Journal Entry # 15

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP

Our 28 volunteers have returned from a five-day relief mission in Baganga, Davao Oriental where one of the most destructive typhoons to savage the Philippines in recent memory made its first landfall. They’re all exhausted but safe and in high spirit, thank God! 

They stayed in ground zero for three days, setting up base in the Philippine National Red Cross tent in the town proper and sortieing to three of the worst hit barangays: Lambajon, Binondo and Poblacion.  

Working in shifts (spelling each other out just enough for a quick meal, a quick rest and a quick bath), they administered treatment to 1,189 victims.  

One of the victims they treated was Joanna, 5, who was suffering from severe dehydration.  They had just disembarked from the truck that ferried them from Mati and were stretching their cramped limbs after the two-hour drive, when the Red Cross volunteers brought in an unconscious Joanna.

Joanna was in critical condition. Her vital signs were weak.  She was hardly breathing, her lips were parched and her skin had taken on a greyish pallor. The sight of her nearly lifeless body stirred everybody to action.  All the training and years of experience from countless Operation Smile missions kicked in and they had Joanna on an IV line and connected to a pulse oximeter and monitor in a matter of minutes.  Joanna recovered. 

Gian Trebol, our mission coordinator who flew from Manila to join the team, said it was a joy to see our volunteers in action.  Everyone knew his or her role without being told. They wasted no motion.  All throughout their stay, the Red Cross volunteers stood in awe of them.

Another group of doctors and nurses relieved our volunteers after three days.  Before leaving, our team joined the beleaguered Baganga residents in celebrating the traditional Yuletide dawn mass in the town church.  They distributed their unused medical supplies to the other relief organizations and then shared a last meal of canned goods and bottled water before boarding a truck for home.

I salute our Davao volunteers for initiating this relief operation. They did Operation Smile proud! 

Operation Smile colleagues, wherever you are in the world, please give a warm round of applause to these 28 volunteers who carried our flag with so much pride and honor:

1.     Dr.  Joselito Cembrano 

2.   Dr. Nicole Silkofski

3.   Dr. Dan Malate

4.   Dr. Patrick

5.   Dr. Martha Ofalla

6.   Dr. Ellen Borje

7.   Dr. Gierto Quevedo

8    Carmencita Tan, RN

9.   Jess France

10. Nikki Dominique Sumogat, RN

11. Dr. Fiona Zaragoza

12. Yaser Darondigon, RN

13. Michelle Collarte, RN

14. Aries Bon C. Golez, RN

15. Teddy Palma Gil

16. Larry Baluso                  

17. Gian Trebol

18. Dr. Carlos T. Capitan II

19. Mrs. Shirley Capitan

20. Charisse Capitan

21. Dr. Cherry Porras Dela Serna

22. Dr. Sherii Villarosa

23. Malani Fonseke

24. Amirah Tan Lin Ling

25. Theresa Kintanar, RN

26. Renante Napolan, RN

27. Jaymar Tan, RN

28. Maiki Ferrazzini 

As in any Operation Smile undertaking, there are lessons from this relief operation.  My takeaways are:

1.    the pulse oximeters are invaluable; we should carefully plan our program of donation of these equipment with Lifebox Foundation;

2.    the skill sets of our volunteers lend themselves to relief operations; we could initiate a special program that would enable Operation Smile Philippines to send a quick reaction team to disaster areas; and

3.    as natural calamities become more frequent and severe, EMT capabilities assume greater importance; we can restart the previous program we had with the Rescue 911 group and provide the training to local government rescue organizations.

Our journey continues.

      

Journal Entry # 14

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP

I am elated by the continued outpouring of support from our partners who supported The Journey Home.

Kathy, Bill and I arriving in Naga aboard AirPhil Express

with 60 of our Filipino and foreign volunteers

For instance, the Philippine Air Lines (PAL) and its sister-company, AirPhil Express, which ferried our volunteers to the provincial sites, is launching soon a campaign to solicit donations of Mabuhay Miles for our future missions.  Mabuhay Miles is the PAL Group’s reward program for its frequent fliers. This will will help us tremendously; being in an archipelago, air fare represents a huge part of our mission cost. Thank you PAL and AirPhil Express for helping us bring healing to Filipino cleft children.

Havaianas Philippine also launched ‘Design a Smile 2,” a follow up to its hugely successful flip-flop design contest in 2011. The contest invites design ideas from children ages 5 to 12 with the winning entry to be used as part of the popular footwear company’s 2014 collection.  A percentage of the sale of the specially designed flip flops will go to Operation Smile.    

During its first run, “Design a Smile” raised not only funds but also awareness for our cause.  Anne Gonzales, the managing director of Havaianas distributor, Terry SA, went to Naga at the start of The Journey Home to personally turn over the P1.5 million generated by the contest and by another fund raising activity, “Sale for a Smile.”  Thank you Havaianas for giving your customers the opportunity to change lives one smile at a time.

