VOL. 7 ISSUE 202 • WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24-27, 2013 VOL. 7 ISSUE 202 • WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24-27, 2013 ANDY Halasan. Lloyd Edissone J. Montebon. Ernie Gawilan. Anjelay Pelaez. Drs. Francis Jerwin Jalipa and Charlie Clarion. Dr. Richard Mata. Rolly Rulete. These are but a litany of names until one day, they cracked a niche for themselves in this highly competitive world. And it’s not just ordinary achievements they made. These are no mean mortal feats that just go by unnoticed. Edge Davao pays tribute to the men and women whose milestones we have painstakingly chronicled and devoted generous space for names and faces that used to be of no consequence. Indeed, the year 2014 has brought to fore the crème de la crème among achievers from Davao. These names were nowhere known to everyone until their heroic performances changed their humble lives from nobody to somebody. From the inconsequential to the phenomenal. Take Randy Halasan for example. This young public school teacher’s story was even obliterated by some other stories in a journalism recognition awards in 2013. Little did people know that the same humble teacher will become the only Filipino in a select cast of six that was named to this year’s prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Awards—Asia’s version of the Nobel Peace Prize. In the world of performing arts, singing wonder Montebon won the world championship with his voice joining only one other
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EDGEDAVAO YEARENDER
DAVAO CITY’S HEROES
BIG
LITTLE HEROES
From little-known names come big heroes. By NEILWIN BRAVO
Filipino—Jed Madela, now a famous singing artist -- to have won that title. In sports, a gifted lady taekwondo jin and a legless swimmer made waves. Mary Anjelay Pelaez emerged victorious in a tough martial art sport to win a bronze medal in the tough Asian Games in Incheon, Korea, losing only to the reigning Olympics and world champion in the semifinals. Special athlete Ernie Gawilan may not have the star status of the ill-fated Pistorius but who cares? Ernie won three bronze medals for the country in the Asian Para Games for differently-abled athletes a week after Anjelay’s heroics. In education, two young men from the Davao Medical School Foundation—Drs. Francis Gerwin Jalipa and Charlie Clarion-- barged into the top 10 of the tough Licensure Examination for Physicians. In community service and research, Dr. Richard Mata introduced his antidote for the dreaded dengue disease that has taken the lives of hundreds of Dabawenyos, mostly children, in recent years. In technology, Rolly Rulete and his group made it to the finals of a global search for new inventions. Their application made it as the top invention of the Angel Hack competition, earning for them a trip to Silicon Valley. These are the names that have created ripples in 2014. Edge Davao thus devotes Part II of our Yearender Report to our “little big heroes.”
B2EDGEDAVAO
DAVAO CITY’S HEROES
VOL. 7 ISSUE 202 • WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24-27, 2013
RANDY HALASAN
From whispers to shoutouts By NEILWIN BRAVO
“Pero ito hindi ko to pinangarap. Masyadong malaki para isipin...”
