VOL. 7 ISSUE 202 • WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24-27, 2013

EDGEDAVAOYEARENDER

DAVAO CITY’SHEROES

BIG LITTLEHEROES

RANDY Halasan. Lloyd Edissone J. Monte-bon. 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 them-selves in this highly com-petitive world.

And it’s not just ordinary achievements they made. These are no mean mortal feats that just go by unno-ticed.

Edge Davao pays trib-ute to the men and wom-en whose milestones we have painstakingly chroni-cled and devoted generous space for names and faces that used to be of no conse-quence.

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 Filipi-no in a select cast of six that was named to this year’s prestigious Ramon Magsay-say Awards—Asia’s version of the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the world of perform-ing arts, singing wonder Montebon won the world championship with his voice joining only one other

By NEILWIN BRAVO

From little-known names come big heroes.

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 Pe-laez 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 Olym-pics 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 Anje-lay’s heroics.

In education, two young men from the Davao Medical School Founda-tion—Drs. Francis Gerwin Jalipa and Charlie Clari-on-- barged into the top 10 of the tough Licensure Ex-amination for Physicians.

In community service and research, Dr. Richard Mata introduced his anti-dote for the dreaded den-gue disease that has taken the lives of hundreds of Dabawenyos, mostly chil-dren, 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 de-votes Part II of our Yearen-der Report to our “little big heroes.”

VOL. 7 ISSUE 202 • WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24-27, 2013

VOL. 7 ISSUE 202 • WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24-27, 2013B2EDGEDAVAODAVAO CITY’S

HEROES

RANDYHALASANFrom whispers to shoutouts

RANDY Hala-san’s story came to the

pages of Edge Davao in August 2013 long before his name be-came 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 annu-ally by Bato Balani Foundation as a way of recognizing teach-ers from the country-sides.

Randy was no-where the colossal

figure he is now after he had been named one of the 2014 Ra-mon Magsaysay lau-reates—the only Fil-ipino 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 lau-reates, he immedi-ately called up Edge Davao to happily an-nounce the achieve-ment. Randy was overwhelmed by the happiness of being rewarded with the recognition he did not

even dream of achiev-ing. 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 recogni-tion man sa aming mga guro sa DepEd, okay na. Pero ito hin-di koi to pinangarap. Masyadong malaki para isipin,” Randy narrates recently as he looks back at the days when he strug-gled 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 num-ber of times in many publications and tele-vision networks. They all run the story of a public school teacher who had to traverse two treacherous riv-ers and trek seven hours to get to his school of assignment where he devotes his time teaching lumad children of the Matig-salog tribe.

But Randy’s life goes beyond the hardships of a public teacher and his in-spiring works.

Far from every-one’s knowledge is that Randy actually did not get the sup-

port of his family when he chose his as-signment in Pegalon-gan. When his story came out on this pa-per, Randy said his other family mem-bers cried. From then on, they understood Randy and his ‘new life.’

At first, Randy’ pleas for help for Peg-alongan were as low as whispers ending most often to deaf ears. When he re-ceived his plaque last August 31 at the CCP Complex main theatre, he was at a whispering distance to President Aqui-no who asked him:

“What do you need, Randy? Tell me.”

Randy’s whispers for help have become shoutouts. From muted ears came lis-tening angels and Randy can only smile with hope.

On the night Randy accepted his award from the RMMF and spoke for five minutes, every-one in the main the-atre of the country’s most revered stage listened—including President Aquino and a host of other dignitaries.

Randy has spo-ken. Let those who promised cometh.

By NEILWIN BRAVO

“Pero ito hindi ko to pinangarap. Masyadong malaki para isipin...”

VOL. 7 ISSUE 202 • WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24-27, 2013

TOP DOCTORSB3EDGEDAVAO

DAVAO CITY’SHEROES

Two of Davao City’s ex-aminees from the Davao Medical School Foundation (DMSF) cracked into the Top 10.

Dr. Francis Gerwin Jali-pa 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 medi-cal 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 is-sues 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 resi-dents as “The Walking Har-rison.”

For those in the medical profession, to be called such is like being called the walk-

By NEILWIN BRAVO

By CHENEEN R. CAPON

DR. FRANCIS GERWIN JALIPA and DR. CHARLIE CLARION

THIS year’s Licensure Examina-tion for Physicians raised a few realities and a lot of eyebrows.

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 spe-cializing in Internal Medicine and Neurology in the future.

It was one of his pediatri-cians that really gave him the first image of a doctor. Gerwin started to identify what he re-ally 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 becom-ing 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 pic-ture of Filipinos and their health–seeking behavior.

“I hope there’s enough budget and government pro-gram that will promote equal access to health care services,” he said after enumerating some of the conditions of his patients who were not capa-ble of paying hospital bills.

The tailDr. 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 doc-tor at the Southern Philip-pines Medical Center (SPMC) specializing in internal medi-cine.

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 de-spite 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 think-ing 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 pa-tients gave him a clearer pic-ture of theories.

Becoming a doctor was not actually part of his road-map but was a random deci-sion 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 Med-ical Technology board exam right after taking up Medical Technology in San Pedro Col-lege (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 pub-licly owned facilities as well as the conditions of people of dif-ferent faces yearning for better medical services.

