With Rep. Nerissa Soon Ruiz filing a bill reverting the name of the Vicente Sotto Hospital to Southern Islands Hospital, a positive relevance would be to point out a brief history of this beloved hospital, the first general hospital maintained by the national government outside of Manila in 1913.
In an article on the background of the street Arlington Pond I wrote for Zee Magazine in July 2002, research pointed out that Arlington Pond was honored for having been the administrator of the construction of the Southern Islands hospital in 1911 and then appointed as the first Head of the SIH when it was inaugurated in April 1, 1913. His assistant was Dr. Augusto Villalon and the chief nurse was Ramona Cabrera.
Arlington Pond was a US Army surgeon assigned to the Philippines in what was called the "Philippine War of Insurrection" in 1898. When the war was over, the emerging American Colonial Government encouraged those discharged from the war service to stay on to man the bureaucracy.
Dr. Pond volunteered and his first assignment was as the District Health Officer of Cebu - his first job to trouble shoot a cholera and dysentery epidemic. He lost no time implementing basic rules of health and sanitation, spreading health workers to the countryside. Dr. Pond's admirable work did not escape the attention of Cebu Representative Sergio Osmeña and Dr. Victor Heiser, the Director of Health. Both worked out a plan to construct a general hospital in Cebu with Dr. Arlington Pond as the first administrator in 1911. He stayed on until World War I broke out and he was assigned to Europe. Post war found him coming back to his beloved Cebu.
It should be pointed out that his wife, Elizabeth Pond followed him to Cebu, (probably the first American woman here) in the early American Colonial period. Sharing her husband's concern for public health, she focused on maternal and child welfare. In a thatched roof structure near the Customs house, Elizabeth presided over a Puericulture Center offering prenatal and child care. This is why another street near the Redemptorist Church was named after her.
Childless, Arlington and Elizabeth Pond sparked this remarkable romance with their beloved Cebu where they became prominent figures in the community in Cebu. Dr. Pond went into the shipping business with Ramon Aboitiz and Najib Taki Deen, who was also a discharged US Army medic.
Dr. Pond had an attack of severe appendicitis while sailing and died on the operating table at SIH in 1932. His wife Elizabeth, stayed on, active in social work until World War II caught up with her. She was incarcerated at the U. of Santo Thomas prison camp where she died of malnutrition.
Delia Jurado
Cebu City