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ANDY Halasan’s story came to the pages of Edge Davao in August 2013 long before his name became the icon of greatness for public school teachers in Davao City. Teacher Randy was first interviewed by this writer when he was nominated to the “The Many Faces of a Teacher” award which is given annually by Bato Balani Foundation as a way of recognizing teachers from the countrysides. Randy was nowhere the colossal
figure he is now after he had been named one of the 2014 Ramon Magsaysay laureates—the only Filipino to make it to the elite list this year. Randy too is the first Dabawenyo to win the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize. When Randy was named by the RMMF as one of their laureates, he immediately called up Edge Davao to happily announce the achievement. Randy was overwhelmed by the happiness of being rewarded with the recognition he did not
even dream of achieving. He asked this writer to come with him to the awards night. “Happy na ako sir sa mga certificates galing sa seminar or kung may recognition man sa aming mga guro sa DepEd, okay na. Pero ito hindi koi to pinangarap. Masyadong malaki para isipin,” Randy narrates recently as he looks back at the days when he struggled as a new teacher moving on to a new assignment. From Randy’s first story that came out on Edge Davao, he has
been featured a number of times in many publications and television networks. They all run the story of a public school teacher who had to traverse two treacherous rivers and trek seven hours to get to his school of assignment where he devotes his time teaching lumad children of the Matigsalog tribe. But Randy’s life goes beyond the hardships of a public teacher and his inspiring works. Far from everyone’s knowledge is that Randy actually did not get the sup-
port of his family when he chose his assignment in Pegalongan. When his story came out on this paper, Randy said his other family members cried. From then on, they understood Randy and his ‘new life.’ At first, Randy’ pleas for help for Pegalongan were as low as whispers ending most often to deaf ears. When he received his plaque last August 31 at the CCP Complex main theatre, he was at a whispering distance to President Aquino who asked him:
“What do you need, Randy? Tell me.” Randy’s whispers for help have become shoutouts. From muted ears came listening angels and Randy can only smile with hope. On the night Randy accepted his award from the RMMF and spoke for five minutes, everyone in the main theatre of the country’s most revered stage listened—including President Aquino and a host of other dignitaries. Randy has spoken. Let those who promised cometh.
VOL. 7 ISSUE 202 • WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24-27, 2013
DAVAO CITY’S HEROES
EDGEDAVAO
TOP DOCTORS
B3
DR. FRANCIS GERWIN JALIPA and DR. CHARLIE CLARION
By CHENEEN R. CAPON
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year’s Licensure Examination for Physicians raised a few realities and a lot of eyebrows. HIS
Two of Davao City’s examinees from the Davao Medical School Foundation (DMSF) cracked into the Top 10. Dr. Francis Gerwin Jalipa emerged as no. 2 and Dr. Charlie Clarion came out no. 6. These two Dabawenyos made it to the elite 10 with a lot of stories to tell. First, the two just proved one thing: Davao’s medical school is at par with the best in the country. Second: Davao’s brains are at par with the best there ever is in the country. Edge Davao featured these two young achievers in one of its weekend issues which regularly feature achievers from various fields in life. And now, to their stories. Dr. Francis Gerwin Jalipa and Dr. Charlie A. Clarion are a study in contrast. They are like two sides of a coin—one the tail and the other the head. Their personal lives are of different chapters and their lifestyles distinct from the other. But they share the same passion: to serve. The Head Dr. Francis Gerwin Jalipa is known to his fellow residents as “The Walking Harrison.” For those in the medical profession, to be called such is like being called the walk-
ing Wikipedia. It refers to the book Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine – the bible of Internal Medicine. Jalipa, a nursing graduate of SPC and a batch mate of Clarion, is also a 6th placer in the nursing board exam. The second topnotcher is also now a resident doctor in SPMC specializing in Internal Medicine and Neurology in the future. It was one of his pediatricians that really gave him the first image of a doctor. Gerwin started to identify what he really wanted to do and whom he really wanted to serve while growing up. Right after passing and even topping the nursing board exam, Gerwin admitted that he was lured to go abroad just like his peers. But his dream of becoming a doctor far outweighed going abroad and trying his luck. Being the first doctor in the family, he said that becoming a doctor is not just purely a profession but also his way of serving people. He said his residency in SPMC give him a clearer picture of Filipinos and their health–seeking behavior. “I hope there’s enough budget and government program that will promote equal access to health care services,” he said after enumerating some of the conditions of his patients who were not capable of paying hospital bills.
