Patients, Medical Missions and Christenings.

The population of the Philippines has gone from less than 35 million in 1969 to over 103 million.  This year (2017) it will reach 104 million as the expected birth rate is expected to be 500,000.   The medical community is strained to the maximum.  Medical Missions are an important necessity and I was fortunate enough to participate in quite a few.   The people who suffer the most are the indigenous people, the poor and the unemployed.

It was, initially, difficult for me taking care of sick people.   I was used to socialized medicine in Scotland.   In the States I became used to a different system.  My insurance policy paid for over $100,000 when I had my last two surgeries in the States.  First class hospitals and first class surgeons.

It took me a little while to learn the Filipino way and to understand how difficult it was for both the San Marcelino Hospital and the Gordon Hospital to accommodate so many sick people.

In reflection, I was fortunate, they allowed a foreign woman to take care of the poor and they did their best to accommodate me.  I was well-known and so was my temper when I thought things were not being done in a First World way.  I met some great residents, surgeons and nurses whose hearts were for the people but with lack of funds there was not a lot they could do.  They had the  talents  I didn’t have but I had the attitude and the money.

There were many times that I was exhausted and then another patient would arrive to be taken to the hospital.  There was nothing to do but do what I felt was my Mission.

I found that if I repeated the Prayer of Jabez over and over in my head that suddenly I would have the energy and calmness to keep going.

The trip to the Gordon Hospital, often in the middle of the night with a sick patient and their frightened family members was arduous.

I was often on my own but when you firmly believe you are doing God’s work you are never really alone.

 

I have compiled a partial list of patients I took care of.  It is important to remember that in the Philippines there must always be a family member to stay with the patient.  I provided transportation, medicines, food and shelter.

2003

• Tricycle Driver with cancer of the face. CT scan in Manilla, bought the Chemotherapy for his treatment which was done in the Gordon Hospital in Olongapo.
• His wife started losing the baby, got medicines to prevent miscarriage, they named their baby Robert after my son.
• A lady called Hilda taken to Manila for hysterectomy.
• My Goddaughter Joy was severely scalded over her abdominal area, placed her in a private hospital.
• Met a boatman on way to Taal Volcano.  Got his son’s cleft lip and palette fixed at  Philippine Band of Mercy in Manila.
• Met another little boy and got his lip fixed at Philippine Band of Mercy.

  

2004

• Joseph Mariano came into my life – this is part of a story I wrote in 2004 and it explains how my life became entwined with Joseph.  Having lost a child myself it was important to me to save lives.

 

Joseph Mariano’s Story 

The journey from Manila to Bgy. Anigway Sacatihan can take 3 hours or it can take 7hours.  Fortunately the road had been improved tremendously in the last couple of years but the drive can still be rather frustrating and exhausting.  It was after one of these drives that I arrived at our little condo/clinic in the barangay (village) and before I could even have a cup of tea, we noticed that Amorsola, one of our Aeta friends and sister of my Komare Sharon Flores, was walking by the clinic.  Because the  Aeta are very shy people it is always required that you motion them in, rather strange to us but it is their culture.  Amorsola and her husband, Vice Chief Eddie “Abog” Atanacio had just come from the San Marcelino hospital where they had just taken a very ill boy.   I did not know the child but when I was told that he was very ill, we all jumped in the truck and drove the 10 km to the hospital.What I found when I got there was a child in distress, he appeared to have a high fever and was panting, both of his legs were bent upwards, he looked about 10 or 12, his mother, Maria and his sister  were with him but one has to remember that some of the Aeta are extremely shy and not used to lowlanders.

