BENCHWARMER

Warming up for the yuletide
RAMON DACAWI

A call from Hong Kong about this time three years ago warmed me up for the yuletide. We were on the road, midway to Banaue, when my cheap cellphone rang, telling me I hadn’t lost it yet.

“Kindly include how you can be contacted when you rite something about patients like Tofi,” the woman aller said. She was almost complaining over the maze she took to get my number from colleagues in the Midland Courier where Tofi’s story appeared.

“I remitted P3,000 through which you can now withdraw from this bank for the kid,” she said. I’m also a mother can feel for Tofi’s parents.Don’t mention my name; I just want to help.”

So be it, I said, thinking that was it. Yet she called again, twice, to advice she had two more remittances. With people like her, Tofi Estepa, then four, finally got rid of a pesky tumor that kept on re-growing in his brain despite two surgeries.

We hit Banaue early afternoon. Then mayor Jerry Dalipog guided us to two families who had just lost two kids in a landslide that buried their common house along the road near the terraces viewpoint.

Just one look at the scene and a glassy eyed widow and her sister in mourning clothes and former world karate champion Julian Chees knew we came to the right place. He pulled out a wad and handed it – P70,000 in all – to the mothers of the two families – Irene Duyugen and her sister-in-law Juliet.

Irene’s family was staying with Juliet’s own in the latter’s house when the landslide struck. They were evicted from their own home when they couldn’t pay a loan they tried to start a woodcarving buy-and-sell business with.

When they saw footages of the typhoon devastation on television, martial arts students of Julian in southern Germany pooled about 1,000 euros for him to deliver to victims on his annual homecoming to Baguio and his native village of Maligcong in Bontoc, Mt. Province. The amount enabled Irene to reclaim her home and for her sister to figure out how to start rebuilding her own.

On the way to Maligcong from Banaue, the late Baguio newsman Willy Cacdac couldn’t wait to write the story for The Manila Times. Peewee Agustin, who had been onsimilar missions before, knew the mission made his yuletide.That was Christmas past.

Recently, general manager Gerry Verzosa of the Benguet Electric Cooperative was on the road when he heard over radio station DZWT an appeal for blood donation. He called up cooperative nurse Gertrude Tello, who rang up employees with type B blood. One shed 450 cc., enough for a lawyer needing transfusion, while two others were on standby should more be needed.

The other week, John Hay director Enrique Sobrepena learned the fund drive for three-year old heart patient Rheanne Derricke Briones was P20,000 short of the P200,000 set up by the barangay council of Scout Barrio. He wrote a check for P30,000 that overshot the goal for the kid’s surgery. It was reason enough for barangay chief Ramon Corpuz to toast with friends onhis 54th birthday the other Saturday.

Out there in Northern California, Baguio folksingers had just netted $2,800 in their concert for patients back here. Band coordinator Joel Aliping set aside $400 for Rheanne, while distributing the rest to others. Down south, in San Diego, couple Gabby and Josie Ruliva sent P5,000 for the girl.

Baguio boy Freddie de Guzman, now raising three daughters with his wife in Canada, was preparing to drive to his St. Louis University alumni reunion in Vegas when he heard of Rheanne’s plight.

He sent P16,000, the latest in a series of remittances for the needy he began last year. Irwin Ilustre, another Baguio expatriate, regularly monitors reports and then courses his support to the needy through his sister here.

Like Freddie, an Ibaloi woman raising her daughter in Kentucky, appears to be a stranger to donor fatigue. She regularly sends amounts which, she says, is her own way of celebrating her triumph over breast cancer.

Her most recent transmittal of $200 came just when Ericka Madriaga, a 10-year old stricken with osteosarcoma, was due for her fifth round of chemotherapy. And just when a man needed support for his recovery from a stroke, Connie Angeles of Kapwa Ko, Mahal Ko fame and her sister Cristy sent him a brand new wheelchair through SM Foundation.

Now, Julian is back here, a little earlier than in previous Christmases. He had to be after learning his mother Emilia just had a stroke, while his three-year old niece Mechede was nursing bruises on her face after a hit-and-run Elf Isuzu truck driver swiped her father Gideon’s motorcycle.

So he canceled several karate training engagements and rushed to the Frankfurt airport, but not before assuring that his students were ready to complete Rheanne’s fund should the target fall short.

Merry Christmas, dear Santa in karate uniform. Blessings, too, to the family of a Baguio lady who has been cleared of cancer. While on therapy, she was reaching out to other patients. For her family, the spirit of sharing has never been seasonal. (e-mail:rdacawi@yahoo.com for comments).