MY SERVICE, OUR SERVICE, MY JOY

By BIENVENIDA ABAN CRISANTO*
(Speech supposed to have been delivered at a ceremony honoring Dr. Crisanto as a Golden Jubilee and charter member of the Inner Wheel Club of Quezon City, 2010)

Way back in 1960, my husband, Carmelo Crisanto, who was managing a paper mill, was invited to be a charter member of the Rotary Club of Quezon City which was being organized at the time by Ceferino S. Picache, the printer-publisher of Bookman.

A big celebration was held to induct the first set of officers and members, to which my husband was included. As his wife, I was also invited to the induction of officers of the RCQC, and there and then became a charter member of the first Inner Wheel Club of Quezon City. We were honored by the presence of President Carlos P. Garcia and his wife, Leonila during the induction held at the Social Security System Bldg of Quezon City.

From 1960-61 I have been a charter member . Then from 1961-62, I was elected a secretary taking down notes of the minutes of the meetings. Then from 62-63, a director; and then 63-64, the vice-president. Then from 64-65, I was finally put up as the president of the Inner Wheel Club of Quezon City. Later on, they had wanted to reelect me but I told them, “Everyone has a potential to be a president.”


Sisterhood among Rotary Anns
The Rotarians had weekly meetings while we, in the Inner Wheel, also had ours in a separate section in the commercial place, usually the restaurants. Then the women decided to have meetings of our own in the different residences of the Rotary Anns where the homeowner became the host.


We, members, were very close to each other, sharing stories of our families, lovelives, especially the very intimate stories of our relationships with our husbands. We talked about ourselves and our businesses. I received advice from the elder members who were 20 years older than I was. It was very normal way then for the officers of the club to be closely personal with each other.

The more senior members, Amelia Zabarte, Pat Picache, Trining Enriquez, and others, talked about the humble beginnings of their families; later on they shared stories about their husbands. “Ngayon lang sila nagbibinata kasi ngayon lang sila my time – now that their children are grown up and their businesses are successful,” (thereby hinting at their sometimes melancholy life as wives.) I was only 34 then as president, and the others – Picache, were 20 years older. The older members gave me advice "oh you will encounter this… and that…”

“Nagbubuntis na ako noon, I was in the family way, and then all the while, they were giving me advice. Syempre because they were older and more experienced parang anak ako na pinapayuhan. They were already successful in their lines of businesses, having put up their own buildings and enterprises, and with achieving businessmen-husbands to boot while my husband then was still only a manager of a paper mill.

We developed friendship first as the start of our closeness. This was nurtured when after luncheon meetings, we would say to each other, “O pagkatapos ng miting ha, punta tayo sa Divisoria, ” So some of us hied off riding the Mercedes Benz of Mrs. Picache to get to Divisoria just to meander and buy whatever we could, like clothes and shoes. Hubaran ng alahas, pagkatapos, paikut ikot sa Divisoria, naghahanap ng kakaining lumpiang sariwa na gawa ng Intsik..We were well-dressed in the meeting but would dress down, wearing rubber slippers just to go around Divisoria, afraid that our jewels would be snatched or we would get held up. We often looked for that Chinese-cooked lumpiang sariwa. Ang sarap sarap noon, and after eating we would go home filling up the car of Ms. Picache. Puno ang kotse ni Ms. Picache with us – but we did not mind, showing how really close we were to each other. Sisterhood had a real meaning then. Although we were just coasting along as member-wives of our husbands, during my term, we constantly talked with each other remembering our motto, "selflessness in friendship and service to humanity.”

Inner Wheel Nationalization. Initially, the Inner Wheel existed only by district. But in 1967, the Association of the IWC of the Philippines, Inc. was put up to gather all the Inner Wheel Clubs under one organization. Trinidad Legarda, one of the first members of the Inner Wheel club of Manila then became president, and continued her presidency.

Doctor’s = Rotary motto. Actually, before I became a member of the Inner Wheel, I had already my own clinic at San Francisco del Monte in Quezon City, holding medical consultations among the poor patients in the communities around our house and charging only P20 then whereas the going on rate was P80 to P100 per consultation by my colleagues. They would mock me, and say, “Ano ba yang si Beny, ang liit-liit ng bayad?”

But I held up my head high because I knew that I was truly serving the poor who cannot afford to buy medicines, and on top of that, pay for expensive professional fees. I knew I could cure them. After all, even if my practice had been confined to the Philippine patients, I had enough skills to heal patients suffering from tropical diseases. My constant exposure to them eventually made me raise my own professional skills, coupled by exposure to international health discussions.