I will digress a little and tell you that this is a tertiary hospital and government run.  Very little funding and a lack of many of the things that we in America expect is a hospital.  Maria was distraught and surprised that a white woman had come to see her child.  It was obvious to me that the child was not only  very ill but starving. I asked the hospital staff if there was food but they informed me that the kitchen closed at 6 pm.  This was about 8.30pm and so I sent my driver and Rolly, my agriculturist,  to find food that could easily be eaten by a child who was so ill.  They returned with aroz caldo (a rice/chicken porridge) and ice cream.  I had asked for ice cream because all children will eat ice cream and it would at least get some cool calories into the child.I was told that the boy’s name was Joseph Mariano, remember that everything is having to be translated to me as my Tagalog is not very good.  We asked what had happened to the child and we were told that no one knew….he was just sick.  When the ice cream arrived I fed Joseph using the funny wooden spoon that always comes with ice cream, it slid down his throat and I remember him staring at me, it was weird.   Joseph continued to eat and after a while uttered something in another strange language, Joseph was speaking Aeta.  What this dear child was saying to me was that maybe his little sister would like some of the ice cream as well.  I could hardly believe my ears, a child so sick was thinking about his little sister and that she might also want some of the ’treat’.  I left the hospital that evening assured that all was being done for the boy, medicines had been given and I went back to our little clinic and was soon fast asleep thinking what a coincidence  it was that we arrived at that particular time.

I returned to the hospital everyday, waiting for some kind of diagnosis, after a week with things getting no better, in fact they were getting worse, I did what I do best when it appears that no one is doing their job……I lost my temper.  The doctor in charge was given a mouthful, he had been asked everyday what was the problem….His answer was always the same….it might be this and it might be that…  The hospital administrator was a little ruffled when I arrived in her office and asked for her help.  I wanted Joseph moved to the Gordon Hospital in Olongopo and I wanted it done now.   After a few heated moments,  an ambulance was brought to the front door and Joseph was transported.  I might add that it was the most hair raising drive I have ever had.

Joseph was admitted into the Gordon Hospital.  Joseph’s illnesses were, pneumonia, tuberculosis, fluid around the heart, blood poisoning, acute anemia, severe malnutrition, abscessed left leg and fractured right hip.  Any one of these problems in a country like the Philippines will kill you.  Joseph had all of them but in addition he had something else, the strongest will and heart that I have ever seen in my life.  All he wanted to do was to get better so that he could help his parents.

Five blood transfusions ,  three debrayments of the abscess, which by the way had turned into osteomialitis . A bone graft from his hip to his left leg.  I might add that my caretaker helped, by waving away the flies, while I took the stitches out of Joseph’s hip. .. Women should never travel without tweezers and manicure scissors…and a match with which to boil the water. … Joseph is doing very well and he is a delightful young man. We discovered for his bone doctor, Dr. Palma, that Joseph is about 15 years old.

When Joseph’s parent realized that their son was so very ill, they endorsed Joseph to me and The SCOTS Foundation.  This means that I get the responsibility of making sure that Joseph is well.  His medicines are expensive, the hospital care and surgeons fees have been for the most part free.  We pay for all of his and Myra’s (his caretaker)  transportation, his food and the food of a family member while he is in the hospital.  Compared to hospital costs in the States or Europe, we are talking peanuts but to the Aeta, who are not a people who  have money or know what to do with a prescription or how to talk to a physician, our Joseph would have died February of 2004.  Instead, we built him a home on the site, he had his first  (15th) Birthday Party on September 11th. 2004 and he is our sunshine

Though Joseph was not an orphan nor a street boy, he was our first “student”.  He learned his alphabet, wrote his name and learned English (his fourth language).  He could do math in his head, took care of the poultry and the fish, help Myra with the dishes, made me a cup of tea.   All in all, a brilliant, brave young man.  It was easy to love Joseph, I called him my anak/apo which means son/grandchild.

There are many children like Joseph, in the Philippines and in other parts of the world, we cannot find or help all of them but when I go to sleep at night I always think of Joseph and an expression that I think of often.  “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

• I left the Philippines on September 12th, to visit my family and pack up my home.

  

2005

• Baby Earl, the son of an Australian, was left alone on a bed in the apartment he shared with his Filipina girlfriend.  Mother had left, Father was drunk and so I took the little fellow to the farm till the couple got their act together.  The baby stayed with me twice.

