The Power to Choose

photo found via google. i don't know who took it, sorry!

I am a Christian. I have been raised and educated as a devout Catholic and am fairly active in my church. But I am also a doctor, and this is one issue where my personal beliefs and dogma and I do not see eye to eye.

And I agree that it's past time that a Reproductive Health Bill in the Philippines was passed - and executed.

It's a delayed reaction to a fairly dated issue, but I felt so strongly about the topic that I couldn't resist.

I am pro-choice but I do not believe in induced abortions. This is something that I, as a doctor, would never do for any patient. But what I don't understand is the mass hysteria being drummed up by about the issue of artificial means of contraception.

Just reading the statistics alone is already quite convincing. The Philippines is among #15 in Asia with the highest maternal mortality rates - the top causes of which are hemorrhage and abortion, of which a significant number are induced. Many of these deaths are preventable - by adequate nutrition, proper spacing between pregnancies, and, yes, even limiting family size.

How is teaching the largely ignorant populace about responsible parenthood and providing them with means to practice it an affront to the dignity of life? How does seeing the logic behind a smaller family size and wanting to prevent unplanned pregnancies make those of us who are for this bill akin to murderers?

There are those who feel that sex education, education about artificial contraceptive methods, and providing free access to artificial contraceptives somehow encourages a culture of promiscuity. Frankly, I think this argument is flawed on several levels, not the least of which is that it seriously undermines the people that they are seeking to protect. Besides this, the reality is that, despite our largely conservative-leaning society, increasing sexual activity among the young and unmarried is actually quite prevalent and has been for some time. Turning a blind eye to this reality and sticking our head in the sand will not make it go away.

I think, that for me as a doctor, the most convincing argument for family planning, responsible parenthood, and sex education was working in the OB Admitting Section every three days for several weeks as a medical student, then as an intern.

The concept of a woman having more than 3 kids for me simply boggles the mind, but there I saw countless grand multiparas (women who have given birth more than 5 times) reaching their status before the age of 30, already on baby number 6 or 7. I'd had to assist at emergency hysterectomies for these women with overused uteruses that refused to contract after delivery, causing them to bleed and bleed and threatening to leave their many children motherless.

On the other end of the spectrum were the young primis - the youngest in my experience was 14, just in her first year of high school, who never had a single pre-natal consult prior to delivery. I can't imagine what kind of parenting these young girls can offer their babies, not when they were hardly out of childhood themselves and were now forced to grow up much too soon.

And then there were the women who came in for induced abortions that were not completed, septic, bleeding, and often on the brink of death. It was both fascinating and appalling how creative and innovative some of these very desperate women would be in trying to terminate their unwanted pregnancies, turning to methods ranging from the sedate to the bizarre. Some are lucky enough to make it through. Some are not.

Do I believe passing the Reproductive Health Act will change the stories of the women who I've talked about above? Maybe, maybe not. But let's not lose sight of the fact that in the end, no one but the couples themselves can dictate what they do in their bedroom, in their sex life, and in their family lives. No one can argue with that. Isn't it then only right that they are given the chance to make informed choices?

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God Bless the Children

Today, May 15, 2008, Bloggers Unite in a project that aims to harness the power of the blogosphere "to help elevate human rights by drawing attention to the challenges and successes of human rights issues." Take up the challenge. Blog about it.

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"The child shall not be admitted to employment before an appropriate minimum age; he shall in no case be caused or permitted to engage in any occupation or employment which would prejudice his health or education, or interfere with his physical, mental or moral development."

- Principle 9, Declaration of the Rights of a Child

To all Manila citizens, they are a ubiquitous sight - knocking on windows, peddling their wares. Rain or shine, night or day, they dart among cars stalled in traffic, knocking on windows with winsome smiles and wistful eyes. We have become so used to seeing them that we take for granted that, by virtue of who they are, they should not even be there at all.

photo by six foot small

Several years ago, as a college student researching for an article for the school paper, I had a glimpse of what some of these children's lives were like. My two interviewees were both flower vendors, both below twelve years old and small for their age.

Their typical day would consist of going to school early in the mornings until noon. Once home from school, they would help their mother and the other women of their community prepare the strings of sampaguita they were to sell in the evenings. After dinner, the girls would walk down the length of East Avenue to Quezon Avenue, most of the time staying out until past midnight until all their flowers had been sold.