A few days ago, we signed a memorandum of agreement with Menarini Asia-Pacific Holdings, a leading biopharmaceutical commercialization company in the region, for still another cause-related marketing activity.  The company will donate part of the proceeds from the sale of its pharmaceutical products to Operation Smile.  It also committed to get its employees in all parts of the country involved in our medical missions.

Menarini donated scar treatment ointment which we distributed to patients at our Sta. Ana mission site during The Journey Home.  The company’s also did volunteer work in the mission site, bringing toys and playing with the children who were awaiting surgery to ease their anxiety.  They found the experience so fulfilling that they were already planning what they will do in the next mission.  Thank you Menarini for adopting Operation Smile as your corporate social responsibility initiative. Thank you, too, Operation Smile Vietnam, for putting us in touch with Menarini

Invida General Manager Ninia Torres with her team

Journal Entry # 13

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP

Typhoon Pablo aftermath in Baganga, Davao Oriental. Photo credit: John Javellana by rappler.com

As I am writing this entry, our volunteers are doing medical relief work in Baganga, Davao Oriental, where two weeks ago typhoon Pablo made landfall cutting a wide swath of terror and destruction and  leaving in its wake 156 dead, 431 injured, 21 still missing, and tales of misery and human suffering.  

Our team, led by our Mindanao field director Jojo Cembrano, pushed off last Thursday (Dec. 13^th) for this town of 43,000 souls which is 316 kilometers away from Davao City. They will be incommunicado for the duration of their five-day stay there as the communication lines and cellular signal are still down.

I can just imagine the difficulties they will face in this undertaking. The images I’ve seen on the web show a town that has been flattened by the wrath of Typhoon Pablo.  Power has yet to be restored. Commercial activities are said to have virtually ceased, which means food and water will be in very short supply.

From the last communication I received our mission coordinator Gian Trebol, who flew from Manila to accompany our volunteers, the team will be staying in a house, which roof has been blown off.  It’s one of the few structures left standing and its walls will provide some protection against the elements.   

Let’s all pray for the safety of our volunteers.  They will be subsisting on canned goods and instant noodles and on rationed water and sleeping on cold beds for a while.  Their willingness to take risks to their own persons to help others is truly commendable.  

What our volunteers brought to Baganga is more than just healing – they brought hope (as Operation Smile did in every mission it mounted over the past 30 years).  May this help spark the resolve among the town’s devastated residents to rebuild their lives.

Typhoon Pablo shows us once again that the human spirit triumphs even in the midst of tragedy.

For those who were spared the fury of typhoon Pablo but cannot go personally to the affected areas to help, you can still do your share by donating to help defray the cost of this relief effort.   You can deposit your donations to:

Bank Name: United Coconut Planters Bank - Main Office Branch
Type: Peso Savings Account
Account Name: Operation Smile Philippines
Account Number: 001-128752-4

Bank Name: United Coconut Planters Bank - Main Office Branch
Type: US Dollar Account
Account Name: Operation Smile Philippines
Account Number: 01-001-303364-8
SWIFT CODE: UCPBPHMM

Journal Entry # 12

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP

Since we embarked on the The Journey Home, the public’s response to our call for donations to help cleft children has been tremendous.  Here’s a heart-warming text message that I received recently from someone whose interest in what we do was rekindled by the media’s account of The Journey Home:

Bobby and Monica Dominguez

“My name is Monica Martinez-Dominguez. This year for Christmas I have decided not to give presents in the form of clothes and toys but instead something more meaningful and will have greater effect on the recipient. I would like to sponsor 4 surgeries in the name of my siblings and their kids.

Please help me how to go about sending the donation to your office.

Thank you and God bless you for your wonderful work.”

Monica dropped by the office the other day to find out more about Operation Smile. I showed her our television commercial, the one featuring our former patient Angel, and she cried as she was watching it.  She promised to help spread the word about our cause to her friends and relatives.  God bless you, too, Monica! 

Carleen and Jonathan

Carleen Krug, an executive of the regional media outlet Asian Business Channel also visited us yesterday.  She was rushing to another meeting but took the time to see us to give a cash donation for the surgery of two more children. Carleen made the donation in the names of her mother and brother; it’s her Christmas gift to them.  Her colleague, Jonathan Bolick, who was with her said he’ll send his donation soon.

I first met Carleen as we were about to start The Journey Home.  Her media outlet was doing a special feature on the Philippines and one of the people she interviewed for the feature was Jajo Quintos, our chairman.  Jajo asked her to see me to explore the possibility of doing a feature on Operation Smile.  After I briefed her, she just pulled out P15,000 from her wallet and said she wanted to sponsor the surgery of one child! 