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• Frederico Pauli was ill in the San Marcelino hospital with severe diarrhea from drinking spoiled dried milk which had been donated to the Aeta.  Took care of him and he stayed at the farm for two weeks.

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•  A little girl, Baby Girl Tadeo, my carpenter’s daughter, is sponsored by Rick Abernathy.  Her mother had died giving birth to her new sister. Rick continued to sponsor this little girl until his death in 2016.

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Joseph Mariano’s leg wasn’t getting any better and so I took him to a wonderful surgeon in Manila.  Joseph was confined in the Philippine General Hospital in Manila for two weeks – he had penicillin beads put in his leg.

Back to Manila to have the beads removed.  They reminded me of rosary beads and I kept them.

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Baby Michael Clement was born December 20th and came to the farm in January 2006. His story is in ‘Children who were Rescued.’

     2006

• Mary Mallari visits the farm for the 1st time.  She and a Filipina Doctor checked out Baby Michael who had just been released from the Gordon Intensive Care Unit.  Mary continues to be a great friend to me.

• I left for the States in the summer and left funds for staff and projects.  Baby Michael was taken to stay with friends of mine in case he had a medical emergency.
• On my return to the Philippines four more children came to the farm for a few months and I had quite a houseful.
• Had two little Aeta sisters cleft lips fixed at a Surgical Mission.
• Joseph’s Father arrived with a machete wound to his head.

  

  

  

• Met with Fr. James B. Reuter at the Hellships Memorial Service on Subic Bay and he made me promise I would take care of the Aeta.  He was a charming priest and hard to refuse.

2007

• HOPE FOUNDATION came in January and we had a Medical/Surgical/Dental and Opthalmic Mission.  It was a lot of work to get ready for them.  The 3 bahay kubos became examining rooms, the piggery had no pigs at that time and it was scrubbed spotless and became the dental area.  The gazebo became triage and the multipurpose building was for meals and rest for the volunteers, the large kitchen became the pharmacy and the place for eye exams. Five of my patients had cataracts which were fixed at no cost to them.  One of the cataract patients was a blind old Aeta man – he and his wife stayed at the farm for two weeks to ensure he took his medicine on time, had the eye administered at the right time and ate nutritious food.

• I had approximately 15 serious patients from this one day mission and I, with some help from my friend Ed Turietta, managed to get them all taken care of at the different hospitals in the area.  It took a few months to get everyone well.

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  The above pictures in the slideshow have been recently sent to me by Mary Shaw and her husband, Peter.  I will update this slideshow later to show more pictures.

 

• Baby Prencess Mae ‘Catherine’ Estrada was brought to the farm. Her story is included in the webpage ‘The Children who were Rescued.’  A sick three week old.
• In August I became a member of Botika Natin a most wonderful organization where I could buy generic medicines at a really low cost.  Botika Natin was started by the Vice Governor of Zambales Ramon Lacbain.  He came to the farm and initiated us into the program.  It saved me a small fortune over the years in medicines and their pharmacists were always helpful.

  

  A neighbor came to the farm, he had fallen off a scaffold and a bar had caught him between the legs.  There had been an emergency colostomy performed but there was no colostomy bag.  The tube coming from his side drained into a plastic grocery bag, he was desperate to get it removed so he could go back to work and support his wife and children.  After our initial visit at the Gordon I was told his albumen was low.  I fed him concentrated egg drinks, three times a day, every day, for two weeks to get his albumen levels to a proper level.  The surgery was performed to remove the tube and the Gordon Hospital were kind enough to negate the bill.

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• A little boy and his Grandmother came to the farm.  She needed help as the boy’s Mother did not want the child and the Grandfather had recently died. I was in no position to take the child but I supported them for months until the Grandmother got back on her feet.
• My eldest son, Philip was diagnosed with cancer and I had to return to the States.  It was a very difficult time for everyone.  Baby ‘Catherine’ stayed with a friend of mine in Olongapo while I was gone for more than 3 months.

