Journal Entry # 8

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP

With DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman

By the time the operating room closes today in our four mission sites, we would have exceeded the 1,000 mark in reconstructive surgery.  I don’t have today’s tally yet, but as of yesterday, we’ve already done 972, including the 541 we did in five other mission sites during the first and second legs of The Journey Home. 

Hurrah to our volunteers!  You’ve given these children, and their family, an early Christmas gift they will treasure forever.   You’ve given them a life.

Grisha

Early this week, I met someone whom Operation Smile gave this gift of life to 17 years ago. I learned that he was 15 when he went to our mission site in a remote town in Russia.  Some local doctor had repaired his cleft lip and a cleft palate but they were so badly done they needed to be revised.  But instead of asking for a new surgery immediately, he volunteered to help as translator and all-around runner for the mission.  It was only towards the end of the mission that our doctors had the time to attend to him. The re-work took three surgeries, one of which had to be performed in Norfolk.  He has been an Operation Smile volunteer since, and eventually worked his way through medical school.  He’s now in our Cebu mission site passing on the gift to someone else.  His name is Grisha. 

Can you imagine what Grisha’s life would be today had we not operated on him?

The challenge we face now is how to take Operation Smile to the next level so that we can spread the gift to more people.  We cannot go it alone.  We’ve accomplished a lot in the past 30 years.  However, there remains a huge backlog of cleft cases. No matter how much resources we mobilize, it will never be enough to address this problem.  We need to expand our reach and capabilities through strategic alliances with other sectors.  The government could be an ideal ally.  We could help each other out.

Yesterday, we met with Health Secretary Enrique Ona.  And this morning, we had a talk with Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman.  True enough, we discovered during our discussion common concerns and interests that can give rise to lasting partnerships.  We found areas where we can pool our expertise and network, and work together.

Certainly, the partnerships will not happen overnight.  There will be more brainstorming ahead. But the important thing is that we’ve taken the first step.

This is what we had intended The Journey Home to be: a journey to the past and to the future.  We wanted it to be the venue to showcase what Operation Smile is capable of.  We designed it to be a high-profile event so we would attract attention to our cause.  We aimed for it to be sentimental and celebratory to leverage the hype and emotion to open doors for us – and it did because of you. 

I couldn't thank you enough  for taking part in The Journey Home. you've given us a good head start.

Journal Entry # 7

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP

We’re nearing the journey’s end.  In four more days, we’ll complete our month-long, nine-city medical mission.  It’s been an unbelievable ride.  To date, we’ve already done 824 surgeries -- 152 yesterday, 131 the other day and 541 during the first and second legs.  In addition, we’ve provided more than 8,000 medical evaluations and 6,110 dental treatments. 

Since The Journey Home started on October 25, I’ve logged 10,462 kilometers on land and air visiting the mission sites with Bill and Kathy. The fatigue is starting to set in and, often, we’d find ourselves drowsing on the plane or at the back of the car as we moved from one place to another.

But the moment we set foot on a mission site, we’d all get an adrenalin rush from seeing the expectant look on the eyes of those children, who had long endured their deformities, as they wait their turn on the operating room. They need Operation Smile. Their future lies in our hands. We have to keep on going for them.   

It seems that every day brings fresh news that promise bright possibilities for the future of our organization.  

We were in Cebu the other day, and an official of the Mariquita Salimbangon-Yeung Charitable Foundation (MSYCF) told the press during our media briefing there that “they’d continue to support Operation Smile for as long we need them.”  The MSYCF has been our partner in Cebu for 15 years.      

Yesterday, we met with Br. Augustine L. Boquer, the president of the De La Salle Health Sciences Institute (DLSHI), our site partner in Dasmarinas.  He said to us:  “You only have to call us and you will always receive a yes.  We’ll help you look for patients, volunteers and funds.  Consider De La Salle your second home.” 

Later in the afternoon, we drove back to Manila to see Mr. Ramon Ang, the president and CEO of Philippine Air Lines and San Miguel Corporation, both key corporate supporters. He’s a very busy man yet he took the time, in between his other meetings, to meet with us.  He left us with his key executives and we explored with them other avenues for expanding the partnership.     

