Mike Arroyo and his charities

First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo has reportedly announced that he is terminating all his charity projects on account of his critics giving them a "negative spin."

A Malacañang press statement said that Mike made the announcement as a reaction to "intrigues that he is using his projects, particularly those benefiting military and police personnel, to check on the loyalty of the uniformed services of government."

Mike has been the object of criticism and vilification since his wife, Gloria, began her political career as senator, and more so, when she became President of the Philippines. He had been reported as having misdeclared the family’s personal assets, of having owned real estate properties in the United States. The media had a field day making insinuations about his secret liaisons which failed to break up the First Family’s marriage.

It is just his fortune – if not misfortune – to be married to the No. 1 politician in the country which makes him a favorite target of his wife’s political opponents and critics – people who want her position, or who believe that she should be head and shoulders above the rest of us mortals.

Men who are married to popular and very accomplished women suffer from their being the First Gentleman and "the husband" of a politician, a senator or a congresswoman, an educator, a businesswoman, or a successful plastic surgeon. It’s just their luck that their wives are more known than they. But if they are successful in their own fields, they need not be ashamed, but rather glory in their wives’ success and even lend them their unqualified support.

I first met Mike when his wife was running for Vice-President. He had not been exposed to the public as his wife had been, she having been the daughter of a former President of the Republic, become a well-known economist and university professor, a secretary of trade, and a senator. Mike is a low-profile lawyer and comes from a well-heeled family. At the press dinner at which all eyes were equally focused on candidate and supporter, Mike was asked what he found most attractive in the candidate, and he replied, "Her eyes."

Mike, who had kept his temper in check – at least publicly – has finally expressed his disgust over his critics’ saying he has been using his charities for military personnel for his own purposes. These charity projects include the "Bagong Ngiti sa Dating Ngebu" free dentures project among military and police personnel and their dependents.

The dentures project have benefited also market vendors, Presidential Security Group (PSG) personnel and their dependents, Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines personnel, PGH employees and utility workers, Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) employees, and utility workers and metro aides, National Park Development Authority (NPDA) employees and attendants at Rizal Park, and Mt. Makiling in Los Banos, Laguna.

Mike’s other charity projects are "Bagong Mata Para sa May Katarata" cataract removal surgery, and medical missions that give assistance to indigent kidney patients and children afflicted with meningitis and hydrocephalus.

The Philippine General Hospital is one of Mike’s favorite charities, with funds and equipment obtained from donors by Mike and from his personal coffers helping indigent patients with cancer, hydrocephalus and meningocoele, and in need of kidney transplants.

The PGH director, Dr. Carmelo Alfiler, laments the termination of Mike’s beneficent acts. Now he and the hospital’s top surgeons who have been rendering their professional services for free, wonder where the next funds for the poor will come from.

Instead of terminating his charity projects, Mike should expand his activities to far-flung areas and villages in the country, where patients are in dire need of medical and dental services. Show your critics that you can make a difference – and many believe you can. Don’t give your critics the opportunity to do what they want you to do – that is to quit. Don’t quit, Mike.

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No sooner had they heaved a sigh of relief over the resignation of Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit – who has been perceived as No. 1 Enemy of women’s reproductive health – than feminists and militant groups found themselves opposing the appointment of the next head of the Department of Health, Dr. Francisco Duque III.

I will not touch on the charges aired over Dr. Duque’s having been appointed as a presidential favor for helping President Macapagal-Arroyo’s political campaign. Rather, I hope that Dr. Duque will be a better health system manager than his predecessor. I hope he will seriously look at reproductive health issues as a serious women’s health concern, and not be influenced by the Catholic Church.

Dr. Duque graduated from the USC College of Medicine and Surgery in 1982, and earned his master of science at Georgetown University in Washington. He also took up immunology and scientific training at the Department of Microbiology of the Georgetown School of Medicine from 1985 to 1988. He served as health undersecretary and permanent representative to the PhilHealth board while President Macapagal-Arroyo was still Vice President and social welfare secretary. He was also board chair of Lyceum-Northwestern University in Dagupan City from 1991 to 2000.

No mention is made of his interest in women’s reproductive health care, which was priority in the programs of previous health secretaries Juan Flavier, Jimmy Galvez-Tan, Carmencita Reodica and Quasi Romualdez. What Dr. Duque should do which Dr. Dayrit did not, is to promote a reproductive health program that covers, among others, family planning, maternal and child health, infertility management, adolescent sexuality, and management of post abortion cases. He should put back into the DOH a budget for the distribution of contraceptive supplies that are just lying in non-use at the warehouses. He should reinstate Postinor, an emergency contraceptive, with the Bureau of Food and Drugs. He should promote not only natural family planning, but more so, artificial contraceptive methods that have been proven to be scientifically and medically safe.

Above all, he must listen to women’s voices – not to bishops who have never been married and who do not become pregnant.

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My April 30, 2005 column printed in full an article on divorce by Apolonio G. Ramos of 42 Mindanao St., Marikina City. My apologies for attributing it to Antonio G. Ramos.

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