2008

• January 12th, my second Christening. The Christening was at St. Joseph’s in Subic.    Mark John Manzano, named John after my Father, had a wonderful feast day sponsored by my good friend Rick Abernathy.  It was the day my own Mother died in America.  A most difficult day.

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  Catherine, Rick Abernathy’s wife thoroughly enjoying herself.

• January 19th.  HOPE Medical Mission had another mission a the farm.  Fortunately there were no emergencies.
  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

• March 30th – Little boy and Father with serious skin problem.  Took them to the Hospital and referred to a skin specialist. Took them to the specialist.
  

  

• April 17th – Catherine is confined

• May – My first patient, Nicanoor Ulilla, with Hepatitis B was brought to the farm, I took him to the Gordon Hospital but when he knew there was no chance for him to survive, he asked to be taken home. This was the first time I had made a stretcher out of bamboo and rice sack.   He died a few days later.  I provided food to the family as he had 6 children.  I have no picture of Nicanoor but his face is burned into my brain – he was taller than Joseph, very dark, nearly black even, high cheekbones and yellow eyes.   He reminded me of a panther.  His mother became a friend of mine and her grandchildren were brought to the farm whenever they were sick.  She trusted me.

• May 12th an emergency rush to the Gordon Hospital – Baby David Joseph was born, he is another of the Children who were Rescued.
• May 29th David Joseph come to the farm.

  

• June 17 Nicanoor’s widow was pregnant with twins and was told,by a doctor, to get ‘bed rest’ which is not easy for a new widow with so many children.  She and her children were brought to the farm and stayed until it was time to take her to the Gordon for delivery.

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• June 23rd – David Joseph’s twin sisters, Angelina and Victoria were brought to the farm.  Their story continues in Children who were Rescued.  It was a bit of a madhouse some days but my men were great.  I had the 7 p.m. till 7 a.m. shift on my own.  Two 14 month olds, one 13 month old and a newborn.

• July 2nd – The Father of one of Joseph’s friends was taken to the Gordon with serious breathing problems.  I knew the old man as I had bought a beautiful basket from him the year before.  There was not a lot could be done for him but I provided food and transportation for his son and Joseph was able to visit with his friend.  Both young men are wearing my famous red shirts which I had brought back from the States.
  

  

• One of my workers was attacked by his drunk brothers-in-law.  His wife had no stomach to dress his wounds after he left the San Marcelino Hospital and so they came to the farm to have it done.

2009

• January 13th Medical Mission

• January 11th – Christening of Prencess Mae ‘Catherine’ Estrada, Angeline, Victoria and David Joseph Melomeda and many other children sponsored by Rick Abernathy.

• Little Andy crippled with TB of the spine.

• Highlights of the year:
• March: My first foreign visitor, Sarah, arrived and she was a delight.  I was working on the addition to the Big Bamboo House.  More about her in the Construction webpage.  She was so kind and did a fundraiser to give me the funds for the Well which is also in the Construction webpage.
• October – A friend of Sara’s another young English woman called Carrie came to visit me and stayed with me for 5 weeks.   She was a joy and helped me tremendously taking care of the children and the patients.  Carrie learned first hand what it was like to be ill and poor in the Philippines.  When she asked if she could use the Restroom in the hospital I suggested she didn’t and took this picture to show her why.  This was the nurse’s bathroom in the Pedia Ward.   Carrie would come back to visit me twice, bringing her husband Kevin to meet me.

2010

• Another Christening at the farm. One priest and one Born Again preacher.  Christenings are very important in the Philippines as often the Christening certificate is the only identity document people have for their children.

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Joseph had married in late 2008.  I did not go to the wedding as it was important for my caretaker Itong to go and someone had to take care of the children.  Joseph married a young Aeta woman from the village of Pili.  Their first child became ill in 2010 and Joseph who was raised by me and therefore knew to take the baby directly to the Gordon Hospital.  Joseph’s Mother came to the farm and it was translated that it was an emergency and would I go to the Gordon.  These pictures are of one grateful Father when the baby was well and I drove them to get the jeepney to his wife’s village.

