The continuing and massive exodus of Philippine nurses and doctors to other countries all over the world is now taking a heavy toll on the country’s already inadequate health-care system. If not addressed, health experts warn, the country’s health-care system could collapse.
By Carlos H. Conde
Published: Oct. 17, 2004
Bulatlat
The pediatric ward (left) and the labor room (right) of the Cruzado Community Hospital in Pikit, North Cotabato. Photos by Gene Boyd Lumawag
PIKIT, North Cotabato – For the past eight years, Mary Jane Maximo has been ministering to the people of this small town in North Cotabato, southern Philippines. As the head nurse at the only private hospital here, she has seen the violence and felt the pain that have visited this place, such as the extreme poverty made worse by the government’s war against Muslim insurgents in 2003 that devastated the town.
Before the year ends, Maximo, a 29-year-old mother of one child, will leave the Cruzado Community Hospital and head for Saudi Arabia, where she would earn five times more than she’s making now. She’s among the thousands of Filipino nurses – and doctors — who seek jobs abroad every year, leaving behind poorly manned hospitals and clinics across the Philippines.
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Posted on August 17, 2004, and filed under Bulatlat, Stories |
The Saug River Multi-purpose Project (SRMP), part of a P7-billion mega project funded by World Bank and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, aims to bring hydro-electric power to boost the Davao provinces’ agriculture, among others. But Dibawanons, who have opposed the project since 1996, fear a big catastrophe to their lives and land.
By CARLOS H. CONDE and DAISY C. GONZALES
Published: August 18, 2002Bulatlat.com
ASUNCION, Davao del Norte - Datu Dominador Tibog, 48, points to a mountain that is practically bare except for patches of what looked like gmelina trees. “Those are the lands of my people and they’ve all been taken away,” he says in Visayan. He is on a hill where his hut, which he shares with his wife and one child, is built by the slope, overlooking a small valley.
Tibog looks down at the trees and shrubs below, almost longingly. “We have lost so much of our lands,” he sighs. Tibog, the leader of the Dibabawon tribe living in several barangays in this hinterland town, is a frail-looking man with incredibly sunken cheeks. He looks vulnerable. More than that, he looks as though he’s seen it all.
In a lot of sense, he has. He tells of how his forefathers fought very hard to keep their lands. He recounts how, up to this day, they are still carrying on that struggle. He bewails that, just as his friends and relatives had experienced years ago, they are still caught in a conflict involving their land.
The Dibabawons in this part of the Davao provinces are claiming thousands of hectares as ancestral domain. Much of this land had been turned into plantations for such products as trees, coconuts and bananas for big local and foreign companies.
Today, a foreign-financed government project called the Saug River Multi-purpose Project (SRMP) is threatening to encroach into Dibabawon land, including those owned by Tibog’s family.
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Posted on August 18, 2002, and filed under Bulatlat, Stories |
