‘Bring them (not only him) home’

“You can jail a Revolutionary, but you can't jail the Revolution.”

—Huey Newton

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

IF we have a morsel of patriotism in the heart and mind, and real love for fellow Filipinos, we should agitate not only for the release of International Criminal Court (ICC)-detained former strongman Rodrigo Roa Duterte, or now universally known as “Road-reegow Row-whaa Dow-terti”, but also for the other Filipinos languishing in different jails abroad.

The slogan should be “bring them home” instead of “bring him home.”

“Bring him home” alone reeks of zealotry and monomania. “Bring them home” one by one connotes sodality and humanity.

For some Filipinos, to be incarcerated in a foreign land is a fate worse than death. Especially if the inmate is aware his chances of being exonerated and sent home thereafter is nil.   

At least 4,775 Filipinos were languishing in foreign jails, based on a report of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), according to Bulalat.

Of the "Prisoner OFWs" (POFWs), 1,103 were reportedly Filipinas.

For sure, many of our jailed compatriots didn’t deserve to spend a minute inside the calaboose; but because they were unknown and without any connection or position in government, their fate had been sealed, so to speak.

 

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If the Duterte die-hards believe in genuine justice and fairness, they should also raise the goblet and storm the Bastille to demand from the governments of countries that detain the Filipinos to “bring them home.”

They are no better than second-rate fanatics blinded by irrational loyalty if they continue to cry and demand only for the release of one Filipino “incarcerated” abroad (in The Hague, Netherlands) while waiting for a full-blown hearing of the cases filed against him by the ICC for the sensational crimes against humanity.

Bulalat said the number of Filipinos behind bars in foreign lands is about ten percent of the current domestic jail population.

Bulalat also quoted former senator and now finance Secretary Ralph Recto as saying, "The dispersal of Filipinos worldwide has also resulted in the incarceration of a few of them in diverse places. Some of those who joined the great Filipino Diaspora never found their own Promised Land.”

Bulalat quoted Recto as saying a reading of the 430-page DFA “global situationer” on the OFW "would bring one to places, some with exotic sounding names, where you wouldn't imagine that a Filipino would land in a jail there."

"From places near the Arctic, in Sweden and Denmark, to the Andes, in Colombia and in Peru, to Libya and Egypt in Africa, to specks of land in the Pacific, and even in the quake-damaged Islamabad, there are Filipinos in jail there," he said as reported by Bulalat.

 

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Of the 82 Philippine diplomatic posts abroad, only 12 reported that there was no Filipino detained or awaiting trial in their area of jurisdiction.

Most of the Filipinos were hauled off to jail for violation of immigration laws. The report said at least 1,200 Filipinos – or one-fourth of the POFWs - were in detention in Malaysia, mostly in Sabah, following the country's crackdown on its undocumented

guest workers.

Next to Malaysia was Israel, with the Philippine embassy in Tel Aviv reporting that 1,028 Filipinos there were facing charges in court, and those not out on bail, "detained in jails in Ramle, Hadera, Nazareth, Beersheva and Holon."

Others were caught while trying to sneak into the country without papers, such as the case of 13 Filipinos who were caught in Croatia.

Other countries where there are concentration of OFWs which also harbored Filipinos in their jails last year were Saudi Arabia (213), Kuwait (47), Singapore (192), Hong Kong (77), Japan (314).

But many Filipinos in "five continents were facing charges other than those that pertain to work or immigration concerns," Recto said. "Name it, they allegedly did it."

"One OFW faked checks in Vietnam; a nurse in Ireland was arrested for alleged al-Qaida links, a Filipina physical therapist in Michigan allegedly committed health fraud, and an aircraft engineer was arrested for "smuggling contraband into Nigeria."

In many Muslim countries, Filipinos were arrested and jailed "for drinking alcohol."

Recto also noted the rise in the number of Filipinas arrested for serving as "mules" or couriers of international drug syndicates.

There were Filipinas in jails in Denmark, Brazil, Hong Kong, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia and in many other countries last year, Recto said.

Other cases mentioned in the DFA report involved crimes of passion. "In one South American country, a Filipino Lothario was sent to jail for seducing teenagers."

Because of the rising number of "POFWs", Recto called for the augmentation of the "Assistance to National Fund" component of the DFA budget.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)

 

 

Love your clients, Sunnyside HHA instructor exhorts trainees

“I think health care is more about love than about most other things. If there isn't at the core of these two human beings who have agreed to be in a relationship where one is trying to help relieve the suffering of another, which is love, you can't get to the right answer here.”

