The advocacies that I support are directly connected with one another and at times is personally related on me. See, both sides of my family are cancer carriers, which makes  me being susceptible to it. My mother had me very late in her life and dad was already taking a lot of medication because of his disease. Eventually, he died of cirrhosis of the liver which was a complication of him taking medicine early in his life. My mother died of renal failure. My aunt died of pancreatic and breast cancer. Growing up, I knew what the word cancer means.
At a young age, I didn’t mind having bruises, nosebleeds or when I coughed the chest pains was like a hard object was put on my chest. I didn’t complain because I did  play hard. I just knew that it hurt.
At thirteen, menstruation was already an issue until my grandmother saw me with bruised thigh. I did  not understand what the issue is about, but my mother was really serious in interrogating me about those bruises. Next thing I knew, I was brought to a pediatric clinic of Dr. Borja and had tests. All I can say is that Philippine General Hospital (PGH) became my home on month’s end. My mother was devastated. I had no idea what it was. My mom and my grandmother went crazy with concoctions of everything you can think of. I ate cow’s liver, malunggay (became my favorite), buco and all those herbs.
After a year of being terrified I was tested again, and this time my mother was told I have acute iron deficiency anemia that is leaning towards aplasty leukemia, but was lucky it was caught early. So I can imagine what other parents are going through with worries about their children’s health.
A hospital is like a second home to me. When my mother was in her renal failure stage we would spend our days inside a hospital rather  than our house. I will always be thankful that I have survived that challenge because of the friends I made. The perks of being involved with advocacies did help me go through the coping hardships both financially and emotionally. I can therefore, recognize when a friend or acquaintance call for help in the very same predicament I was in, for most of my life that is.
Being involved in someone else’s predicament was like a twin or a beacon of an inner consciousness in me. I honestly do not like hospitals or hospices because although others find that I have a very tough exterior, I really have a very cotton candy heart.
I am after all a human being with complexities that are  uniquely mine. I choose a path that others may not or cannot or will not traverse , but I am drawn to it because it is me. I am very emphatic about certain things because I can see or have felt the same at some point in my life.
When I ask for help I do not intend it to be a circus, there will always be a backstory to what is being planned for. Seeing each opportunity to help through collection of donations is just one way of helping those that are actually in need.
AMIEL is a namesake of a very good friend and former student, so when he needed me I just had to heed the call to participate in his quest for financial assistance. See his parents is like my mother, doing their best to financially and emotionally support the need of their child to fight a disease called cancer. Most people, ignorant ones I suppose would judge people who are in the pay ward of PGH but none of them knew or refuse to know that these parents have gone to all charities and politicians asking for financial aids, and would wait for their guarantee letter just so they will have a reassurance that they have funds to use to prolong the lives  of their love ones. Amiel’s and other parents in PGH pay ward are exactly doing that and all sorts of fund raising activities to each help their children financially.
So when our organization was planning for a trick or treat, I just had to jump in and follow the idea of one of our board of trustees, Kleng Agbayani and our ” crazy” secretariat administrator, Mutya. Their  idea was to either support ailing patients of another disease or donate to someone. He did give me the very ray of hope that maybe, just maybe,  I can push for the idea that he started. See, the people in HAPI is not very hard to prod what they just needed is a rational prodding why it is needed to be done, having a very supportive Chief of Finance Officer, Dwengster Bulaclac do help a lot. What can be so hard in pooling the resources and donating the proceeds to a very noble cause?
HAPI have always been a HOME that you can plan with and made them realistically viable. It is after all an organization that is openly supportive of anything HUMANE. HAPI is an advocate of PROGRESSIVE HUMANISM, thus,  it empowers the stakeholders to actively participate in projects and programs that supports HUMANISM in all forms. Again it made me realize that I am HUMANE because we are HAPI. So if anyone wishes to continue helping us support this endeavor, you can go to hapihumanist.org for donation or email us at [email protected].