As heartbreaking as their story was to me even then, I realize now that these two little girls were among the lucky ones.

Street children continue to be a major problem in the Philippines. Whether they are children working to augment their meager family incomes or children who have been abandoned and survive only through their own wiles, their numbers continue to swell to the hundreds of thousands around the country and are growing every day.

Instead of being accorded with protection and nurturing that is their right, in their young age they confront the harsh realities of the urban jungle. Undernourished, exposed to possible physical and sexual abuse, violence, and substance abuse, with no opportunities for education, and no moral guidance apart from the law of the streets, these children live on the edge of a very high precipice - over which many of them inevitably fall.

Innocence should be but an empty word to these children made to grow old before their time. Yet their resilience wins over the meanness that they encounter on the streets, and the joy and ebullience of childhood sometimes shines through. They are not beyond redemption.

Fortunately there are many organizations and kindhearted individuals who take up the cause of these lost children. Some provide shelters for the homeless, where volunteers take care of nourishing these children physically, mentally, and spiritually. These people help the kids reclaim their lost childhood and give them hope for a better life off the streets. However, despite these small victories, the enormity of the problem remains.

The challenge is for us to learn to see these children in a different light - and to shake off our matter-of-fact acceptance of their existence. The challenge is for us to realize that these children deserve to have a real childhood, the same kind of childhood we were blessed with. The challenge is to realize that our responsibility to uphold and defend the rights of each child extends to these desperate children of the streets, who have nowhere else to turn.

They are, after all, children, too.

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Among those already doing the work (and whom we can volunteer with):
Childhope Asia Philippines
He Cares Foundation
Child Protection in the Philippines

For more eye opening fare on Child Labor in the Philippines, try to find a copy of the heart-rending documentary "Minsan Lang Sila Bata" ("Children only once").

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Disturbing Behavior

photo still from Grey's Anatomy

Having been figuratively removed from the world for the past few days, I almost completely missed the explosion of the Vicente Sotto Medical Memorial Center Video Scandal into the Philippine media firmament. Now, because of some unthinking, insensitive, and generally stupid health care workers' behavior, the medical profession is once more being given the spotlight - and not in a good way.

My resident batchmates and I discussed this issue over dinner last Saturday. Having been trained in charity teaching hospitals, we are not unfamiliar with being surrounded with so many young student spectators, whether nurses or medical students, while in the heat of an urgent medical procedure - like an urgent intubation or even an on-going resuscitation.

Despite this understanding and experience, my batchmates and I were all hard put to justify the behavior of the nurses and doctors who are involved in the above case. While at the time, I had not yet seen the video, the mere narrative of what had transpired disturbed me. More so after I had.

As a medical resident, I have often taught my medical clerks and interns bedside with the patients themselves. Patients with textbook clinical findings are asked if it is okay for them to be made clinical learning material for medical students during consultant rounds. While their personal information is never divulged, some of these patients' clinical history and course are discussed lengthiliy over medical conferences in order for medical trainees to gain insight on managing similar cases in the future.

The nature of medical education hinges on the principle "see one, do one, and teach one." Unfortunately, there is much we cannot learn by mere lectures and working with dummies - and even more that we must learn with practice. When patients have themselves admitted in a charity hospital, they tacitly agree to becoming "learning material" for medical students and nurses in exchange for not paying fees charged by private hospitals which they cannot afford. If circumstances were different, I am sure the patients would never have chosen to be admitted to a charity institution in the first place, but circumstances simply force them to take the lesser evil of being taken cared of by medical trainees like myself than not being treated at all.

To be fair, I did not see anything technically wrong with the way the procedure was done. I have read blog reactions to this video, and some have commented about the way someone was shouting instructions while the patient was being operated on. This is standard practice in surgery, where the primary surgeon tells his first and second assists to maneuver instruments in such a way that he can perform the procedure with optimal light and exposure. He also needs to do this to inform the scrub nurse which instruments he will need next. In every operation, there is also a "circulating nurse," who does not "scrub in" so that he can retrieve things that are needed outside the operating field so that the team that is already "sterile" remains so.

