BENCHWARMER

Ramon S. Dacawi
Humanitarian golds

Just hours before China unfolded its pageantry and fireworks display in Beijing, Edgar Dacanay, a 36-year old barber, was fidgety. Edlyn Joy, his two-year old daughter, was an unsure starter for her next crucial bout. The kid is in a personal combat event of sorts she’s too young to comprehend and wage and her family simply can’t afford.

Edgar couldn’t watch seeded Filipino boxer Harry Tanamor’s debacle Tuesday night in the hands of Ghanaian light-flyweight Manyo Plange. He had to be at the corner of her kid. He learned of Tanamor’s fate only the following morning, when he and his wife Merlinda were on their way to bring home Edlyn Joy. The kid had just pulled through her fourth bout and will rest for her next fight.

Each victory of the kid – and kids all over - is worth more than an Olympic medal. Her battle is protracted - against a dreaded Goliath who has no regard for disparities in age, weight and height, and too wily, deceptive and painfully brutal. Edgar and Melinda can only be relieved, thankful people came to cheer for their daughter and hope they will be around before the next round.

Edlyn Joy is battling cancer. The big C is at her tailbone, diagnosed as sacrococcygeal tumor. Doctors said it’s malignant. That’s why hours before the opening of the World Olympics, people who heard came to see her being admitted for her next chemotherapy session at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center.

Juliet, a public school teacher, handed Edgar P5,000. She said it came from her brother Irwin Ilustre. Earlier, a woman delivered P4,000 at the barbershop, saying it was from an anonymous donor. A mother and son added P1,000.

As Edlyn Joy was being wheeled into the chemo room, a man caught up with them. He handed
Edgar a wad, and reminding him of the power of prayer. When he has settled the kid on her bed for her six-day chemo confinement, Edgar remembered and counted the man’s support. He then called him up, saying it was too generous – P16,000.

The man said he understands how difficult the ordeal was for Edgar and his family. He said he knew because he, too, survived cancer survivor. That’s why he came, he said. . That’s also why when Edlyn Joy’s illness was diagnosed, her uncle Antonio, a farmer in Tubao, La Union sold his cow and had the small family land he was tilling tied to a loan.

With no land to farm, he came up to watch over the kid, so her father can cut hair at the United Barbershop behind the Tiongsan Bazaar. So her mother can go back to work and repay her wage loan as a salesgirl at the Maharlika Building.

So Edgar and Merlinda could attend a court hearing last Thursday morning before bringing her home to their rented house in Loakan Proper Barangay. The hearing was about what happened to John Emerson., Edlyn Joy’s elder brother, three years ago.

That was when John, then eight, and a classmate of his were walking to their second grade class when a passenger jeepney bumped him. He died two days after the accident in late January,
2005. Edgar said John, his second son, was able to push the other kid, saving him.

That’s why Edgar can’t give up on Edlyn Joy, whose other brother, Edmher, now 13, is in first year high school. That’s why members of members of the Chrysanthemum Lions Club came to her hospital bedside, handing colostomy bags so Edgar won’t worry about having to buy them for a while.
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I was reading an e-mail from Freddie de Guzman, a Baguio boy and architect who resettled in Canada, when he called up Tuesday morning. He called so I could assure three patients – or their relatives – to hang on as help is on the way. It arrived last Wednesday, the latest in a series of humanitarian remittances from Freddie that now spans over three years. It totaled P11,178. .

He said P5,000 was to be given to photo-journalist Gloria Tuazon for Genova Irish, a kid from Ifugao she’s trying to bring for heart surgery in Manila He advised P6,000 was to be distributed to seven-year old leukemia patient John Brix de Guzman, dialysis patient Filbert Almoza and Nora, a young mother afflicted with mental illness and can’t breastfeed her one-year old baby because of her medication. “Ket didiay sobra (P178) ket pangkapem a,” he added. “Kasla kurang ti aldaw ko no haan nak makaipaw-it uray no bassit ken dagita kailyan tayo nga agrigrigat.”

Reaching out to those in need can be addicting, and I’m worried for Freddie. He recently lost his job. While waiting for the proceedings of a labor case he filed, he now has more time reading news from home, including those about indigent patients. Skip those, as reading them has been dangerous to your wallet, I told him last year. To no avail, as he said he’ll be remitting help again soon.

An Ibaloi woman in the United States is also a stranger to donor fatigue. She survived cancer and has been sending support to patients here, also for three years now. “Pray, manong, that this will not be my last remittance,” she said last June, after her work visa expired.

Baguio and Benguet are only too lucky to have more Samaritans out there who continue to give hope to ordinary people striving for something far more precious than Olympic gold - life. (e-mail rdacawi@yahoo.com for comments.)