Measles, Neglect
At least 65 Mangyans,
mostly children under 10, recently died after a measles outbreak in Oriental
Mindoro. But instead of help, what the tribals got from government was
indifference and bureaucratic arrogance.
By SANDRA NICOLAS
A measles outbreak from December last year to February
2001 has killed at least 65 Mangyans, mostly children under 10 years old,
according to doctors from two medical missions. The victims were from 19
settlements of the Bangon tribe in Barangays Hagan, Lisap and Batangan, all in
Bongabong town, some 100 kilometers southeast of the capital city of Calapan,
Oriental Mindoro, an island province west of Manila.
According to the doctors, tragedy struck worst in Sitio
(sub-village) Labasan of Barangay (village) Lisap, where only five of children
below 10 years old remain after the death of 20 others.
The number of victims in the measles outbreak would
have been minimized had local health authorities responded quickly and with more
sympathy to the Mangyans, members of the mission said.
The medical missions were organized by: the non-government
organizations (NGO) Mangyan Integrated Development Program (MIDP) of the United
Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), Health Alliance for
Democracy-Southern Tagalog (HEAD-ST) and Tunay na Alyansa ng Bayan Alay sa
Katutubo (TABAK); the people's organizations (PO) Samahan
Pantribu ng mga Mangyan sa Mindoro (SPMM) and Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong
Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMP); and the National Council of Churches in the
Philippines (NCCP) and Bayan Muna-Southern
Tagalog (Bayan Muna-ST).
SPMM members informed MIDP in January about a serious
illness afflicting the Mangyan communities since the previous month that had
already killed 27 children. The remote sitios inhabited by the Bangon tribe, it
was said, were rarely visited by government barangay health workers who
apparently chose to perform their duties in the more accessible lowland areas.
Barangay Hagan, for instance, is at least a five-hour trek from the nearest
highway that includes traversing upland trails and a treacherous river.
The first medical mission was conducted between
February 9 and 12 in Barangay Hagan to assess the situation and determine the
extent of the outbreak. By the second medical mission, from February 24 to 28,
there were a total of 65 recorded deaths from measles and complications
including four during the mission itself. In Sitio Labasan of Barangay Lisap,
one of the communities where the outbreak apparently started, 20 children ages
10 and below had died and only five survived.
More are presumed to have died but counting has been
made difficult by the Bangon practice of the sick going into self-isolation in
the forest to either get well or so as not to contaminate others.
Glenda Asis of HEAD-ST and Irene Cuasay of
Kairos-Mindoro Oriental, a church-based NGO that participated in the mission,
went to see Dr. Aristeo Baldos, Oriental Mindoro provincial health officer on
February 13 to report their findings and to seek support for a second medical
mission.
Dump Trucks And Australian Charity
They were aghast, however, by Baldos' curt response. He
reportedly told them: "Why did you conduct a medical mission there? Those
Mangyans are just ruining our (health) program."
The NGO workers told him that at least his office could
give the Mangyans medicines for upper respiratory tract infections and measles
vaccines. But Baldos, they recounted, rebuffed them by saying “Just bring the
Mangyans here to the hospital where we can treat them."
He said he was not supposed to distribute vaccines as
this is the responsibility of municipal health units, the provincial health
officer said. The Mangyans, he added, should go to the Rural Health Units
instead.
Asis and Cuasay explained that for lack of money the
Mangyans could not afford traveling to the hospital; it is the job of the rural
health workers to go to them instead, they insisted.
Besides, they said, traveling was out of the question
because so many Mangyans had been taken ill and the separate Mangyan wing of the
provincial hospital was so small and had only 10 beds that it could not
accommodate many patients.
Asis also pointed out to Baldos the experience of
Mangyans where they are discriminated against, at times not even given proper
check-ups or diagnosis. But Baldos stood his ground.
Tony Calbayog, an SPMM leader, also went to see Baldos
to follow up on a solicitation letter requesting for medicines and additional
personnel for the second medical mission. Still adamant, Baldos replied:
"Nothing will come of that medical mission. The patients will just die. The
patients need to be brought to the provincial hospital for treatment."
Baldos was also said to have dismissed the second
mission as "a waste of its time, a one-day affair by people who know
nothing about medicine." When Calbayog explained that it was a three-day
mission with seven doctors and a nutritionist from Manila, Baldos maintained
that "There will be no medicines and no one will go with you."
The provincial health officer instead suggested that
SPMM-MIDP volunteers should go out of their way to ask the provincial government
in Calapan for dump trucks with which to transport the sick Mangyans to the
hospital. This, he said, is what they did for other Mangyan communities.
Or, if they chose, they could wait for an Australian
medical mission that was arriving on March 4 and was planning to go to Mansalay,
Roxas and Bongabon, he said.
Justifying Neglect, Blaming The Victims
In an interview reported in the March 4 issue of the Philippine
Daily Inquirer, Baldos repeated his refrain that "They (the Mangyans)
need hospitalization. They need active treatment. This is better than conducting
medical missions," he purportedly stressed. "It is hard to bring
medical supplies and equipment to areas as remote as those in Bongabong,"
he said. "We can better manage the patients here."
Baldos even blamed the Mangyans for refusing to be
vaccinated, hence the epidemic. "These Mangyans were so elusive," he
said referring to the Bangons during the Department of Health's vaccination
campaign in previous years.
But that NGOs could work with Mangyan communities and
successfully conduct two medical missions despite their limited resources tends
to refute Baldos' allegations.
It is also ironic that the neglected Mangyan
communities are living within the government's National Integrated Protected
Areas Program (NIPAS) because endangered tamaraw (a wild water buffalo) live in
the area. There is even an ecotourism project by some scenic waterfalls under
development.
Mindoro's Aborigines
The Mangyans are the aborigines of Mindoro, an island
said to have originated from volcanic eruptions 50 million years ago. They are
composed of the tribes of Iraya, Alangan, Batangan, Tadyawan, Buhid, Bangon and
Hanunuo. Most of them live by orchard farming and fishing.
As an ethno-linguistic group, the Mangyans have
preserved their agriculture, lifestyle and culture despite more than three
centuries of colonization by Spain and the United States and military occupation
by Japan. They have been driven further into remote uplands and rivers by the
inroads of landgrabbing and "development" initiated by migrant
landlords and by government itself.
Government neglect, discrimination, lack of livelihood
and epidemics have since reduced the Mangyan population to at least 80,000 by
the last count 10 years ago. #