This morning, we are meeting with Health Secretary Enrique Ona to brief him on our current programs and future plans.  The Department of Health is the linchpin in our public-private partnership strategy.  I have high hopes that our discussion with Secretary Ona today will yield concrete results. 

The Journey Home concludes on December 1, but our journey will continue.  There are thousands of children here and in other parts of the globe who needs healing, who needs our help.  We cannot fail them.

On December 2, we take the first step to the next 30 years.  Tough challenges lay ahead.  The good thing is that more will be traveling the road with us.  The excitement that The Journey Home had created won us new converts to the cause and strengthened the commitment of our current volunteers, donors and partners.  

Cheers to everybody!

Journal Entry #6

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP

Our exhilarating ride continues. After a week’s pause to move equipment and supplies, we resumed The Journey Home in Manila, Dasmarinas, Cebu and General Santos. 

It’s amazing how quickly our volunteers can get things up and running. They arrived in the sites on Friday. Yesterday, they screened 914 patients. Tomorrow, they’ll start the surgeries. By the week’s end, we’ll have changed the lives of more children --- forever! 

For two decades now, I’ve been witnessing these mini-miracles that we create. Yet, every time I think about it, I still get goose bumps. How many people ever get the chance to make such a dramatic difference in someone else’s lives? We’re so blessed to have been given this rare opportunity. 

The quick turnaround at the mission sites speaks volumes about the quality of our leaders in the field. It takes inspired leadership to be able to motivate individuals who come from different cultures and upbringings and weld them into an effective team. We have plenty of this kind of leader who can wield authority and empathy in equal measures. 

Dr. Owen Loh

In this third and final leg of The Journey Home, we have Jejit Inciong and Irene Tangco in Manila, David Chong and Nikki Valencia in Dasmarinas, Cherry Librojo and Mae de Guzman in Cebu and Jojo Cembrano in General Santos. 

We have Willie Go, Andrei Ostanin and Isabelle Simoneau in Naga; Owen Loh, Rodel Valera and Mani Batra in Angeles; Sonny Santos, Bong Paltriguera, Lito Dimapeles and Nanette Solis in Silay; and BG Alcantara, Elsa Villagomeza and Debbie Smith in Cagayan de Oro in the second leg, and Eric Cembrano for the huge dental mission in Koronadal in the first leg.

Mayor Darlene Custodio

It takes the same kind of inspired leadership to mobilize the local resources in the mission sites. We met two who helped us tremendously in Mindanao: South Cotabato Governor Dodo Pingoy and General Santos City Mayor Darlene Antonino-Custodio. Both are young, well educated, well-liked public executives who genuinely care for the welfare of their constituents and their community. 

I think both threw their support behind Operation Smile because they saw our sincere desire to help children with deformities that seriously impair their ability to live normal lives, and to enlist the entire community’s participation in the effort. 

Smile Ambassadress Shamcey Supsup

We provide a venue for people to unite in a collective positive action. Their response to The Journey Home has been overwhelming. We’re getting support from various sectors. The Rotary clubs in Angeles, Manila and General Santos, for example, volunteered to provide food and warm bodies. So did the alumni associations of De La Salle Health Science Institute and Manila Science High School. The SM store in General Santos allowed us the use of the mall for the screening of patients. Former Binibining Pilipinas titleholder Shamcey Supsup came all the way from Manila to spread cheers to the patients. A group of journalists in General Santos was so moved by what we’re doing that they approached us to explore a tie-up so they can help spread our story to even more people. 

The core idea behind Operation Smile, that of a whole village coming together to care for a child who cannot fend for himself, remains as powerful today as it did 30 years ago. As we continue to pursue this thrust across our global network, we shall bring more healing, leave more caring communities and help create a better world.

Journal Entry #5

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP

We scored recently a major coup in our continuing effort to heighten public awareness of Operation Smile when the Philippine’s most widely read and most influential broadsheet and online news source, Philippine Daily Inquirer, picked us as the subject of its main editorial.       

The editorial recognizes the gravity of the cleft problem and tells how Operation Smile has been addressing it for the past 30 years.  It’s a beautifully written piece and we are reprinting it in full below to share with you.  

Another story, a touching feature on one former patient who achieved her dream to become a nurse, came out in the newspaper’s Visayas edition.  We are also sharing this with you.