Dr. Francis Gerwin Jalipa Dr. Charlie Clarion The tail Dr. Clarion, the 2014 Licensure Examination for Physicians sixth placer, used to spend regular Saturdays during his med school days with nights out in the city. Things soon changed when he started as a resident doctor at the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) specializing in internal medicine. Gone are the days when he would read three-inch thick books and drink during weekends because he is now dealing with an average of 20 to 30 patients per day. Clarion said landing sixth place was not expected despite the fact that it was his target since he entered and took up medicine. “It was tough. It was really difficult. It was not only a test of your intelligence, it was also a test of your character,” he said. “After the 12 subjects, I
said to myself, if I was thinking of 50 percent topping the exam, this time I was thinking of just passing the exam,” he added. More than passing the exam, he topped. More than any anything, Clarion said personal encounters with patients gave him a clearer picture of theories. Becoming a doctor was not actually part of his roadmap but was a random decision that he made when he was younger and fresh from college. The 26-year doctor and a product of Davao Medical School Foundation (DMSF) was a sixth placer in the Medical Technology board exam right after taking up Medical Technology in San Pedro College (SPC). “To be a doctor was not really a dream, but my passion started to develop when I was exposed to patients as early as
second year (in med school),” he said. “Entering med school was easy but sustaining the interest and eagerness to be a medical practitioner was harder,” he said. Being in a government hospital gave him a glimpse of the medical services in publicly owned facilities as well as the conditions of people of different faces yearning for better medical services. “SPMC is not far from what’s happening in Philippine General Hospital (PGH). Pag minsan mas marami pang pasyente dito (There are times that we receive more patients here),” he said. Aspiring to be Davao’s second doctor sub-specializing in Electrophysiology in the next six years, Clarion said he would return to Davao City after training abroad for private practice where he would like to encourage other doctors to allot 20 percent of their exper-
tise to the less fortunate and underserved. A rich tradition of excellence With Dr. Jalipa as no. 2 and Dr. Clarion as no. 6, DMSF barged into the elite circle among medical schools in the country with two topnotchers in the most recent exams. In the 30-year history of DMSF, Jalipa and Clarion were the fifth and sixth topnotchers produced by Davao’s only medical school. Early this year, DMSF also produced a topnotcher in Luisa Saranillo, giving DMSF a historic three topnotchers in two successive exams (February and August). They joined Darlene Estuart (1984), Erwin Hontiveros (1984), Max Larena (2006), and Saranillo (February 2014). DMSF ranks no. 9 in the entire country based on the results of the 2014 August board exams. The school has consistently ranked among the top 10. (CRC)
ERNIE GAWILAN The legless torpedo By NEILWIN BRAVO
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RNIE G a w ilan was not meant to see the world. His mother attempted to abort him while he was in her womb. E r n i e hang on tough amidst the very fist storm of his life (if you may call it at that stage). Little did this
young fetus know that life in this world would be full of storms and waves. Ernie was born without fully developed legs and arm. He has one functional extremity but the rest are not. However, Ernie proved while growing up that man can live without arms and legs for as long as he has a strong heart to weather any storm. Ernie literally rode through the waves learning how to swim in the
waters of Samal Island as a ten year old orphan taken cared of by nuns. He went on to learn not just how to swim but how to win. Ernie became a natural to the waters where he felt he is normal. “My disabilities are not seen when I am in the water,” quipped Ernie when interviewed by Edge Davao. This legless wonder overcame his disabilities and a shattered childhood (where he was orphaned at five months) to become
a swimming sensation. With torpedo-like arms, he became a member of the Team Philippines for differently-abled athletes and went on to compete in swimming in 15 countries so far. His biggest achievement in 2014 was earning for the country three bronze medals in the very tough Asian Para Games in Incheon, Korea. “Ernie is a treasure for Davao City,” said Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte as he paid
tribute to Ernie during the opening of a basketball tournament last November. Ernie has become an inspiration for others, who like him, are suffering from physical disabilities. He has also shown a special talent for singing and is always willing to talk to persons with disabilities on how to overcome the storms of their lives. Afterall, this legless torpedo has proven that he can ride the storm.
