Hearing a number of our fellow immigration officers had gone beyond the stars during this time of Covid-19 made me realize how uncertain our life on earth is. A few years ago, they were working at the Ninoy Aguino International Airport. Now they are part of my memory.
Former prexy Ferdinand Tendenilla of Immigration Officers Association of the Philippines was intubated and became comatose but through God’s grace and love is now back to duty. His bloodline comes from Bato.
Immigration officer Teddy Ignacio told me on my first day of service at the NAIA: “Mandy learn to save from your salary and overtime.” During my years with the Bureau of Immigration, all permanent employees received overtime pay.
Duty at international airports and seaports of an immigration officer/employee of the bureau is paid a salary from our government and overtime pay collected from international airlines and vessels entering our country. Our overtime pay does not affect our government national budget. The Immigration officers Association of the Philippines is the collecting arm of BID. I once headed this association for two years and my term was extended for another year. Assignment at the airport is more preferable for many reasons and opportunities; you may befriend foreigners and international stewardesses.
Pardon for digressing in my storytelling, let me now come to my topic: support team during a time of crisis, when you are in the eye of the storm.
It was years later when I received bad news that kuya Teddy was sick of colon cancer. We convinced him to be confined at Chinese General Hospital for we have a good relationship with the hospital during the days of the Kabisig. In behalf of IOAP, we promised to help him with the hospital expenses. He was so thankful of it. Kuya Ted was freed from worrying about his hospital expenses by his support team who were just a text or phone call away.
Remembering that situation, I asked myself what people do when struck with an overwhelming problem and they don’t have enough resources or money to sustain what is needed.
Take the case when a son or any member of the family is sick in the hospital. How do they manage to response to settle expenses of their sick member, from medicines, doctor’s fee and other financial burdens? Misfortune reduces you to tears and your breath becomes difficult because of the gravity of your problem. Calculating the amount of money for the hospital bill after staying several days, when your family had already blown out the little savings in the bank, will force you to sing:
“And maybe tomorrow
I’ll find what I’m after
I’ll throw off my sorrow
Beg, steal or borrow my share of laughter”.
Who Can I Turn To
Anthony Newley/Leslie Bricusse
Tomorrow comes and there is a knock in your room in the hospital. When you let the two visitors inside the room, you see a fat envelope in the hands of the member of the Board of Directors in your association, then you start to feel better and tears of joy come to your eyes.
The Prexy and the BOD member who came inside the room of the hospital during our time in the IOAP were called our support team/group.
During normal times, or with a pandemic, people get sick. Action should be taken in order to be ready for eventuality. We need to organize a support system intended to lend a hand or money to member who needs help. Let us form an association among employees in our office, our church, find our extended family and band together (extended family include close friends of our family).
In our barangay of Buyo, Virac, Catanduanes, we have several support groups called ‘sociodad’. Five days ago, a wife walked to the door of the home of my neighbor Celia Tabo, and when I asked her about the purpose of her visit, she answered she would borrow five thousand pesos from their “sociodad.”
Our “sociodad” system in Buyo started before I was born. Doc Ramon Felipe Sarmiento even volunteered some ideas about the history of ‘sociodad’ in Virac, during the observance of Arts month. You can call it in any word you want, as long as its aim is to support someone in his time of crisis. Lift his spirit when he is ‘inside a storm.”
Did I do this for kuya Teddy because of his advice when I started working at NAIA? Whatever thought was on my mind that time became our standard practice at the Airport.
Take the case of Supervisor Sheila when we learned that she would undergo exploratory operation, and after my brother Doc Zafe told me the meaning of the medical term, I instantly requested our BOD Dennis Opina (now of Immigration office in Laguna) to accompany me and have Sheila transferred to a better hospital. People serve others when they have more than enough for themselves. Mother Teresa once said, “Give, but give until it hurts”.