Also, it is not uncommon for interesting surgical cases to be documented by video or still photos for future teaching purposes, although a patient's consent is always secured before this is done. It is also not uncommon for such cases to be observed by young trainees. Those of you who watch Grey's Anatomy are familiar with the viewing deck for the interns that overlooks the operating theatre where surgeries take place. Unfortunately, in the Philippines, we do not have the luxury of a similar viewing deck. So while the number of people in the OR is often regulated, students are allowed to observe some surgeries at ground level.

The above could explain why there were so many people in the OR that day and why perhaps an "official" video was being made. However, this does not justify the way that even the student observers were taking out their phone cameras and taking pictures of the patient, who was in no state to prevent them from doing so. That a copy of such a video was uploaded on a public server and could be accessed by anyone from anywhere in the world smacks of insensitivity and disrepect beyond the bounds of professional ethics. It completely disrespects the social mores by which we live.

The primary surgeon also shares some fault here, because as "captain of the ship" it was within his power to control the number of people in the OR that day. Instead, for whatever reason, he allowed it to be a spectacle for whoever "usiosero" wanted to come in and watch and tape. The mood of anticipation and underlying amusement was palpable and translated through the camera quite clearly.

The video is no longer on YouTube, but the damage has been done and is not easily repaired.

Again to be fair, laughter is - fortunately or unfortunately, depending on one's perspective - a common form of stress release for those of us in the medical profession. Humor is one valve which we must use from time to time to cope with the enormity of the responsibility we carry from day to day. The "baby out!" expression and the cheering could have been an expression of relief that the operation - by no means as simple or as easy as it looks - was a success, without any untoward events. But these expressions take on a new and less innocent meaning when one of the medical personel takes the canister, faces it to one of the cameras, and sprays it for no good reason. To me, it crosses the line between benign amusement into mockery.

This patient, regardless of the absurdity of his dilemma, certainly deserves much better than he was dealt. He may have been divested of his medical ailment, but the mockery and the humiliation that this incident has caused him has magnified his suffering several times over.

I am a doctor, and I am ashamed.

The public is, understandably, enraged that something like this can happen. Aside from feeling sorry for the violated patient (the fact that the video does not show his face at any point notwithstanding), it triggers that visceral fear in every mind with regards to becoming patients and the power doctors have over them. "What if I go into surgery and this happens to me? What if I get sick, and I have to expose myself - will they be laughing at me, too? Are they making me into a guinea pig?"

This incident has eroded into the already-precarious relationship between the doctor and the patient. Even if in their minds people do know that they cannot make a sweeping generalization that all nurses and doctors are like the ones who were seen in this clip, the gut fear will always be there now that there is solid proof that something like this could happen. It has tarnished once more the image of doctors in the country, at a time when we are being demonized as it is.

I just hope that the public will keep in mind that this incident is an exception rather than the rule. The good majority of medical professionals do not take their oath as lightly and continue to practice medicine to the best of their abilities to ensure their patients' well-being.

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Heroism Not Required

If more people were willing to tilt at windmills, our country would be a better place.

I'd like to believe that people have their hearts at the right place, they just don't think there's much they can do as one person. I, for one, am guilty of this.

We are an optimistic people. As Filipinos, it is inherent in us to hope, for a better country, for a brighter future. But, as a wise friend of mine recently said, that hope must broaden into responsibility. To realize our hopes, we must also learn to become responsible for making them happen.

Not all of us are cut out to be heroes. But this does not mean that there is nothing more we can do.

Nina, freelance writer, blogger, and Team RP officer, has some suggestions on what the less heroic among us can do to make a difference. (I'm reposting her blog post in almost its entirety here with her permission. I've edited a little for brevity, but you can read the entire post here.)

7 Ways to Help Save the Philippines While Sitting Down

Whether you're an office worker glued to your desk for most of the week, a Net junkie who loves blogs and social networking sites, an overseas Filipino looking to connect back to home, or simply someone with something to say, the power to set this country right is within your reach.

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In these times of social unrest, when media focus hops from one controversy and "crisis" to another, Filipinos everywhere are saying, "I don't want to condone these actions, but I don't know how I can help." They resign themselves to the fact that corruption exists everywhere, that their well-intentioned actions may not amount to anything, and that it's perhaps best to leave political action to the politicians. After all, they would reason out, politics is dirty business.