We’ve had several interviews on television and radio in the run-up to The Journey Home and during the mission proper itself.  We’re also running on donated airtime a 30-second television commercial, which advertising giant McCann Erickson created gratis. 

The advertisement, which you can watch online in our website (www.operationsmile.org.ph) won the prestigious Catholic Mass Media Award. It has swayed many donors.   

Philippine Daily Inquirer

12:32 am | Sunday, November 18th, 2012

Editorial

The gift of a smile

So many take a smile for granted. After all, it’s the most natural and spontaneous expression of happiness, never mind how fleeting it may be. But what if you are unable to smile? Or you don’t smile like other people do? Or your smile causes some embarrassment or discrimination?

This is the secret pain of those who suffer from harelips and cleft palates: Despite this being the 21st century, they often are the subject of teasing and insults—which can traumatize children all their lives and hinder their progression as adults.

American craniofacial surgeon Dr. William P. Magee Jr. is very familiar with the condition: “Cleft palate is the opening in the roof of the mouth that occurs when the two sides of a palate don’t join together, while cleft lip, also called ‘harelip,’ is the opening in the upper lip that can extend to the base of the nostrils,” he said. A patient can even have both conditions, which is dangerous because it is easier for bacteria to enter the mouth and spread to the rest of the body resulting in everything from dental problems to malnutrition, making it imperative that young children suffering from these conditions get an operation to correct them.

That’s what Magee and his wife Kathleen have been doing for 30 years now. And they have multiplied themselves for the cause through an international charity organization that has a perfect name: Operation Smile.

The journey of Operation Smile began in 1982, when the Magees were on a medical mission in Naga. There they discovered that many children were suffering from harelips and cleft palates but could not get medical help because the parents could not afford it. With their daughter helping run a fund-raising campaign in the United States, Operation Smile has since mobilized more than 5,000 volunteers in 80 countries and performed over 200,000 surgeries. In the Philippines alone, Operation Smile has performed surgery on 24,000 people, changing lives immensely.

Many more need help. Some 4,000 children with some kind of lip deformity are born every year in the Philippines, according to Roberto Manzano, Operation Smile Philippines president. “There are more children with cleft problems in poorer areas and local villages, which don’t even have proper hospitals,” he said, adding that the charity has operated on people of every age—from a 6-month-old baby to a 60-year-old grandmother.

Manzano emphasized the need for surgery. “Unknown to many, the deformity contributes to the high infant mortality rate in developing countries,” he said. Operation Smile’s data state that 10 percent of children born with cleft problems (some 400 patients a year) die before reaching their first birthday and 12 percent (480 kids) die before they reach the age of 5.

That’s why Operation Smile is now gearing up to perform more surgeries and help more patients than ever before. The charity aims to operate on 4,500 children in nine different sites in the Philippines come December, with the help of 1,000 volunteers from around the world, deployed in 10 missions.

Operation Smile continues to evolve. The Philippines does not have any kind of registry of children with cleft problems, but this will change now that Ateneo Java Wireless Competency Center and Smart Communications have created OpSmile Mobile. This application for Operation Smile would make it possible for social workers to use their cell phones to record cleft births and collate them into a national registry. Operation Smile has also established two permanent cleft care facilities in Sta. Ana Hospital in Manila and Brokenshire Hospital in Davao City. “Operation Smile is ready to partner with any reputable organization, be they public or private, local or international, to make cleft care readily available to those who can least afford it,” Manzano said.

Operation Smile’s success has become its own testament and covenant. As Magee said: “Big or small contributions are appreciated. We have 5,500 volunteers worldwide and people usually know of the organization from friends. People want to genuinely do good things, and we help them take the first step. Children are children are children—Asian, Latino, Christian, Jew, Muslim—and they need help.”

Inquirer Visayas

12:16 am | Saturday, November 17th, 2012

A journey home for ‘Operation Smile’ on its 30th mission year

By Carla P. Gomez

As Operation Smile marks its 30th year of wonderful work, it is clear that many Filipino families owe the Magees big time for having started this life-changing charity. The Magees are truly a couple for others. Their devotion to their cause—helping children break free from the “harelip trap” and literally smile at the world—is admirable. There is no question, they are changing the world, one smile at a time.    

