Why do we have to go looking for trouble in West Africa?

If there is something this country has no shortage of, it is humbug. For a country with a very spotty public health record, what on earth could have driven our health secretary to volunteer sending Filipino medical professionals to West Africa to help fight the Ebola outbreak. Is Enrique Ona running a high fever or something? Rather than go looking for trouble, we should be sewing up our porous borders instead to guard against Ebola.

It is not that we do not want to help in this crisis, or any crisis for that matter. Always prone to crises ourselves, we cannot ignore the fact that foreign assistance has always been there to help us to our feet. But the better part of prudence is to stay home and do our best to prepare as the virus could come knocking on our doors anytime. With 10 million Filipinos working overseas, many of them close enough to Ebola's ground zero, that is a very distinct possibility.

The Philippines knows nothing about Ebola. Not even Enrique Ona does. Even experts at the famed Centers for Disease Control in the United States admit as much. Yet, for reasons only Ona knows, he wants to send our clueless -- pardon the term -- compatriots into the jaws of death. The crisis in West Africa requires expertise and efficiency, not suicidal maniacs.

I submit that there are crises in this world that require a global response. And this could be one of them. But it has to be clarified that the term global does not really mean the involvement of each and every country in the world. All it means is massive. And even massive has to be qualified, meaning only those whose contributions are relevant, meaningful and necessary have to participate.

That is the reason why, despite calls for a global response, many countries in the African continent itself have not bothered to send contingents to the affected areas in West Africa. Their countries are honest enough to admit to themselves that they simply do not have the means and the expertise to do something good and positive in the battle against Ebola.

Yet here is the Philippines, or more specifically its health secretary, proposing the sending of Filipino medical professionals to the Ebola-stricken areas. Since nobody knows anything about Ebola -- the method being used right now to fight it is simple containment and the introduction of experimental drugs -- it is to be presumed that none of the Filipinos Ona wants to send to Africa have any knowledge about the disease.

So what will they be doing there? More importantly, what will they be doing there that many other African countries themselves are refraining from doing? If Ona truly wants to contribute something to Ebola, he should start making sure that as few Filipinos as possible are exposed to the disease, instead of sending them to where they can be exposed. Ona sure has it the other way around.

Ebola aside, our Filipino medical professionals are more needed at home. Even Ona himself knows that there is a gaping shortage of doctors, nurses and midwives to serve the public health requirements of the country, especially in the urban barangays and in the countrysides. This shortage of warm bodies is exacerbated by a serious lack of facilities and medicine.

Ona should take care of his own backyard first before he starts looking over his neighbor's fence. There are so many things Ona and his medical professionals can do at home, if they are so inclined to work very hard. With abject poverty a hallmark of Philippine society, health problems cannot but beg for prompt and constant attention, attention Ona cannot just ignore in favor of some other problem best left to the real experts to deal with.

Ona may be imbued with a deep sense of patriotism. Maybe he simply wants to see the Philippine flag ranged against the other flags of other volunteer nations in the fight against Ebola. But not every opportunity to display patriotism for the sake of displaying it must be grabbed. We need to choose our battles, so to speak. What a terrible blow it will be to our misguided patriotism if, instead of helping fight Ebola, we only botch it because of our ignorance and lack of expertise.

Even more terrible is the possibility of these Filipino medical professionals contracting the disease. Does Ona already have a policy in mind on how to deal with such a possibility. What is Ona to do? Will he bring the stricken Filipino home or will he bar him or her from getting repatriated? If he brings him or her home, does he know what it takes to isolate the patients? Is Ona prepared to meet the social backlash from such an event?

Some are saying that Ona is a possible senatorial candidate in the administration ticket for 2016. In fairness to Ona, he has given no indication that he is interested. But the proposal of Ona is simply too illogical that one cannot help but search for other motivations. If one has to think out of the box, a political underpinning cannot be entirely ruled out, although I personally do not think this is so.

What I think is that Ona just got carried away by the global concern about Ebola and that he may just be sincerely trying to help. But sincerity is not always enough to change things. Sometimes there is a need to throw in a little prudence and a lot of pragmatism. If all we are equipped with is a willingness to help, then let us help where help is needed -- right here at home. By being one less problem to Ebola exposure, we are in fact already helping. [email protected]