The photographs say May 2008.  I did not know how to change the date on a digital camera at the time.  They were taken in 2010

• October 10th, my Caretaker Itong leaves the Philippines to work in Bahrain for my good friend and sponsor of so many events, Rick Abernathy.  It had taken me 2 years to get documents for Itong as he didn’t even have a birth certificate and had left school in the 5th grade.  A lot of work for me to do but he wanted the chance to go as he had 6 children.  I loved Itong like a son and was sad to see him go but how could I prevent someone who had been so loyal to me from having a chance in life.

 

• I developed my first case of dysentery, I had drunk buko (coconut) juice in the market and believe it was spoiled.   A friend told me I looked ill as I had lost a lot of weight, he was shocked when I told him I had been ill for nearly 10 weeks.  He told me to take  2,500 mg. of metronidazol which fixed the problem but I was severely dehydrated. A visit to the Gordon Hospital where the doctor was surprised I was the patient this time.  My potassium and sodium were so depleted she wanted to confine me.  I laughed and told her I had too much to do and to just give me the prescription to correct the sodium and potassium levels.  I had to sign a paper stating that I was refusing confinement.  I was now a HAMA patient which means Home against Medical Advise.

2011

• January – Angelina broke her left femur.  Joseph and I took her to the Gordon Hospital in Olongapo where she was placed in a hip-lock.  I remember being a bit alarmed that they did not confine her.  The treatment of weights which I had seen done in the States was not done.  The surgeons assured me that she would be fine and would have no limp.  They were right.
• May 21st, Angelina broke her right arm.  I took her to the San Marcelino Hospital for a quick x-ray which showed that both bones in her right arm were broken.  I drove her to the Gordon as I was very confidant in the surgeons.  Angelina managed to smash off the first cast and it had to be redone.  I remember telling the surgeons that if this happened in the States, that there would be an inquiry.  They told me that we were in the Philippines.

  

• Ipoy, a young man I had known since 2002 when he used to follow me around in the Aeta village, became ill and was in the San Marcelino Hospital.  He needed blood transfusions as he was extremely anemic. I had him transferred to the Gordon Hospital which is close to The Red Cross Blood Bank. Unfortunately, there was no O positive available so back to the Gordon and they drew my blood for Ipoy.  The cause of his anemia was parasitic worms which are a common complaint in an area where nomadic people have lived in the same place for too long.  Ipoy came and stayed with us when he was released from hospital.  His mother was not Aeta but had married an Aeta and when he died the Mother left.  Simple as that.

• A young woman called Charlotte came to the farm.  She was wonderful and was a big help at the farm.  As she was a teacher she enjoyed being with the children and I got to work on construction.  Those pictures are in the Construction of the Farm page of this website.

• September, Angelina is taken to St. Luke’s Hospital in Manila.  Tests including EEG, bone density, hearing and full body -ray etc. were done.  All of these documents were handed over to the DSWD when I was arrested in 2014.  I was grateful to my friends who not only drove from Manila to get me and Angelina but took care of us in their lovely home in Alabang.  They would make the round trip 3 times.  They paid the bill for all the very expensive tests that Angelina needed.
  

  

  

  

• I had many patients that year – too many to list. But one important patient was Baby Jhon Paul.  His Mother, Wendy was the half-sister of David Joseph, Angelina and Victoria.  His story is included in the webpage ‘Children who were Rescued.  

2012

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  This little boy reminded me of my Joseph… I was asked, by the family,  to help and went to the San Marcelino Hospital to look at the child.  I was shocked – the young boy was being held by a family member and was crying.  Aeta children rarely cry but he was in so much pain.  I spoke with the Head Doctor of the San Marcelino Hospital.  To make a very long story short I had him moved by ambulance to the Gordon Hospital in Olongapo. The child had an intestine that was attached to his umbilis (belly button) nothing could pass through and if I had not taken him to the Gordon he would surely have died because they were going to wait for three more days in the San Marcelino Hospital.   This young boy became another favorite child of mine and often came to the farm.