The Operation Smile story is a powerful tale.  It touches people.  It stirs their emotion and moves them to act. This is why we’re spending a great deal of time and effort in getting media to tell our story. The media enable us to reach a wider audience.  

Mind you, getting our story aired or published is not an easy task given the limited media space and the keen competition for media attention. We have to be able to tell our story in a fresh way or in a different angle to make them current, relevant and newsworthy – and compelling.  The Journey Home created for us a platform to re-tell our story in many different ways.

The efforts of our supporters during the run up to The Journey Home and after the mission boosted our media profile.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank 88Storey Films, Director Christian Acuña and Producer Cris Dy-Liacco and McCann Worldgroup for developing such an arresting storyline for our television commercial, for producing it for free and for negotiating free airtime for its broadcast.  

By the way, this television commercial, which won the prestigious Catholic Mass Media Award only a month ago, bagged an even bigger honor recently – a silver in the Araw Values Award.
  

The Araw Values Award is an award created by the Philippine advertising industry to recognize advertisements that promote and advocate desirable social values.  The Operation Smile television commercial won in the category “respect and care for human life and dignity and the rights of all.”

Photo 1: Peter Acuña, Matt Crescenzo, Bobby Manzano and Joanna Tirados. 
Photo 2: Sandy Salinda, Mitzie Nacianceno, Ricki Arches and Bobby Manzano

I would also like to thank again PLDT and Smart Communications for its ongoing campaign to drive donation via text messaging.  As of December 13, or a week after its launch, the campaign has already generated P768,135 or roughly US$ 19,000, which means 50 children with cleft will be receiving their gift of smile soon.
   

Journal Entry # 11

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP 

I mentioned in my previous journal entry that one of our staunch partners, Smart Communications, is going to run a campaign to drive donation via text messaging for Operation Smile. The campaign started last December 6 and in 4 days, it has generated over P600,000 or nearly US$15,000 which means that at least forty (40) children will receive the gift of a smile soon. 

Even though the campaign will run for only a short period of time, its potential for raising a substantial amount of funds for is huge nonetheless because it reaches out to a broader base. Let’s all help sustain the campaign’s momentum by promoting it among our friends.  You can do this by simply sending the following links to your contacts via email or sharing them through your Facebook and Twitter accounts:

http://www1.smart.com.ph/pages/smile

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151260885327311&set=pb.137599377310.-2207520000.1354765326&type=3&theater

Journal Entry # 10

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP 

The Journey Home generated a lot of good press for us and the excitement it created seems to be yielding the effect we had intended from the start. This morning, I got two calls, one from the incoming president of a Rotary Club in Makati and another from a local government official in Eastern Samar, a province which lies many miles south of Manila. Both expressed keen interest in hosting an Operation Smile medical mission in their respective locality. If this continues, we’re going to have another busy year in 2013.

As I’ve mentioned in my post mission report, we are going to leverage the hype and emotion we built during The Journey Home to attract more adherents to our cause. Two of our staunch supporters are going to help us here.  Smart Communications is running a multi-media campaign to drive donations via text messaging during the Christmas season. I’ve also talked with people from McCann Worldwide about doing a post-mission print ad for us after the New Year.

McCann Worldwide and Smart Communications have been outstanding in their support for us throughout The Journey Home.  I couldn’t thank them enough; they played a big role in the mission’s success.

In between my meetings today, I had some time to look at the photographs taken during The Journey Home and one particular shot, shown above, caught my attention.  That boy will wake up to a new life.  The memory of the nightmarish existence he had before his surgery will fade like a bad dream in time, and he can move on and have a future.   I’ve seen this tableau hundreds of times before yet it still stirs me.   It’s truly magical how we can transform a life in a matter of just a few minutes.

There are numerous moments like this that you’ve captured with your cameras, and we would greatly appreciate it if you can share these with us.  We are currently preparing a post-mission report that we’ll submit to our donors and partners and your photographs will allow us to tell the story of The Journey Home better than any written words can. 

  

Please send the images via email to albert.santos@operationsmile.org.ph or burn them on a disc and send to Operation Smile Philippines, 19/F, UCPB Building, 7907 Makati Avenue, Makati, Philippines 1225.

Journal Entry # 9

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP 

I’m back in harness.  After a brief rest to recuperate, I’m up and about once more and raring to go. It has been four days since The Journey Home ended, yet the euphoria of that highly successful mission still lingers, and I’m savouring every bit of memory that comes to my mind.  For the benefit of those who weren’t here to celebrate with us, I would like to share this report, which I delivered during the after-mission thanksgiving dinner and party on December 1.    

OUR JOURNEY HOME has come to an end.  It has been an unbelievable ride from start to finish. Over a span of only 30 days, we’ve visited nine cities, given more than 8,000 free medical evaluations, provided 6,110 free dental treatments and performed 1,219 free reconstructive surgeries. 

