BENCHWARMER

Faith is an action word (II )
RAMON S. DACAWI

BAGUIO CITY -- Freddie de Guzman is among Baguio-Cordillera boys who have made it to the American Dream. An architect in his 50s, Freddie made it in Canada, with sweat and toil, as many expatriates Filipinos did to insulate their loved ones from the pervasive poverty of the Third World.

Freddie has a loving wife and three lovely daughters who ask what he would like for a gift when his birthday, or Father’s Day, comes – including, perhaps, a wig for his receding hairline. He is secure in his career with a prestigious architectural firm. He can take it easy, now that he’s made it. Still, Freddie looks forward to overtime work.

Now and then he would burn the overseas lines, just to share the news of a new project coming - and to reconnect with where he grew up in. He sounds as if a new project is his first job, as if it’s the early 70s, when he left to chart out a future for his family.

Freddie left Baguio, yet never did. He still pines for the vanishing scent of pine, asks if the old watering holes are still here, only to be told Session Café is now Jollibee. Yet Sunshine Lunch at the side of Malcolm Square still offers “mami”. Its billboard, with the wavy “S” that Freddie had designed, is still there. Like us here, he worries about the changing Baguio landscape he couldn’t do anything about – except read it in the internet. Yet surfing the local news websites made him realize what he could do.

That’s why he’s hardly slowing down on work, to sustain a personal addiction that keeps him connected to Baguio - reach out to indigent patients he reads about. For six months - from April the other year - Freddie bankrolled the six chemo sessions of Linda (not her real name), a mother of nine and widow who underwent emergency surgery for breast cancer. Six chemo sessions x P8,000 cost Freddie P48,000. Linda survived the big C, a deliverance that pushed Freddie to work more. After Linda’s deliverance, he teamed up with an Ibaloi mother in Kentucky and fellow Baguio boy Irwin Ilustre in supporting jeepney driver Elmer Biogan’s losing battle against lymphoma.

Patients just kept on coming, and these and other Samaritans kept on delivering, in quiet personal lose-some, win-some crusades to help save and offer hope to people they hardly know from Adam. They felt loss when bone cancer took 10-year old Ericka Madriaga and leukemia ended nine-year old Simon Lardizabal’s wish to go back to school.

With Guy Aliping in New Zealand, they toasted the triumph against breast cancer of day care worker Rose Ann Cordova.. For months now, Freddie stays in the fight corner of three other patients – seven-year old leukemia victim John Brix de Guzman, psychiatry patient Nora (not her real name), and dialysis patient Filbert Almoza. Last March, he sent P12,300 with a note: “P12,000 for John Brix and Lardizabal kid’s chemo treatment and Nora’s medication and (her) kid’s (infant) formula. The rest for your coffee.”

Last May 5, he transmitted P19,227, “P3,000 for Filbert’s dialysis; P3,000 for Nora’s medication; P8,000 for crash victims; P5,000 for Genova Irish (Glo’s patient), rest for your coffee”. Two days later, he sent P4,000: “P3,000 for Filbert’s dialysis, P1000 standby fund for crash victims.” He was referring to victims in bus accident last April 11 wherein 12 died and others injured while they were on their way home for a cultural festival in Hungduan, Ifugao. Genova Irish is an Ifugao farmer’s two-year old daughter who was born with a hole in her heart. Photo-journalist Glo Tuazon featured her on baguiocity.com.

These Samaritans overseas have local counterparts, including one who keeps his or her identity unknown, now and then sending a messenger to the desk of Rizal Banking Corp. vice-president Rolyl de Guzman. Freddie himself requested anonymity, but relented when repeatedly asked to be named so other would-be benefactors who know him would be inspired to follow suit.

Rolly’s Samaritan recently sent in three batches a totaling P20,000. Of it, P4,000 helped the family of spinal column patient Pablo Langpawen pay his surgery; P1,500 went to farmer Jun Villegas’ medication for respiratory ailment; P,790 for the poster and coffee of Simit, a youth cultural troupe that passed the hat while performing at Session Rd. for 14-year old heart patient Roldan Cuyango-an of Lucnab; P4,836.26 for nine-year old leukemia patient Simon Lardizabal; P1,873.71 for kidney patient Filbert Almoza; and P6,000 for Nino Joshua Molintas, a heart patient who is also suffering from scoliosis, weak lungs and other complications.

From Germany, former world karate champion sent P20,000, also for Langpawen. Three years back, a woman domestic in Hongkong transmitted three times for Tofi Estepa, a kid now freed of pesky brain tumor. She called while Julian was on his way to Banaue, to deliver P70,000 to two families who lost two kids and their dwelling in a landslide.

A good-looking bank manager handed P4,000, which, together with Freddie’s support and $100 from nurse Jenelyn Paclayan-Balanza, was delivered for the bus accident victims. He followed through with P1,500 that supported provincial journalist Manny Fortuny in his treatment for kidney ailment.

Earlier, we reported on the support of another unknown donor and the concerts-for-a-cause of expat musicians in Northern California led by Joel Aliping and Conrad Marzan. Whiz kid Adi Maronilla, the seven-year old with an IQ of 144, is right: "Faith is an action word." So is award-winning editorial writer Mike Jacobs of the Grand Forks Herald of Northn Dakota: “We are not what we own” So is James 2:14-26 in the Bible. We become by what we share (e-mail:rdacawi@yahoo.com for comments).