  

  

• This little boy and his brother came to the farm.  They were not Aeta but the Mother was desperate for help for her sons.  Both of her children had huge swellings of their knees.  I took them to the Gordon Hospital and Helping Hands were able to take care of them.This is the belly of my good friend Pearla Atanacio.  Pearla was the Comadrona (midwife) in Sitio Gala.  She was rushed to the Gordon for an emergency appendectomy.

• Juanita Cueva was the mother of one of the Aeta in the Aeta Resettlement Area close to the farm.  Her son, Arnel,  came and asked me for help.  His mother was in the San Marcelino Hospital and wasn’t getting any better.  I had her transferred to the Gordon Hospital where she was diagnosed with kidney failure and high blood pressure.  Fortunately, the doctor who ran the Dialysis Unit was in the hospital that night.  Her blood pressure reached 200 over something.  He scheduled her that evening for the shunt for dialysis and one of my friendly surgical residents provided it for free.  It was valued at 15,000 pesos which I truly appreciated.

• On the Saturday before Christmas, Igmee Ulila came into my life again.  Igmee had worked on the construction projects in 2005.  His friend carried him down the mountain on his back as Igmee was too ill to walk. I took him to the San Marcelino Hospital for tests and confinement.

  

2013

January  Igmee had been in the San Marcellino Hospital for two weeks and was released, he came to the farm where he stayed overnight with me treating him with a nebulizer.  He stayed in Bahay 1 as I could not have anyone who was sick stay close to the children.  I took him to the Gordon Hospital where he was confined in the isolation ward with full-blown tuberculosis.

• January had started out being a very busy month.  Rose came to the farm and was diagnosed with tuberculosis at the Gordon Hospital. Her picture of the day she arrived at Bahay 3 is below.

This is Rose and she is petrified of dying and leaving her children. Even though TB is supposed to be treated for free, I had to purchase all the medicines from a pharmacy as most of them were not available in the hospital pharmacy.

• My prayer for help was granted when Mary Mallari and her niece Mary Shaw come to visit. With their help I was able to get a tremendous amount of work done.  Mary Mallari is a Mother of seven and a registered nurse.  I had no problem with her minding the children while Mary Shaw and I spent long days at the hospital.

A medical mission was to be held at the Gordon and the young residents told me that they would handle any patients I brought.  I contacted my friend,  who was Chief of an Aeta Tribe in Batolan.  He sent me many patients and I had a full schedule.

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This is slideshow of the patients.  Because I did not know them I took their pictures so I could keep track of who was who.  The Medical Mission says LIBRE/FREE but for me it was not as the patients had to get tests done and fed and their transportation home but it was worth it to get so many patients various surgeries.

• Two other patients came from far off villages.  One in particular was from Pili, he also had to be carried into the farm.  He was too weak to walk and after a three week stay in the Gordon Hospital where he received 3 or 4 blood transfusions and a colonoscopy.  The colonoscopy revealed a type of parasite that did not show up in a fecalysis.  He eventually stayed at the farm with his wife until his strength was regained.
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• More Aeta patients started coming with TB and at one time I had four in isolation including Joseph’s Father. It was a struggle for me as I also had the patients from the Medical Mission in the hospital.  I had 20 patients at one time.

 

The most traumatic case I had in 2013 was the case of Baby Mariano, the nephew of my first sick boy, Joseph Mariano.  In the slide show, below, he is about 15 months old.  He had fallen into a charcoal making pit. Making charcoal is one way the Aeta men make a living.  The father ran down the mountain and stopped my vehicle as I was heading into Harley’s Hotel where friends of mine, Carrie and Kevin,  were leaving, heading back to England.

It was a crazy morning as I had an abscessed tooth, friends were leaving but the baby had to get to the Gordon Hospital.  I asked a young Peace Corps worker, who had lived with the Aeta to help me.  We drove to Harley’s Hotel in Barrio Baretto,  got the Peace Corps worker a tricycle to get to the Gordon with the baby and Father of the child.    I said goodbye to the young couple and then drove to the Gordon.  I was sure the baby would be confined but much to my surprise, I was informed that the baby would not be confined as it was only 2nd degree burns.

