamental characteristic of being human, and that the value stretches on to the future where we continue to live in a society that looks out for each other and works together to create a vastly improving and dynamic home for everyone that is geared towards building the nation."

I have to say, the theme is really setting us up for a feels talk. This conference will be about our life, our different passions, and how no matter how different we may seem to be, we will always have that one commonality - we are all human - and that should be the core to any nation building activity. 

The speakers did not disappoint. 

I'd like to share some of the things I've learned from the different speakers yesterday. I'm cutting them up into sections because I'm not done with the last 4 talks and also because this would be a long and boring post if I d

1. If you want to make it big in the world, come as you are. - Jim Paredes

I think this is very powerful, and not just in the context of what our speaker, Jim Paredes, was pertaining to (Original Pilipino Music). It speaks of finding our voice, our identity as a people, and cultivating that so that the world will take notice.

We have been living in a society that idolizes the Western culture so much. We dress like them, eat like them, and talk like them, but we keep forgetting that we are not them. We aren't Westerners. I mean, look at the map guys. We are from the East, technically speaking. People now are trying to eradicate every single bit of Filipino in them to be seen as world-class citizens. But they are missing the point. If you take away everything Filipino, who will you be then? You will be devoid of any identity because you're not a Westerner but you don't want to be a Filipino. 

What perplexes me is that a lot of people from my generation don't even fully understand what being a Filipino means, yet they are so quick to shove it out the door. Do we know what the Filipino identity is? And don't you dare answer me with the textbook answers of the national animal (carabao), the national tree (narra), the national flower (sampaguita), the national fruit (mango), or even the national hero (Jose Rizal). That's not what I mean. Do you really think that a mango exeplifies who we are? Does a carabao perfectly capture everything that it means to be a Filipino? Who are we as a people? Do we know? Or did the lines get so blurry from the years of trying to erase our Filipino-ness (is that a word in English? In Filipino, it's pagka-Pilipino, pagkatao)? 

Sure, the reality may be that we don't know what our identity is anymore. The lines may be blurred, but we should see this as a challenge. We can still see the lines of the past. That will always be part of who we are. But  I can also see a blank space, a space where we can write our own story. We, as the youth, have the power to define the lines. Who is the Filipino for us? 

2. Hard work manufactures opportunities. - Paul Rivera

Paul Rivera entitled his talk, Go where you are not supposed to go. He talks about his life and how he went where he was not supposed to go. Paul was born to a 19 year-old single mother in Cavite. People like Paul aren't supposed to make it big, as he said. Paul and his family migrated to the States when he was a kid and they didn't have much. Paul attended Berkeley, got into Google, and then left his job to start Kalibrr. Kalibrr is an organization that tries to solve unemployment and underemployment by matching peoples' skills with the right jobs. If you take a look at where he came from, everything that happened in his life was not supposed to happen. That's just not how the story goes for people like him. 

He proved that wrong at every turn. He learned earlier in life that everything you wanted in life, you had to work for. You shouldn't wait around for opportunities to find you. You make these opportunities for yourself. I think that it is powerful advice, and he wasn't the first person to give that. Brandon Stanton, the man behind Humans of New York, said this, "There are so many people that use following your dream as an excuse not to work. But in reality, following your dreams, successfully, is nothing but work." Even older than him, Thomas Edison says, "Genius is 1% Inspiration and 99% Perspiration." It just really goes to show that elbow grease can get you places, even places you're not supposed to go. 

post 1 of 3 

Can DOH still DOH it? A journey through the life of Juan Flavier

“He was an honest man; a good man; a great man” – Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago

Only four months have passed since the country was rattled by the death of one of its greats. Senator Juan Martin Flavier was one of the prime health advocates of the country. He was the man behind the famous slogan, “Let’s DOH it!” as well as some of the most memorable programs for health (i.e. Doctor to the Barrios, Oplan Alis Disease, Yosi Kadiri, etc.) But this man wasn’t always high-rolling. 

He had his humble beginnings in the slums of Tondo, Manila where he was born on June 23, 1935. He spent most of his childhood in Baguio City where his father worked as a mechanic for the Balatoc Mining Company and his mother an ukay-ukay vendor. He finished his secondary education in Baguio City National High School. He worked to pay for his education until he finally acquired a degree in medicine from the University of the Philippines, Manila in 1960. (Wikipedia 2014)

After a year of teaching and practicing medicine, he made the decision to be a doctor to the rural barangays in Nueva Ecija and Cavite. He also joined the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM). This non-government organization makes it their mission “to enhance the capacity of rural communities in the planning, advocacy and implementation of sustainable development, through an integrated program of education, livelihood, health, habitat, environment, and self-governance.” (Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement 2009) At PRRM, members lived by the slogan, “Go to the people. Live among them. Learn from them.” Juan Flavier took this to heart and practiced it faithfully. He went to the barrios, and learned what he could from them. In one of his books titled Doctor to the Barrios, he recounts practical lessons learned from the town folk, his experience with introducing health reforms to them, and the challenges to being a doctor to the barrios. 