Wow!  Those numbers are incredible, and every single one of them represents a real human being whose lives we have changed forever. 

Every one of them can now go out and face the world without shame or fear of being ridiculed.  They will have a life like the 200,000 others across the globe that we’ve previously healed … like May Klaire, a former cleft lip patient who’s now a nurse … or Chadleen, a former cleft palate patient who’s now a singer and one of our Smile Ambassadors … or Grisha, a cleft palate and cleft lip patient who’s now an anaesthesiologist and one of our fellow volunteers in this mission.   

We pulled off the biggest mission in the Philippines by Operation Smile or any private charity here and did it in spectacular fashion. Operation Smile Philippines could not have done it alone. 

• 700 Filipinos volunteered and 300 others from 36 countries came to help;

• Norfolk shipped 14 tons of medical supplies and equipment and mobilized resources from the global Operation Smile family;

• our long time local partners, the Mariquita Salimbangon-Yeung Charitable Foundation, the HOPE Volunteers Foundation,  the Kapampangan Development Foundation and the De La Salle Health Sciences Institute, hosted the big mission sites;

• private companies and local government units underwrote the rest of the mission sites;

• public health workers and members of non-governmental organizations, civic groups, individuals including students, joined the effort and assisted in patient mapping and other logistical requirements.  

This image of the whole community coming together to make “The Journey Home” happen will resonate far and wide.  The momentum we generated will carry us through the next three decades. It certainly will be the catalyst to grow the strategy for the next decade.

That has always been the goal of “The Journey Home.”  It was no ordinary mission or celebration.  We intended it to be a sentimental journey to the past to anchor our drive to the future.

• We revisited Naga, where we had our first mission, to recreate the emotional high that sparked the birth of Operation Smile and rekindle the passion of our volunteers.

Operation Smile has always been about passion and emotion.  It is compassion that drives us to do what we do and do it better every year.  It’s our heart that differentiates us from the rest.  It’s the root of our pride and motivation.

• We organized the mission on a scale and size that has never been done before here to showcase our capability and global standards.

The sheer audacity of deploying 14 tons of supplies and equipment and 1,000 volunteers from 37 countries to nine sites in the Philippines that are separated by great distances drew the eyes of the whole nation to us. It gave us a venue to demonstrate to everybody the kind of organization we are.  

• We turned the mission into a high profile undertaking to draw wide attention and attract more to our cause.

The media coverage we generated has been very comprehensive.  The local press in the mission sites carried our story.  We were on national television, radio and newspapers.  The most read and most influential newspaper in the country, The Philippine Daily Inquirer, did an editorial on us, which underscored the level of attention that “The Journey Home” has elicited for Operation Smile.

We are going to leverage the hype and emotion to open doors for us.  The excitement from The Journey Home has yielded amazing results. Our long-time partners have renewed their commitment. We have gained new supporters, new partners, and new donors.  We’ve inked a partnership with the Commission on Overseas Filipinos, which could open avenues for our countrymen living and working abroad to help. We’ve also held preliminary talks with two key government departments, the Department of Health and the Department of Social Welfare and Development, on possible partnerships in several areas of common concern.  And most importantly, our volunteers are in high spirit.  I would like to ask those who are returning to their home country to please tell our story to your countrymen.

“The Journey Home” has given us a good head start to the next 30 years.  And for this, I would like to thank the following who made this journey with us and made it a memorable and fulfilling experience:

• first and foremost of course are our Operation Smile volunteers, medical and non-medical volunteers  – your zeal has been contagious and inspiring

• our counterparts in Norfolk – you were there for us from the start of the planning to the execution of the mission;

• our donors and site partners – thank you for your generosity! you stood by our side and, when we were beginning to have doubts, encouraged us to push through with this seemingly impossible task;

• our board of trustees in Operation Smile Philippines – the trust and confidence you placed in us spurred us on;

• my team in the Operation Smile Philippines office -  Zena, Albert, Gian and Alma as well as our office messengers, Chito and Manny, our temporary staff Jenny, Elora and Dianne.  We may be small in number but tenacious in execution;  we took on a huge task and never lost heart;

• To Bill and Kathy, thank you for challenging us. Thank you for believing in us, maybe more than we believed in ourselves, as we began the conceptualization of this “Journey Home” endeavour over a year ago. And to Viet, thank you for your “brotherly” love and support throughout this in the life of Operation Smile Philippines.  You three walked the miles with me to all the mission sites to inspire our volunteers and partners, oftentimes waking up at 4 in the morning to catch a flight to the next destination; you were a source of strength throughout the journey;

• and lastly, and certainly not the least,  my wife Baby and my family – for your understanding and for sacrificing our time together so that I can do what I have to do.

Mabuhay kayong lahat!