Medical mission: a roving clinic. When I became president, I conceived and proposed the establishment of a medical clinic because it hewed close to our motto “service to humanity.” What service can I give but the same medical professional skills?

Upon my prodding, I proposed to the Inner Wheel Club of QC during the presidency of Vicky Hechanova, a pharmacist, (67-68) the setting up of a mobile clinic, a parallel undertaking with the other projects of the Rotarians, who had member doctors and dentists to help us. The project was successful as it garnered the support of everyone.
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Motto: Service to Others. Lacking a permanent venue, our medical mission was mobile. We conducted consultations every Sunday at the covered patios of churches, bringing our trucks of chairs, tables, and other medical supplies to put up a medical clinic.

Our streamers attracted the churchgoers and so we had our hands full. We gave away free medicines some we bought and thers donated by pharmaceutical companies which were eager to promote their products through our medical missions. Later on, when our building was set up, we included dental services not during our missions then. Our member-dentists shared their services and expertise for free. As a pediatrician, I usually attended to the mothers who brought their children with primary complex.

The mission was lively because many Sunday churchgoers became curious and approached us about it. We did not even have to announce anything. Almost everyone wanted to consult us. A great come-on were the many free medicines. Humihingi sila ng multi-vitamins.

For the IWQC staff, we prepared food to make us last the long periods – so long as there were patients, sometimes lasting half a day, we stayed to attend to all the patients. Habang may pasyente, naruruon kami. Usually masses lasted till noon so we had to stay there as well.

There was great camaraderie among us; we felt that we were living our motto: truly a service to others, in a very selfless manner. Vicky Hechanova, married to Ramon, was reelected president of the Inner Wheel Club to continue our highly successful, well-known and popular medical mission. I was the chair of the mission, being a doctor, while she was the president. But we also had member-doctors as well as other volunteer-doctors who were non-members. The other members assisted by dispensing medication, interviewing and arranging the patients to be attended to with dispatch. Rotarian Greg Feliciano, husband of Inner Wheel member Pat Feliciano, head of the Social Welfare Administration or SWA also was there to assist us.

A Home for the Medical Mission. In 1971, Ester Vibal, upon assumption as president, conceived of a building for us to house our clinic more permanently. She proposed to Mayor Norberto Amoranto a place but the latter instead gave us a renewable lease-contract for 25 years the use of a small 200 meter lot in the compound of the Kamuning High School then, now called Quezon City High School. This is adjacent to the Boy Scouts Headquarters inside the QCHS compound along Scout Ybardolaza near corner Kamuning Streets, Quezon City.

The synerygy was tremendous in making the project successful. Donations poured in– from the building materials to the payments for labor. Even an architect-member of Rotary together with other construction engineer-members designed and constructed the building. I was focused on the mission, all the while feeling happy that finally we would have a permanent home for our medical mission. It was an organizational undertaking of the Rotary and the Inner Wheel Clubs of Quezon City, the first in the history of the Rotary Philippines.

When the clinic opened to the public, we offered internal medicine to women patients with children. Humihingi sila ng multi-vitamins for their children. We gave them, actually until now but I add that they need to eat nutritious food and not rely on capsules and tablets to make their bodies strong, healthy and resistant to diseases.

So every Thursday, we had free clinics in the building. Ester being a publisher-printer donated books which we catalogued and shelved in a library and added magazines patronized by students and teachers then.

Other IW Projects
Since the IWP was put up, presidents have had other projects like —tubig sa barrio, Operation Karunungan, and nursery and kindergarten school, Tunay Na Ating Operation Paglingap Sa Elderly, Ako ay Pilipino contest complete with awards of scholarships with financial rewards, such as P10,000 for first, another for second etc. It was our medical missionin 1967 which started this plethora of projects by other Inner Wheel Clubs in the Philippines and now have become implemented nationwide.

Although every IWQC president has her own project, almost all have invariably organized and supported a medical mission yearly. These are beautification, clean and green, coupled with planting trees and plants.

As all Rotarians are owners of companies, banks, businessmen, people who are up there so-called –their wives, Inner Wheel Club members, have enough resources to get involved with the Inner Wheel. During our time, Nenita Evans held a cooking session in a make-shift small kitchenette in our building. Being a nutritionist she saw the need to make the women understand the value of cooking healthy food. The project was not a simple recipe-laden activity but rather one that emphasized preparing inexpensive nutritious foods to help mothers understand the need for healthy servings. Another one was Meding Gutierrez, (74-75) a retired teacher who thought of putting up a daycare and nursery school beside our clinic. This has become a well- earning endeavor, while the clinic is still mainly a non-paying service project. Na overpower kami.