“SPMC is not far from what’s happening in Philip-pine 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-specializ-ing in Electrophysiology in the next six years, Clarion said he would return to Davao City af-ter 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 topnotch-ers 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 Estu-art (1984), Erwin Hontiveros (1984), Max Larena (2006), and Saranillo (February 2014).

DMSF ranks no. 9 in the entire country based on the re-sults of the 2014 August board exams. The school has consis-tently ranked among the top 10. (CRC)

ER N I E G a w -ilan was

not meant to see the world. His mother a t t e m p t e d 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 with-out fully developed legs and arm. He has one functional extremity but the rest are not. Howev-er, 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 learn-ing 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 nat-ural to the waters where he felt he is normal. “My disabilities are not seen when I am in the water,” quipped Ernie when in-terviewed 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 coun-tries so far.

His biggest achieve-ment in 2014 was earn-ing 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 Ro-drigo Duterte as he paid

tribute to Ernie during the opening of a basket-ball tournament last No-vember.

Ernie has become an inspiration for others, who like him, are suffer-ing from physical disabil-ities. He has also shown a special talent for singing and is always willing to talk to persons with dis-abilities on how to over-come the storms of their lives.

Afterall, this legless torpedo has proven that he can ride the storm.

ERNIE GAWILANThe legless torpedo

Dr. Francis Gerwin Jalipa

Dr. Charlie Clarion

VOL. 7 ISSUE 202 • WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24-27, 2013B4EDGEDAVAODAVAO CITY’S

HEROES

“Dengue is like diarrhea,” Mata tells Edge Davao in an in-terview. “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 p e r -

c e p -tion

that a d e n -gue patient dies be-cause of a low platelet

count. Indeed, most treatments are focused on bring-

ing the platelet count back to normal, and people have resorted to all sorts of r e m e d i e s

– durian and tawa-tawa, for example – just

to achieve this.Mata, however, says such

“medication” actually does little to solve the problem. His favor-ite 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 dehydra-tion.

“The arteries and veins of a patient have thousands of pin-point holes due to the body’s re-action to the dengue virus, caus-ing the fluids inside the blood vessels to sip out. Thus, the feel-ing 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 es-pecially on the first three days because the laboratory results most of the time will appear nor-mal.”

So if dengue is a disease of dehydration, what else can the cure be but hydration?

“The basic solution to de-hydration 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 prop-erly 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 eradi-cate 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 conventional-ly given. He says there are four strains of dengue, each differen-tiated 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 hy-dration (delivered intravenous-ly) is enough for most patients. But Mata pushes for giving more fluids in all patients in the rela-tively 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 prac-tice at the Panabo Polymedic Hospital that has not seen a den-gue 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 doc-tors’ efforts, that city has shed this dubious distinction.

Mata’s work is still stirring some controversy among medi-cal circles, but internationally he has been recognized for his com-mon 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-den-gue-fever.com) is frequently vis-ited 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 ad-vocacy, and he hopes the Philip-pines will adopt it in order to do away with dengue completely.

By JON JOAQUIN

Pediatrician on a mission

ROLLY 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 Con-suegra, 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 mara-thon held in June 2013.

After besting 39 oth-er 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, how-ever, 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 sonRulete grew up in the

fishing village of Bonggaitan in Mangagoy, Bislig City and graduated with a degree in Computer Science at the Uni-versity of Southeastern Phil-ippines (USEP) in 2004. “I really love science and tech-nology 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 com-munity 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 agen-cy websites such as PAGASA, Japan Meteorological Agency, and the Joint Typhoon Warn-ing Center and Ka Ernie Bar-on, a weather reporter back in the 1990s.

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 swal-lowed by the sea during ty-phoon Sendong in 2011.

These and the safety of his father encouraged him to develop a Project NOAH mo-bile app in partnership with the Department of Science and Technology in 2012. Equipped with experience and technology, Rulete de-termined to keep his father and other fishermen safe by providing them real-time and relevant weather infor-mation.

“It was actually my big break,” he said in an inter-view. He can vividly remem-ber when he and his col-leagues developed a mobile app version of DOST’s Proj-ect NOAH in 2012 using the HTML5 (HyperText Markup Language), a programming language that allows app de-velopment across Web plat-forms.

Project NOAH, or Na-tionwide Operational Assess-ment of Hazards (NOAH), is an accurate, integrated responsive disaster and miti-

gation program by the devel-oped by the government in partnership with the private sector with the aim to pro-vide 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 Hack-athon held in Davao City by Smart Communications Inc. through the Smart Developer Network (SMARTDevNet).

This soon led him to cre-ating 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 power-ful app not just for fishermen but for the whole nation. “Be-ing 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 safe-ty and convenience. He said the company is planning to launch a healthcare mobile app in January next year in-tended to provide people with a convenient and direct connection with their doc-tors through mobile phones.

For Rulete, it’s not about the money but the satisfac-tion of helping people, and he uses his genius to make life easier – and safer – for others.

A genius for helping othersBy CHENEEN R. CAPON

DR. RICHARD MATATHE 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 em-barked 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.