Now, I am not a nurse or a doctor but it sure looked bad to me, the thought of the baby going back up the mountain, in the condition he was in, was not going to happen.  The Grandmother stayed with us for a few days while I took care of the child but then she wandered back up to the resettlement area.  I was frantic with worry for the baby but could not leave the farm.

Joseph was not working at the farm at the time, he was  living in the resettlement area with his two children and pregnant wife.  There was nothing for me to do but drive up the mountain, get Joseph, his sister-in-law and the baby and bring them all down the mountain.

The baby looked worse than he had before, the skin was hanging off him like a roasted pig.  I don’t have a strong stomach but when you are the only person who can help, then you just get over it and get on with it.

If you are tender-hearted then maybe you should not watch the slide show but just know that the baby became well.   It was a tremendous amount of work as I had other patients at the time and my abscessed tooth was killing me.

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The following video is of my favorite patient, I took care of her for 2 years while she was on dialysis.   When she became sick with dengue it took a tremendous amount of work to bring her back to health.  It required at least 15 units of plasma in one month.  I loved her and she loved me and what is really important is, my children loved her.  She died a month after Typhoon Yolanda.  I could not get out of the farm to take care of her.  We had no road.

  In September 2013, Typhoon Yolanda hit the Farm and cut us off from the rest of the village.  A huge landslide came down the lovely mountain behind the farm.  The Aeta bridge was destroyed and the road to their village suffered a lot of damage.

This is an excerpt from a Subic newspaper I found on the internet.

Jeffrey Khonghun, mayor of Subic, Zambales, said 15 bodies were dug out in two landslide-hit villages in his town. Five people also died in landslides in two other towns in Zambales, according to army officials and police.

Rescuers used their hands, pots and shovels to dig through the muck that buried a cluster of houses, while relatives of two other missing residents waited in the rain in the village of Wawandue.

“This is the first after a long time that we were hit by this kind of deluge,” Khonghun told Manila’s DZBB radio network. He had to stop the interview when another body was pulled out from the mud near him.

• There was no work for the Aeta men – with no work their families cannot eat.  I hired 8 Aeta men to come down and clear the massive amount of trees, bamboo etc that was blocking the culvert of the Preda Bridge.  The raised water level was washing out the part of the road that I had put culverts in in 2007.  It was dangerous and a tremendous amount of work.  I fed the men 3 meals a day for more than 3 weeks, 7 days a week was our schedule.  The children could not go to school for a month as it took that long for the Mayor’s equipment to do the necessary repairs to the road.
• I took food and candles to the young man who was alone at the Preda construction site.  He had very little food and like us there was no electricity.  His name was Alex and he was Afro-American-Filipino.  My children knew him as he came to the farm for drinking water every other day even before the typhoon.
• I asked Alex where Fr. Shay Cullen was as it was his bridge that had caused so much damage.  I was told he was in Germany.  I was surprised that the young men from his Boy’s Home had not come to help.

 

•  One month later,Typhoon Yolanda hits the Philippines.  We did not have extreme water damage to the farm but the strong winds did a lot of damage.
• December Baby ‘Peter Nicholas’ is born and brought to the farm. His story is included in the Children who were Rescued

2014

• At Easter, Angelina is brought back to the farm, her story is in the Children who were ‘Rescued’.

 

This is only a partial list of my patients but there were so many more, often arriving in the middle of the night with babies.  The only thing I could do was to bring them into the house and take care of them.

My camera/cellphone was stolen within a few days of me being incarcerated and I have very few pictures of 2014.  The frustration and anger I feel to be accused of using my children as ‘workers’ in my Whorehouse is overwhelming.

I would hope that anyone looking at some of the work that I did to assist sick people and save lives will realize that the description of me, by Shay Cullen, is not true but only a way for him to promote himself all over the internet and gain the monies that give him his power.

It has been said in some newspaper articles that I was ‘unqualified’.  I believe that what Jesus calls you to do, he equips you to do.

 

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