Right now, I have a self-imposed obligation to be in the clinic, previously Thursdays but now Saturdays. I treat families – my TB yung iba. Mostly though, my patients are mothers with their children. With free consultation and free medication, people were attracted to the clinic.

My husband, when still alive, was very supportive – allowing me to be active. He had his own job, but he knew the importance of my practicing my skills among the poor patients and so gave me full support, even helping me with the speeches whenever I was invited to speak at a public gathering. My children, Chuck bring me to the clinic or arranged it, every Saturday while Pixie or Third, my eldest son who has just arrived from New York and is a practicing doctor there, picks me up, to go home to Pasig. My involvement has become a family affair.

Once, we were told by the DOH to ask donations from our patients, because they might sell the medicines. They rationalized that psychologically, the patients would think it a big investment to donate for the medicines. So they would value whatever we had given them. Hence now, we accept payment for medicines.

But our work is very meritorious encouraging others to follow our footsteps. Our building built after ten years of existence of the IWQC has become a permanent place for our meetings, missions, school and other services. This has attracted others to follow suit like the Inner Wheel of Manila which put up their own building in Dao much later than we did.

Service Without Seeking Fame
I want to say this: everybody has been asking me why I have not been included in the national presidency, yet, I have accumulated more than 50 awards. I answer I don’t know. Now people are asking, why I have this red rose of friendship.

I never aspired to be this and that, national president, or national representative because I was thinking that my service as chair of the medical and dental clinic in QC has been enough. Neither did I aspire to be a district chair, which is a qualifying credit to join the higher posts, nationally and internationally. The urgency of attending to the health needs of our people, this Inner Wheel health project, has become my preoccupation, my commitment, my life though sans the trappings of fame and any position can offer.

TB, number one killer
In 1993, a group of Filipino pulmonologists went abroad for a convention They found out the results of a World Health Organization survey that, 70 per cent of world is sick with TB, and 70% of the 70% are in Asia – with China as No. 1, and the Philippines the 5th in the incidence of TB. So these pulmonologists, under the Philippine Coalition against TB which aimed to eradicate TB in the country published in the newspaper that they wanted NGO volunteers in partnership with the government. I volunteered as a member and put up the IWQC to be a member also. Since then, I have been very active in that –attending seminars, lectures, and conventions thinking of myself as a self-appointed Pulmonologist.

Every week, it has been a part of my life to be in the clinic. I feel happy knowing my patients get well, especially when I became a member of this coalition.

I announced to the community that we should adopt communities and we did. These ten marginalized communities are Payatas A and B, Pansol, Kaingin 1 and 2, Pinagbuhatan, and Scout Torillos, among others. In these communities, we conduct our mission, bringing with us, x-rays rented from Quezon Institute, and using them to find out the state of health of our patients. Many patients come over, attracted by free x-rays as well as by medicines. I would also urge them to come again and again till they were well to insure that their health had returned.

The need to help, stemming partly from that Rotarian motto: “service to humanity” is so ingrained in my psyche that I encourage people I meet, even lowly workers like that taxi driver to come over to the clinic to be examined and prescribed medicines, once I notice something wrong with them physically.

Today, I feel very much fulfilled as a doctor. I am sure that if my husband were here, he would relish the same satisfaction I feel – first, of being able to practice my profession outside (initially in the 60’s) and within the Inner Wheel Club; second, of being thanked by my patients who were healed in our clinic, third, of being recognized, and fourth, being awarded for my work by our organization, the Inner Wheel Club of Quezon City. My practice, my commitment have been deepened immeasurably by the constant exposure to the health needs of our kababayan.

However, I rue the dwindling if not lack of funds to sustain our medical operations, compared to what the IWQC has exposed to Gawad Kalinga of P1M.

My wish is that you would raise the level of your financial support as our clinic is naghihikahos. We can hardly pay for Luz, our secretary who is in great need of a home. She is a battered woman living with a jobless husband in their relatives’ house in Bulacan. Our other kababayan are in great need of health sustenance and care until now. I have been spending out of my own finances for the many items to maintain the clinic. If we can grant Gawad Kalinga P1M then I would like to have the same amount if not more for the clinic. After all this clinic has been in existence for 43 years, almost the same length of service of 50 years that I have been involved and it has provided recognition to the Inner Wheel Club of Quezon City through all of 43 years.

My honor is yours too, our honor as self-sacrificing members of the Inner Wheel Club of Quezon City. To the Rotary Club of Quezon City and the Philippines, may our tribe increase. To the Rotary International, let us use our organizations to hold more health and peace missions all over the world.

Let us make everyone live healthily and happily on earth. So be it.

as told to Wilhelmina S. Orozco