Maybe politics has become the dirty, bastardized creation that it is today precisely because we, the citizens, have let go of it. We left it up to the crooks, the unscrupulous, the malicious, and the ethically ignorant to take hold of it,thereby strangling us and taking the power away from the real state: the people. In a supposedly democratic government such as ours, we should be part of the political process and this doesn't end during elections.

We have the power to save the Philippines. And we can do it even while sitting down.

1. Be informed. The first step to conquering anything is to know what it is. Wherever you are in the world, stay in touch with the Philippines through online news sources. You can check out www.inquirer.net for comprehensive news articles, as well as podcasts and blog entries. Of course, a lot of us also read the Inquirer for its thought-provoking and often-controversial columnists. If you want meatier stuff, check out www.newsbreak.com.ph. This hard-hitting publication may have ended its print run, but its online presence shows that nothing will stop Marites Vitug and her staff from getting to the bottom of the news. If you want something with a dose of TV on it, log on to www.abs-cbnnews.com or www.gmanews.tv.

There are also some great non-news sites that offer bite-sized, thought-provoking content. My favorites include www.ted.com, our very own WhyNot? Forum (www.whynotforum.com), and ChangeThis (www.changethis.com).

2. Share your thoughts and ideas over the Web. Now is probably the best time in human history to be expressive and outspoken. The Internet has given us tremendous power, and we can harness it by broadcasting our thoughts and ideas over the Web - which is the most democratic space we have seen so far. If you want to develop your own "fan base" and position yourself as a thought leader, start a blog. (Just be a tad more productive than Brian Gorrell, please.) If you think blogging is too tiresome, post your comments to news article, features, blog entries, etc. People do pay attention to comments, so go ahead and make them.

3. Read other people's blogs. Tit for that: if you want people to listen to - er, read - what you have to say, return the favor. Technorati's Top 100 Filipino blogs include:
* Jessica Zafra's http://jessicarulestheuniverse.com/
* Manolo Quezon's The Daily Dose
* Inside PCIJ (www.pcij.org/blog)
* Jim Paredes' Writing on Air
* Butch Dalisay's Pinoy Penman
* Newsstand (www.newsstand.blogs.com)

Some other blogs that haven't quite made it to Technorati's list, but which I love anyway (aside from them being my friends' blogs) are Harvey Keh's and Benjie dela Pena's.

4. Participate in online discussions. Let's face it - whether you openly admit to it or not, you have political opinions, and would love to share them with others who would care enough to listen. Online discussions allow for a democratic sharing of ideas, encourage critical discernment on issues, and allow for an emergence of various viewpoints which are essential to critical decision-making. As a people, we need to listen to each other and consider each other's perspectives if we are to arrive at intelligent decisions and actions.

Now that 2010 is just around the corner, perhaps we should start discussing among ourselves what qualities we think are important for a true leader, and which of the public figures around us really do exhibit and live out these qualities.

5. Sign online petitions and campaigns. Online petitions and campaigns have the potential to wield great power over political and social action because they help educate people about issues and gauge public opinion. A successful signature campaign trains media's lenses on particular issues and forces public figures to make important decisions or stands on concerns that would otherwise be left in the back burner. It encourages discourse and debate, legislative action, and policy reforms.

For instance, we at Team RP have an ongoing signature campaign pushing for the Philippine Access to Information Law (PAIL). In our quest for truth, accountability, and reforms in Philippine government we saw that, while freedom to information is enshrined in our Constitution, there are no enabling laws that ensure this right. Whenever one goes to a government office to request for public information, the burden is left to the citizen to prove why he or she needs this information. It should be the other way around: government should offer access to public information, and the burden of proof should be on them if they do not make this information available. We are currently aiming for 10,000 signatures so that we can begin engaging media and incumbent legislators to file such a bill and enact such a law. Those who wish to support the campaign for PAIL may email team.rp.pail@gmail.com.

You can play an active role in strengthening Philippine policies by signing such petitions and campaigns. And it won't even take you two minutes.

6. Share information with your friends and online buddies. Don't you hate it when friends forward useless chain letters? I do, I really do, and I find it amazing that people actually believe that stuff like this works. I would rather forward information that people will find useful and relevant, such as news about new rules and policies that will affect their industries or their daily lives, information on breakthrough ideas or movements that will benefit a great number of people, new causes and organizations that people can support, or even trivia and tips that will make people think and, perhaps, help them make small but useful changes in their daily routine. Information is power, and it is something that we cannot take for granted. When you've got useful information, pass it on and spread the love.