“Far from the city and without modern amenities, Iohnny was taught by the locals to use a banana trunk in the absence of ice packs to cool down a patient’s fever. He learned, along with other PRRM staff, that bamboo scalpels could be used to cut babies’ umbilical cords, but, to reduce the high incidence of neonatal tetanus, they convinced the albularyos (with whom they consulted to learn their health secrets) to sterilize them in boiling water. He and the men created an “ambulance” out of bamboo sleds pulled by a carabao.” (Torrevillas 2009)

With a deeper understanding of the community dynamics, he was able to use his medical background to spearhead community health projects, which eventually led to him becoming the chief of PRRM’s division on health, as well as acting president in 1967. In that same year, he was recognized by the Philippine Jaycees as one of the “Ten Outstanding Young Men” and by the UP Alumni Association as the “Most Distinguished Alumnus.” (Rappler 2014)

In 1969, he earned a Master’s in Public Health from John Hopkins University. Upon his return, he assumed the vice presidency in the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction, an organization similar to PRRM. He then succeeded Y.C. James Yen for the presidency of IIR in 1978. 

In 1992, President Fidel V. Ramos appointed him as the secretary of the Department of Health. His brief three-year stint in the department went by like a whirlwind of health reforms. He institutionalized the Doctors to the Barrios Program, where doctors are hired to serve in rural barangays for two years. This program aims to redistribute doctors in order to increase the physicians to patients in poor, underserved communities. Until today, DOH still hires an average of 300 doctors to the barrios every year. Participants of the program often feel that they realized a passion for service through this program and it urged them to continue practicing in the country even after their two-year term. 

Another popular program is the Olpan Alis Disease Program. The rationale for this program is the high child mortality rate from diseases such as measles, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, and polio. All of which can be easily prevented through immunizations. (Wikipilipinas 2010) This program promotes the multi-vaccine mass immunization of children aged 0-6 and mothers in all DOH centers. It has proven to be effective as child mortality has these diseases have decreased significantly, and the Philippines has already been declared by the World Health Organization as polio-free. (Interaksyon.com 2014) 

Yosi Kadiri, the DOH smoking education and cessation campaign, has been one of the more memorable programs launched by the department. It aims to spread awareness on the negative effects of smoking to our health. It particularly tried to target the youth aged 7 to 19 as the rates of smokers in this demographic are alarmingly high. They designed a mascot to be unappealing to the target demographic and they used different media to perpetuate the message. Some of these media include outdoor signs, commercial center signages, television commercials, radio broadcasts, newspaper articles, magazine features, school programs, comic books, and the like.

These are just some of the programs Juan Flavier launched in his time as the secretary of the Department of Health. Some of these programs are actually still alive today but that does not discount the fact that these programs came out two decades ago and there have barely been any programs on health as effective or as well-received as Juan Flavier’s. The question I posed earlier now becomes even more relevant. Can DOH still do it? With diseases emerging left and right, social determinants reaching new heights, and risk factors evolving at astounding rates, we need a strong health sector that will push.

Wake the Big Dog!

A man was troubled because a burglar kept stealing from his house every night.  Somehow, he could never catch the burglar. He was losing a lot of his valuable possessions, and one day he just got sick of it. 

He went to a pet store to get himself a big dog  to guard the house in his absence. He thought, I need to get a big, strong dog! Surely that will scare the burglar away. The following day, he found that he got stolen from again! How is that so when he already has a big dog guarding his house? Surely, a big, strong dog could have done the trick. What the owner didn't know was that the big dog was sleeping soundly through the night. The burglar just walked by undetected. 

So the man went back to the pet store and complained that the big dog was not doing its job. The pet store owner said, "I'll give you a small dog for free", and the man didn't understand how this would solve his problem, but the pet store owner just said "Wait. You'll see." 

The small dog was loud and energetic. It kept barking, and barking. The man thought, This better work, or else I am not putting up with any more dogs! That night, the small dog made a ruckus when the burglar came back. It barked and it barked until it woke the big dog up. With the big dog woken up, the barking grew louder, that eventually, the owner had to come down and check on them. Lo and behold, the two dogs caught the burglar together. The man delighted that the two dogs had done their job, and that the pet store owner was right all along. 

The moral of the story is this. The big dog is usually asleep and needs the help of the small dog to rile it up in order to solve the problem. The big dog is our government, and the small dog is us. The government needs millenials who are loud in order to be aware of the issues that need action.

There is much responsibility in this task of riling the sleeping government. It may tend to oversleep, and sometimes it just refuses to wake up, but that doesn't mean we give up on our government. We have to remember that only the government can effect change for everyone. We, as millenials, can help in that change. Be involved.

"There is so much that you can do in government. If we do not have good people in the government, just imagine what that government is going to be like. We will be stuck with people who cannot think big, who are incapable of change. We will never get the government we deserve." - Doc Dodo Banzon in UHC Summit 2: Leadership and Governance