The truth about the Run

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi 

We were taken aback by the temerity of the organizers to explain through the Baguio Midland Courier last Sunday their failure to give a share to the would-be beneficiaries of their "Kalayaan Run" last June 9 which they proudly advertised to be "for the benefit of the Baguio General Hospital Dialysis Center".

The news item said: "In a dialogue between the beneficiaries and the organizers last month, the latter said that even if they want to give more, the cannot for they incurred more expenses and had to shell out from their personal funds to cover the deficit."

Surprisingly, if not understandably, the news item did not reflect among the expenses the amount of P31,800 the organizers paid themselves as ' salaries and P16,000 for "talent fees".

We saw these figures in the organizers’ report which they reluctantly provided us, saying it was “confidential” during a meeting with City Mayor Mauricio Domogan.

That the organizers had to be paid they did not tell us beforehand, betraying their advertised intention of easing our suffering and plight of undergoing dialysis for a lifetime.

In the dialogue, Mayor Domogan, had to remind "Kalayaan" representatives   Bong Reyes, Eric Coronacion and Omeng Fallarme that it was their duty to give us the financial report..

While “staff salary”, talent fee, operational expenses, transport, etc. were included in their report, not a single centavo was allotted for the announced over-all purpose that the event was for our benefit. This was the first time we experienced organizers of “humanitarian" projects allocating amounts to themselves and none for the beneficiaries.

"Instead the organizers said they had already given P100,000 worth of dialyzers,"  the news report said.

Actually, as confirmed by nurses of the dialysis center, the 38 dialyzers given were of the single-use kind. We, BGHMC patients, use dialyzers worth P1,350 each, good for seven treatment sessions.

To be of use in the fund drive they thought was kindly for them, the dialysis patients, together with their doctors, nurses and aides canceled their treatment that day. They registered for the run, bought t-shirts and helped run the event.

As we go to  press, we learned of a double, whammy. A city hall worker, upon learning of the event, solicited funds for “Kalayaan” but failed to remit the same to the organizers.

We hope the city can rein in on similar would-be humanitarian projects and keep alive the sense of fair play that Baguio boys and girls are known for.

 Respectfully yours,

 Dialysis patients, watchers, doctors, and nurses of BGHMC Dialysis Center