7. Use the power of the Net to recruit members and solicit donations to worthy causes. There are so many great and worthy causes out there that need all kinds of support - from volunteer time, to material donations and in-kind support, to donations and financial support. Likewise, there are many of us who are looking for "something to do" or something to which we can contribute, but we just don't know where to look. We can do both cause-oriented groups and do-gooders a favor by patching them up online. It won't take much time or effort: simply forward messages about causes and movements to friends, family members, and online buddies, then let them build their "relationship" on their own. Who knows? Something great might come out of it someday and they'd have YOU to thank for it.

It really doesn't have to take so much of your time, energy, and resources to help save the Philippines. Each of us can realistically do only what is accessible and interesting to us, so take advantage of online resources to do as much good as you can with the least amount of effort. You'd be surprised at how the daily act of contributing and sharing information can make a big difference in a country that is still enveloped in ignorance and intellectual poverty. And you won't even have to get up from your chair.

I know that I, for one, am not made to tilt at windmills. But I do hope. I do care. And because I do, I choose to be responsible - even if it's only in my own little way. And that's the challenge to each of us.

"If each drop of water were to say, 'One drop does not make an ocean,' there would be no sea."


Collectively, our one drop can make a difference - no heroism required.

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You are all invited to the first ever Team RP General Assembly on April 26, 2008, 1 pm at the Club Filipino. Interested parties can read more about Team RP and the event over here. Website and on-line forum are still being developed and will be coming soon. Wake up, fellow sleepwakers!

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Confessions of a Sleepwalker

When my friend, Ei, invited me to attend a dinner meeting with her friends from Team RP, the first thing I asked her was, "What the heck am I going to do there?"

In this aspect of our personalities, Attorney E and I are polar opposites. What she has in idealism, I make up for in cynicism. Her passion for involvement in issues of national importance is equally matched by my shrug-it-off apathy. I was never the type to take strong stands on national issues.

Don't get me wrong, I do try to keep abreast of what's going on. I believe in trying to do my share - just not in this way. I may vent my frustrations from time to time about the country's downward spiral and dismal prospects, but most of the time, it feels like I am looking in on someone else's nightmare.

They just wanted ideas, she said. I was baffled - what kind of ideas would these quintessential idealists want from someone so far removed from all of these things? Despite my misgivings and having no clear idea what to expect, friendship and curiosity prevailed. After all, I was in between jobs and had nothing better to do. Besides, I needed to eat.

During pre-dinner coffee, Ei put me up to speed on what Team RP is and what they were working towards. I agreed with everything she was telling me, but it still didn't get what she needed me there for. It wasn't until she started talking about the need to tap the potential of the silent young professional demographic that I got my lightbulb moment.

Oh. She meant me. Me, and the rest of the "me's" in the Me Generation.

All of us "me's" have a lot of excuses, but stripped of all the details, they all sound the same.

"I'm too busy with my work and figuring out how to get my life really started."

"While I am confronted daily by the evidence that the system is in need of change, I don't see how I can do anything about it. I'm just a (insert your profession here). I'm not really in a position to anything. That's what all the activists are for. These things are beyond me. I can help in some other, less frustrating way."

"The one and only time I went into the streets to effect change - EDSA DOS - things just took a turn for the worse. What would make this time any different?"

"I know there's much to be changed, but sometimes that's just the way things are. People will always stay the same - it's hopeless, so why should I bother? I have better things to do with my time."

Despite my well-entrenched stand on apathy, before I fully realized what was going on, I found myself exchanging ideas about ways to wake up my "me generation" with Ei and her other very involved friends, over red curry and bagoong rice. And very slowly waking up to the possibility that there really could be something I can do to make change come sooner than later, no matter how small.

One cannot find answers to the questions "What real difference can I make? What can I do to bring about change?" if one never asks them. In a lot of ways I've been sleepwalking as a Filipino citizen most of my adult life - partly because I didn't know I could do more, but mostly because I never really tried to find out if there was anything more I could do.