—Donald Berwick

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

ASIDE from helping hone their skills to become Home Health Aide (HHA) professionals, the HHA bilingual supervising nurse instructor of the Queens-based Sunnyside Community Services, Inc. has exhorted trainees to “love your clients, first and foremost.”

“That’s why if you remember during the first day (of the class) when I asked you to introduce yourselves, some of you said that you’re here because you need a job,” sighed Jorge E. Gomez, MSN-Ed, BSN, BBA, RN, CCM. “I appreciate your frankness, but that’s not enough.” 

Gomez, a Colombian-American, emphasized: “You must have at least the dedication and compassion in you heart to take care of the elderly; (to be effective HHAs) you must love your clients.”

Gomez goaded the 17 trainees in his class that romped off on March 9 and concluded on April 2 to establish a rapport with their clients and make a good impression of themselves on first day in the job.

He reechoed the sentiments of Siobhan Simpson, HHA training program director, for the 17 trainees to be always mentally and physically fit in order to become effective healthcare workers.

“When you are in your clients’ homes, always be professional and focus on the Plan of Care; be honest and serve your clients with all sincerity and dignity as health workers,” Gomez added. “If you think no one is watching, somebody up there is always watching us.”

HHAs are reportedly in demand in the United States. A shortage of home care workers—home health aides (HHAs) and personal care aides (PCAs)—produces major consequences.

Americans are getting older—the leading edge of the Baby Boom generation is now 77—and that brings an increased need for long-term health care in the U.S.

Gomez, who dabbles full time as registered nurse (RN) in New York hospitals and is reinforced in the HHA project by veteran skills mentor Gloria Caballero and Carlos Meza-Alvarez, has also encouraged HHA trainees to explore the nursing profession.

“As RN, you will go a long way,” he hissed. “You may start from HHA, CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant), LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse), Associate Nurse, and get a bachelor’s degree for RN (Registered Nurse).”

Gomez said those intending to purse RN as a profession may incur a staggering amount of student loan, “but after that, when you have become nurses, you can pay off the loan.”

The United States is projected to experience a shortage of RNs that is expected to intensify as Baby Boomers age and the need for health care grows, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN).

Compounding the problem is the fact that nursing schools across the country are reportedly struggling to expand capacity to meet the rising demand for care.

AACN is working with schools, policy makers, nursing organizations, and the media to bring attention to this healthcare concern.

AACN is reportedly leveraging its resources to shape legislation, identify strategies, and form collaborations to address the shortage.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines—Ed)

   

 

 

 

‘My name is Road-reegow Row-whaa Dow-terti’

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”

—Orson Welles

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

THE hoarse voice and a somber face and expression from a former strongman in that most viewed video appearance recently at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands was cryptic.

“My name is Road-reegow Row-whaa Dow-terti.”

We’ve seen it only in the recorded films when captured members of rival Mexican and Colombian drug cartels were given the chance to say their last words before being brutally executed.

We’ve heard it only—the guttural voice—from many famous but helpless dictators in history before their barbaric deaths.

The so-called “last words” have always been enduring and epochal.

Thank God former Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte wasn’t in the death chamber, or in the hands of ruthless captors wanting to maim and decimate him when he uttered those dingy words.

It was far cry though from his trademark, the loud and bone-jarring “papatayin ko kayo; p__tang ina ninyo” (I will kill you; you sonnobavitch) woofing where he became obdurately (in)famous.

 

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No one knew, however, if Mr. Duterte intentionally inveigled it to generate instant sympathy, or he was really scared like a rabbit now that he was isolated and only at the beck and mercy of the ICC that he had threatened and maligned when he was in power.

That monologue will forever be etched in the minds of those who saw it—Filipinos and non-Filipinos all over the world.

“My name is Road-reegow Row-whaa Dow-terti” no doubt was a euphemized appeal to emotion; it has now become a political catchword and could be used by the former president’s die-hards to rally support and gain sympathies, especially that Filipinos have been known to be suckers to underdogs—or those appear to be victims of bullying and persecution.

Media networks that regularly used the “Road-reegow…” clip to chronicle Mr. Duterte’s arrest and detention in the ICC and the updates for his forthcoming full-blown hearing are innocuously helping imbibe in the psyche of the people the perception of oppression and torment supposedly being inflicted on the hitherto hard-hitting ex-Philippine leader accused of the crimes against humanity.

 

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Here are some of the most memorable but enigmatic last words and bizarre endings of famous characters who, in one way or the other, had helped shape world history:

—Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini was ousted from politics in July 1943 when the country's prospects of victory in World War II soured. According to Live Science, the ouster was the beginning of the end for Mussolini; he was immediately arrested and imprisoned at the Hotel Campo Imperatore in central Italy until September, when German paratroopers rescued him. He was taken to Germany, and then Lombardy in northern Italy, but he seemed to know the end was near. In 1945, he told an interviewer, "Seven years ago I was an interesting person. Now I am a corpse."

