Lepanto miner’s son reaches out to sick miner

By Ramon Dacawi 

MANKAYAN, Benguet -- A miner’s son who grew up as a bootblack and golf caddy here in Lepanto Mines last week reached out to where he spent his boyhood to prop up anew a miner whose family is beset with misfortune.

Now based in Germany as a leading instructor of the Japan Karate Association, Julian Chees last week sent P20,000, half of which was given to 36-year old miner Romeo Garcia who is facing medical and financial woes far beyond his capacity to handle.

The other half of the amount was given to the mother of 12-year old Evan Mike Bogsit who is undergoing expensive twice-a-week hemodialysis  for life due kidney failure.

“I grew up in Lepanto where I shined shoes and dragged golf club bags taller than me and can easily relate with this miner whose suffering is beyond they ordinary,” Chees said last week when he sent the support amount through foundation secretary Renate Doth and this writer.

Earlier, Chees, a former world champion in kata, the formal exercise of traditional karate, sent an initial P10,000 after learning of the series of tests besetting Garcia’s family.

Earlier this year, Garcia lost his wife Jane (nee Lamlamag) to kidney failure after she failed to undergo dialysis due to fund lack.

Jane was buried in her hometowm of Bauko, Mt. Province. She left behind seven-year old daughter Princess Arcia who is undergoing chemotherapy for leukemia (cancer of the blood) and four-year old daughter Cathy Sy who is stricken with epilepsy.

She left behind husband Romeo who, a few weeks after her death, was also diagnosed for end-stage renal failure and is now undergoing twice a week hemodialysis.

Dialysis patient Bogsit, on the other hand, is a vegetable farmer’s son whose father was forced to bring the family of five children to :a Trinidad, Benguet to be closer to where the kid is undergoing twice-a-week treatment.

People out there who want to take the queue from Julian may ring up Romeo through cellphone number 09101116578 and Evan through his sister’s number – 09102670269.