Letters to CFO

Thank you for all your kind words. You are giving us more credit for the mission than what we actually deserve. It's our volunteers, i.e., our MDs, dentists, nurses, prosthetists, support staff that make these medical missions work. Without their willingness to give up a week of work, pay for their plane fare, pay for their hotel stay, in many cases, even donate money to airlift patients to Manila or even to pitch in to provide spending money to families of patients, who have a prolong stay in a hospital, etc. , these are the unsung heroes of these missions.

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Dear Mely,

All things considered, I'm sorry to inform you that I can't really make it to the Manila Summit. I know I'll miss a lot.

As we have agreed at the ENFiD meeting in Malta last Jan. 18-20, the presence and participation of ENFiD will be assured by Gene Alcantara, the new ENFiD Chair. He'll be bring you good news about the strides we have made so far here in the old Continent. He'll assure you that the euphora created by the D2D Conference in Rome is being decisively translated into real engagements in transforming the Pinoy Diaspora in Europe into agents of change and protagonists of migrant developments. He'll share with you how we have been deciphering our aspirations for our fellow pinoys here and translating them into a clear formulation of vision and mission. He will be joined by some individuals from various European Countries. From Italy we have at least Merila Pecchi and Jun Remogat. I supposed they have registered already. You know, initially there was a good number of people who has shown great interest to fly to Manila join you, but tight finances made them change plans. Sigh!

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Dear Secretary Nicolas:

Thank you too for your strong support and commitment to the plight of our under privileged kababayans.

Like you, the medical volunteers have a deep passion in helping out in the medical and surgical needs of our kababayans.

We experience priceless self -satisfaction in doing voluntary medical missions. In fact, it is an "addicting habit' because once we get into it, we want to do it again and again. I echo the comments from our volunteers, Americans and Filipino alike, "just seeing the thankful, slightly-embarrassed smile in their faces, the un ending 'salamat po' from the patients, is more than enough to compensate the tiredness of the day." And they add "we seldom see or encounter these in the US".

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This email was sent to the Honorable Imelda M. Nicolas, Secretary, Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) which is self-explanatory.

Immediately after, within 3 days of this email, Ms. Nicolas mobilized her executive staff in Manila to make the appropriate initial contacts. Ms. Nicolas text me that she was at that time in the U.S. and assured me that the matter has been referred to her staff in Manila for immediate attention.

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