In 1945, Benito Mussolini told an interviewer, "Seven years ago I was an interesting person. Now I am a corpse."

Just a few months later, he'd really be a corpse. In April 1945, Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were trying to escape Italy for Spain when they were stopped by communist partisans, taken hostage and shot. Their bodies were taken to Milan's Piazzale Loreto, site of the execution of 15 anti-fascists the year before, and hung upside-down. Passersby spit on the bodies and pelted them with rocks, according to BBC news reports at the time. Photos of the corpses were widely circulated and even sold to American servicemen as grisly souvenirs.

—Adolf Hitler is a notorious exception to the trend of dictators surviving into old age. In the waning days of World War II, with the Russian Army closing in on Berlin, Hitler holed up in a bunker under the Reich Chancellery building.

According to the Top 10 Weird Ways We Deal With the Dead, as bad news poured into the bunker, Hitler made his preparations to die on his own terms. He heard of Mussolini's death and the desecration of the corpse and ordered that his own body be burned. He married his mistress, Eva Braun, and ordered cyanide capsules tested on a dog belonging to the children of German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. On April 30, Hitler and Braun went into a lower room in the bunker. Braun apparently took cyanide, while Hitler shot himself in the temple. Hitler's lieutenants followed his wishes and burned the corpses, though the burning was not thorough. The Russian army discovered the remains, identified the bodies, and then destroyed what was left to prevent Hitler's grave from becoming a shrine.

 

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—Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong also made it to age 82. Like Franco, he suffered from poor health for a long time before his death; the last time he was seen in public was in May 1976. It's not clear exactly what ailed Mao, but he may have had Lou Gehrig's disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a degeneration of the nerve cells that control movement.

Stephanie Pappas, Live Science contributing writer, said Mao had a heart attack on Sept. 2, 1976, that proved to be his downfall. Over the next several days, he suffered various crises, including a brush with death from a worsening lung infection. On Sept. 7, Mao fell into a coma from which he never awoke. Doctors took him off life support a day later, and he died a few minutes after midnight on Sept. 9.

—Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier was elected to the presidency in Haiti in 1957 and immediately began consolidating power, exiling his opponents' supporters, supervising torture of political dissidents and ordering executions of those who crossed him. A practitioner of the voodoo religion, Duvalier occasionally communed with the severed heads of his victims.

Duvalier was plagued by health problems, however, including a heart attack in 1959. His chronic diabetes and heart troubles eventually killed him in 1971.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)

 

 

 

 

 

‘Union is our power’

 —Sunnyside HHA grads join 1199SEIU’s 480,000 members.

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

THE largest healthcare union in the United States has added newly trained Home Health Aide (HHA) workers from New York City on its roster of “growing” members.

In an orientation meeting at the Sunnyside Community Services in Queens April 3, 1199SEIU (United Healthcare Workers East) organizer Monica Landinez emphasized that 1199SEIU has a membership of 480,000 as of that day, making it the biggest and largest healthcare union all over the country.

“Union is our power—a political power,” Landinez enthused.

Landinez, who has been with Sunnyside Community Services for 37 years, was part of a mammoth delegation that marched to the Washington D.C. in 2017 to protect the Medicaid, a government program in the United States that provides health insurance for adults and children with limited income and resources.

She said the union’s chief mission is to advocate for quality care and good jobs for all.

The union supports and protects frontline caregivers in hospitals, nursing homes, homecares, clinics, pharmacies and all other areas of the healthcare industry.

They include nurses, nurse aides, techs, laboratory workers, clerks, housekeepers, dietary workers, transporters, pharmacists, social workers and many other types of medical professionals.

Founded in 1932, the union’s mission has been “to stand up for quality healthcare, good jobs and social justice for all.”

1199SEIU is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which has over 2 million members and is the largest labor union in North America.

Meanwhile, as a result of the big D.C. march Landinez and fellow marchers participated in 2017, three functions central to the roles of Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a joint federal-state program providing health coverage to low-income, uninsured children, and MACPAC, the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, a non-partisan legislative branch agency that analyzes and makes recommendations on Medicaid and CHIP policies, have been addressed.

These were: providing health insurance for children; making payments to safety-net hospitals; and monitoring access to care under managed care and fee for service (FFS).

The new 1199SEIU members from the Sunnyside Home Care Project enlisted on April 3 came from a new batch of HHA graduates trained under nurse practitioner Jorge Gomez and his assistants Gloria Caballero and Carlos Meza-Alvarez and supervised by training program director Siobhan Simpson.