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DAVAO CITY’S HEROES
VOL. 7 ISSUE 202 • WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24-27, 2013
DR. RICHARD MATA Pediatrician on a mission By JON JOAQUIN
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HE Philippines is one of the world’s hotspots for dengue, with a total of 59,943 cases recorded from January 1 to September 6, 2014 (the last available figure from the National Epidemiology Center [NEC] of the Department of Health). Mindanao carries many of these cases: 10.47 percent from Northern Mindanao (Region 10), 9.6 percent from CARAGA (Region 13), and 9.19 percent from Davao Region (Region 11). Majority of the infected patients were 5 to 14 year old children (38.91 percent of the total cases). Sadly, dengue can lead to death, and the NEC reported a total of 242 deaths since January 2014 – most of them children. For Panabo City-based pediatrician Dr. Richard Mata, death by dengue is unnecessary, and he has embarked on a quest to achieve “zero deaths” from the still-dreaded illness. He is a pediatrician on a mission, and for him it is an entirely achievable goal. “Dengue is like diarrhea,” Mata tells Edge Davao in an interview. “Both are diseases of dehydration. Dengue is much like a diarrhea except that the body fluids don’t come out with the patient’s stool but through plasma leakage.” This goes against the common perception
that a dengue patient dies because of a low platelet count. Indeed, most treatments are focused on bringing the platelet count back to normal, and people have resorted to all sorts of remedies – durian and tawa-tawa, for example – just
to achieve this. Mata, however, says such “medication” actually does little to solve the problem. His favorite illustration is that of a plastic bag pierced with holes; these holes allow fluid to come out (along with the platelets, which accounts for the low platelet count) and results in dehydration. “The arteries and veins of a patient have thousands of pinpoint holes due to the body’s reaction to the dengue virus, causing the fluids inside the blood vessels to sip out. Thus, the feeling of a patient with diarrhea is the same with the patient with a dengue fever,” he explains. The primary symptom, then, is weakness during and even after fever. “In diseases like common flu, urinary tract infection, pneumonia, and many others, kids are expected to play and become talkative when the fever decreases, and become weak again only when the fever recurs. But with dengue fever the patient looks weak when there’s fever and still weak and still doesn’t play even if the fever subsides.”
In fact, Mata asserts, the platelet count of most dengue patients appears to be normal for the first three days of fever and only decreases below 150 at the onset of the third day. “Therefore it is very important to look at the child’s activity especially on the first three days because the laboratory results most of the time will appear normal.” So if dengue is a disease of dehydration, what else can the cure be but hydration? “The basic solution to dehydration is toa give more fluids than what goes out of the blood vessels,” Mata says. “Even if the platelet of a dengue patient is low, as long as the patient is properly hydrated, the patient will not give us any problem. Therefore we need to bark up the right tree, and the right tree is the fluids, not the platelets.” To emphasize his point, Mata describes a disease called Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP) in which a patient can have very low platelet count for weeks or even years on end. “Some will have platelets of 10 or even lower, but once you see
them you can’t believe that their platelet count is that low. They are still playful and active. Why? Because ITP patients only have a low platelet count but are not suffering from dehydration.” Mata’s mission is to eradicate dengue deaths in the same way that deaths by diarrhea were reduced with the introduction of oral rehydration therapy (ORT) in the latter part of the 20th century. ORT is a simple solution – drinking water mixed with sugar and salt – but it has saved the lives of millions of people. Mata wants to do the same with dengue. His method is “fast drip,” which is to deliver more fluid to the body than is conventionally given. He says there are four strains of dengue, each differentiated from the others by the size of holes it creates in the blood vessels. The first three strains with smaller holes account for a majority of cases, so regular hydration (delivered intravenously) is enough for most patients. But Mata pushes for giving more fluids in all patients in the relatively small chance that they are suffering from the fourth strain.