I'm asking them now. The sleepwalker is finally waking up.

Just imagine what answers our "me generation" might come up with if we all woke from our jaded sleep together.


* * * *

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

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Moving Beyond Asking to Doing:

"Team RP is an organization of youth leaders and young professionals who working together for Truth, Accountability and Reform in our country. We are part of the Buong Bayan Isinisigaw Tama Na, Itama Na (BUSINA) Movement. We believe that complaining and lambasting our leaders is not enough but we should proactively work towards finding concrete ways to help solve our present problems.

As such, Team RP believes that issues should always take precedence over personalities thus, our programs and activities are always geared towards helping build our democratic institutions and furthering the development of every Filipino. If you want to know more about Team RP or join Team RP, please email us at team.rp.official@gmail.com"

Team RP Press Statement
A Petition for a Freedom of Access to Information Law
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New POEA Policy on Direct Hiring - How Will This Affect Us Doctors?

I posted this message on the Pinoy MD forum last night, in the hopes that more fellow doctors will be made aware of this new policy on Direct Hiring. I know that most of my contacts and most of those in my extended network are young doctors like myself, who are considering going overseas for training and employment opportunities.

As doctors, most of us who seek work abroad do not go through recruitment agencies but rather apply on our own and are hired directly by hospitals we are matched to (in the US) or are accepted into (in other countries). Since I see no provisos in the copy of the memorandum (you can get to read the full document over here) for doctors, this will definitely affect our own bids to leave the country through direct hiring. This will be particularly problematic for colleagues who have been given H1b visas to the US. The rest of us who are to be sponsored on temporary employment visa will be greatly affected as well.

How it will ultimately affect us (and our chances for being matched and hired by hospitals abroad), I don't know. But its effects will likely be detrimental rather than benificial given the recent economic slowdown and the fierce atmosphere of competition in the world at large. The POEA has just given foreign hospitals one more good reason not to hire Filipino.

Here is the content of my post on the Pinoy MD forum:

Hello, everyone! I hope people will not be angry with me for cross-posting this in the Health Issues Thread and the Career Opportunities thread, but I feel that our community should be made aware of this new policy. Surprisingly enough, it was a doctor friend of mine already working in Australia who picked this story up and posted it on his blog for the rest of us.

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/77354/Warning-aired-vs-new-hiring-policy-for-OFWs

This is very much a topic of concern for doctors because most of the jobs and training programs we secure from abroad are a result of "direct hiring." We do not go through any of the recruitment agencies when we are matched, or when we apply directly to hospitals abroad for RMO positions and the like. I have already been to the POEA site, and you can download the guidelines in PDF form from the home page.

Among the new changes in the policy is the requirement of USD 11,000 as bond for repatriation and the like for every employee that a company hires through direct hiring. Given the extremely competitive atmosphere in the global market, what company would choose to hire a Pinoy worker directly for that much extra cost when he can shell out a lot less to hire some equally qualified worked through a recruitment agency or from another country all together?

Admittedly, this is all allegedly being done in the guise of "protecting" OFWs from being preyed upon by opportunistic direct-hiring companies abroad.

However, given our government's track record, I can't help but question their motives. I can't help but wonder which recruitment agencies managed to lobby hard enough and shell out enough money to have this change implemented. All the more fishy is how a change in policy this significant has not even generated a buzz in the OFW community - is the POEA keeping this under wraps? How could something with huge repercussions for the hundreds of Filipino workers trying to find work abroad and do not want to go through a recruitment agency (that will only get a huge chunk of their cash and process their applications at the same rate or even slower) have been enacted without a peep of protest?

All this has accomplished is to greatly diminish a Filipino OFWs chance of being hired at all - thus forcing him to resort to paying these so-called "legitimate" and "registered" recruitment agencies to help them find a job. In the end, who really has benefited from this policy? Is it the really the Filipino workers? Or the opportunistic recruitment agencies that prey on their desperation? Frankly, the fact that our own countrymen are preying on their own is even more disgusting and difficult to stomach. We continue to become our own enemy.

I know that a good number of people who frequent this board are taking the MLEs and other foreign licensing exams or have been matched already. Since this policy change was implemented January 17, this will all affect you as well.

