Inquirer Editorial

May 4, 2004

Commitment

ONCE upon a time in the not too distant past, a graduate of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine received his license to practice and shortly thereafter traveled to poverty-stricken Samar province to take up a position as community health officer in one of its towns.

The year was 1979 and Dr. Remberto "Bobby" de la Paz was 27. He would eventually return to Manila to marry the woman he loved, a physician like himself, and bring his bride back to the same province, there to employ their intelligence and training to care for the ailing.

It was hardly, as anyone remotely familiar with conditions in the countryside would know, a situation guaranteed to put Bobby and Sylvia de la Paz in clover. Not by any stretch of the imagination could it have been a money thing, as one Dr. Juan Flavier or other "doctors to the barrios" would agree, perhaps wistfully. (Think payments in terms of a bundle of eggplant, six eggs, perhaps a live chicken. Think of scant medical supplies, or hurrying to a sick patient on foot, in the dark, on the equivalent of the proverbial 10 miles of bad road.)

 

But by accounts, the couple were committed, not only to the Hippocratic Oath but also to a passion: the necessity of bringing their considerable talents and skills to bear on a situation so bereft, so starkly impoverished, it cannot but be deemed unjust. The example set by the De la Pazes would be so evocative of hope in these times of despair if not for the fact that Bobby is gone now. In April 1982, a gunman pumped him full of bullets; he died hours later, leaving a widow and a son.

The couple's commitment turned out to be a dangerous badge to carry, particularly in the dark days of martial law, and it resulted in their being suspected as communist sympathizers. Bobby's killing has yet to find resolution.

And this is what we have come to in this country of our affections. It's enough to drive one to weep.