“Zero deaths by dengue is possible,” he asserts confidently, and he points to his own practice at the Panabo Polymedic Hospital that has not seen a dengue death in recent years since he practiced fast drip. That is no small feat since Panabo City was the number one dengue hot spot in Mindanao just four years ago. Through his and his fellow doctors’ efforts, that city has shed this dubious distinction. Mata’s work is still stirring some controversy among medical circles, but internationally he has been recognized for his common sense treatment of dengue. Break Dengue (breakdengue. org) – the biggest anti-dengue effort worldwide – recently awarded him second place for his approach to the disease, and his website (www.solving-dengue-fever.com) is frequently visited by people from all over the world who want to know how they can treat loved ones who have dengue. “Somehow I have educated the world,” Mata says of his advocacy, and he hopes the Philippines will adopt it in order to do away with dengue completely.
The sea was not always friendly to his family. Two years before was born in 1984, his aunt went missing because of Typhoon Akang. A cousin’s boat was also swallowed by the sea during typhoon Sendong in 2011. These and the safety of his father encouraged him to develop a Project NOAH mobile app in partnership with the Department of Science and Technology in 2012. Equipped with experience and technology, Rulete determined to keep his father and other fishermen safe by providing them real-time and relevant weather information. “It was actually my big break,” he said in an interview. He can vividly remember when he and his colleagues developed a mobile app version of DOST’s Project NOAH in 2012 using the HTML5 (HyperText Markup Language), a programming language that allows app development across Web platforms. Project NOAH, or Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH), is an accurate, integrated responsive disaster and miti-
gation program by the developed by the government in partnership with the private sector with the aim to provide real-time information especially in high-risk areas throughout the Philippines. Rulete’s team won the “Best Use of Smart APls” at the first HTML Hackathon held in Davao City by Smart Communications Inc. through the Smart Developer Network (SMARTDevNet). This soon led him to creating the Android application
PH Weather since he wanted to see the data not just on desktop but also on mobile platforms. And the rest, as they say, is history. Rulete created a powerful app not just for fishermen but for the whole nation. “Being in the typhoon belt, it is important to keep everyone updated so that they will be safe, ” he said. Although he has had better offers, Rulete, now employed in Mind Dynamic Team, has stayed in Davao
City to develop mobile apps that will provide people safety and convenience. He said the company is planning to launch a healthcare mobile app in January next year intended to provide people with a convenient and direct connection with their doctors through mobile phones. For Rulete, it’s not about the money but the satisfaction of helping people, and he uses his genius to make life easier – and safer – for others.
A genius for helping others By CHENEEN R. CAPON
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OLLY Rulete has come a long way from the days when he used to make Styrofoam toy boats powered by toy car motors in a small fishing village in Surigao del Sur. Now 30 and a software engineer, Rulete went all the way to Silicon Valley, USA along with fellow PageSnapp team members Marvin Consuegra, Raymund Delfin, Mio Galang, and Jay Albano in September last year for a chance to pitch their ideas to blue-chip companies there. PageSnapp, an app that allows businesses to update their social media followers directly using mobile phones, clinched the top spot in the first ever AngelHack Manila, a nationwide programming competition and the most prestigious hacking marathon held in June 2013. After besting 39 other rival developers in the country, Rulete and his team looked for sponsors for their trip to US. Fortunately, all the five members were able to make it. Unfortunately, however, they weren’t able to get any funding for their project while they were there. Rulete and the team,
however, saw everything as a learning experience. Those experiences and mistakes will be their baseline on their respective plans in life.
A fisherman’s techie son Rulete grew up in the fishing village of Bonggaitan in Mangagoy, Bislig City and graduated with a degree in Computer Science at the University of Southeastern Philippines (USEP) in 2004. “I really love science and technology and it started when I was young. I like to open my battery-operated toys just to check inside, ” he said. His curiosity brought him to the realization that he wanted to help his community where he weaved his dreams. As a fisherman’s son, Rulete always hoped that his father would not just arrive home with a big catch but also safe. He used to inform his father on whether updates using gathered information from various weather agency websites such as PAGASA, Japan Meteorological Agency, and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center and Ka Ernie Baron, a weather reporter back in the 1990s.