I really hope that some form of collective action can be initiated and done on this manner. At the very least, the POEA and the DOLE must explain the rationale for this move to the public. It should be our choice to make to stay here rather than to have to unlock shackles of our government's making in order to exercise our right to seek employment in the way we see fit and work abroad.

I hope we all do our part in letting your classmates and friends (especially those with plans to go to the US and have already spent so much of their hard-earned money in the process) know about this new development.

The sooner we can generate enough noise to publicize this and its implications on our future, perhaps it will also be the sooner the government will take action on it. Thank you very much!

As a post-script, I would like to share with you the post of another member of the Pinoy MD forum, which he posted in this thread.

I just happen (sic) to inquire from an Australian recruitment agency. Nakakalungkot but I don't know if this is true for us filipino doctors. I just want to share his reply to me.

Dear Doctor

Thank you for your application, opportunities in Australia have somewhat narrowed for Filipinos. Filipino's (sic) if any are accepted and it is unlikely that they will be are now subject to a 10 000 USD bond refunded on completion of a 2 year contract.

We recommend you try America

Thanks

Doctors Recruitment

Thank you very much, POEA and DOLE, for shutting down the few windows of opportunity our desperate people already have.

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Salt in the Wound

I promised myself I wouldn't post another entry until after my exams on Sunday, but after reading this article ("Estrada: God is punishing the country"), I just couldn't help myself.

Apparently, the ousted ex-President insists on being akin to a Bad Joke on our country that simply refuses to go away.


He not only insists he is innocent in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He now has the nerve to thumb his nose at the people whose courage and conviction took them to the streets in the revolution that threw him out of Malacanang. He is now saying that the Filipino people are getting their "just desserts" because they refused to keep him, a blatantly amoral president, in power any longer than they had to.

It is a testament to the man's maturity and wisdom - or, rather, his lack thereof - that he continues to rub salt in an already festering wound. How can this man continue to style himself as "para sa masa" (for the masses) if he can throw their suffering in their face with impunity as he sticks out his tongue at them and says, "Beh, buti nga sa inyo, kasalanan nyo yan" (serves all of you right, it's all your fault)?

At the expense of repeating myself, I can only shake my head as I say, "Only in the Philippines."
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Steal Big, Steal Little

These past few days have blurred into one another for their sameness as I continue my frantic cramming for the make or break exam coming at the end of the month. The only difference is which Starbucks branch I choose to park the heavy backpack I use to lug my two volumes of Harrison's around Manila.

This hectic schedule has, ironically, made my world even smaller than it was while I was still working at the hospital. I haven't been watching any TV, nor have I been listening to anything other than my iPod as a means to drown out the noise. Fortunately, thanks to my parents' and Starbucks' newspaper subscriptions, I have been able to keep updated about what's going on.

Not that there's been a lot of good news going around.

After all, the last thing we need at the start of a hopeful new year is to hear that a convicted plunderer is planning to run for president for 2010.

Are we going to once more prove that when it comes to matters of justice, Filipinos' memories are notoriously short?

This man trying to play the semantics game so that he can leap through a constitutional loophole right back into Malacanang is the same man who was convicted of blatantly stealing 3.2 billion pesos from public funds while sitting as president. This convicted felon served his time in relative luxury for a few years; his peers, the hundreds of other convicted thieves, who probably cannot even conceive how much 3.2 billion pesos actually is, languished in inhuman conditions in overcrowded prisons. After a few years of token punishment, this plunderer, who has never once shown even a microcosm of remorse for what he has done and whose crime should be punishable by death, is now strutting free after being pardoned by an equally larcenous incumbent desperate to save her own hide.

Now to top it off, he is now making noise about wanting to be president again after being forcibly pried from his seat a mere few years ago.

And I thought I couldn't get more incensed about the Erap pardon than I already was. This harebrained scheme, hatched by the "forgiven" man himself, truly takes the cake.

To put it bluntly: Ang kapal talaga ng mukha.

Apparently, in the Philippines, there is a difference between stealing big and stealing little. Here's the lesson: if you're going to steal, be smart enough not to get caught. But if you're sloppy and do get caught, stealing little will only land you in jail. Stealing big, on the other hand, gets you a mere slap on the wrist and a get out of jail card for free and leaves you with enough loot to get back into a position where you can steal even bigger.

Only in the Philippines.


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