DR. WILLIAM Magee and his wife, Kathy , Operation Smile International Mission founders, receive a plaque of recognition from Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. and his wife, Marilyn, at the thanksgiving dinner at the Provincial Capitol Social Hall in Bacolod City on Tuesday night for the Operation Smile volunteers who are into their 19th surgical mission for the cleft palate and lip. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Since she was a little girl, May Klaire Parparan has always wanted to become a nurse. But she lost hope when a teenager rudely told her when she was 7 years old: “How can you become a nurse when nurses are beautiful and you’re different?”

“That was when I realized that I was not like the others. My world fell apart. I lost my dream. There did not seem to be a future for me,” she said.

May Klaire was born with a cleft lip, but she never paid attention to her deformity. She always felt special and loved by her family, until she heard the teenager’s remarks.

At age 5, she underwent surgery but it failed to fix the deformity.

In 1994, surgeons from Operation Smile went to Bacolod  City, 78 kilometers from her hometown in Isabela, Negros Occidental. May Klaire, then 12, was one of the lucky child beneficiaries of the medical mission.

Traces of her deformity were removed, and since then, her life has changed for the better.

“I became more confident. My self-esteem grew. I discovered my self-worth and respected myself more so others would respect me, too,” she said.

Her self-confidence helped her achieve her dream of becoming a nurse.

Now 30, May Klaire is a registered nurse working as a volunteer at Ignacio Arroyo Memorial District Hospital in Isabela. She is one of 2,628 patients whose lives have been changed by Operation Smile since it began its work in Negros Occidental in 1988.

Operation Smile provides free surgeries to repair cleft palate, cleft lip and other facial deformities of children in the country. The Negros Occidental mission is being undertaken for nine days in coordination with the Hope Volunteers Foundation.

A total of  150 children had been scheduled to be operated up to Nov. 17 at Teresita L. Jalandoni Provincial Hospital in Silay City, Negros Occidental.

Among them are 6-year-old twins, Dhesa and Dhea Rodriguez, who are daughters of a truck driver from  Barangay Cabadiangan in Himamaylan City, also in Negros Occidental.

MAY KLAIRE Parparan, a registered nurse, was 12 years old when her cleft lip was repaired by Operation Smile’s surgeons. Carla P. Gomez

In 2009, Operation Smile operated on the twins’ cleft lips. On Wednesday, they underwent surgery anew, this time for cleft palates.

Edith Villanueva, Hope vice president and overall coordinator of the mission, said 230 patients with deformities from the 305 applicants had been screened. But only 150 could be accommodated, she added.

Operation Smile started in Naga City in Camarines Sur in 1982. Dr. William Magee and his wife, Kathleen, who are from Virginia State in the United States, traveled with a group of volunteers to Naga for what was supposed to be a one-time mission to repair children’s cleft lips and palates.

But the couple noted so many more with deformities who needed help, so their work became the world’s largest volunteer-based medical charity dedicated to providing free cleft surgeries to children in developing countries today.

Operation Smile Philippines Foundation Inc.  was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Aug. 18, 1988, as a nonstock, nonprofit organization. It was the very first resource country organization of the Operation Smile International global network.

Some 7,000 volunteers are scattered in 80 countries, staying permanently in 61. A total of 200,000 children have been assisted.

To mark the global celebration of the 30th anniversary of Operation Smile, Robert Manzano, Operation Smile Philippines president and executive director, said a monthlong medical mission would be conducted in nine cities—Koronadal, Naga, Angeles, Silay, Cagayan de Oro, Manila, Dasmariñas, General Santos and Cebu.

Magee acknowledged that when he first came to the Philippines 30 years ago, he did not come solely for humanitarian reasons. He was a young plastic surgeon who wanted to become better at his craft.

In Naga, however, he noticed that so many children needed help and that this had changed his direction and purpose in life. It taught him and those in the team to think with their hearts to make a difference in the lives of others, he said.

“I am 100-percent sure if we had gone to a country other than the Philippines that first year, there would be no Operation Smile,” Magee said.

He pointed out that the warmth, generosity, openness and the beauty of the Filipino people made them want to come back to the Philippines.

To mark the group’s 30th anniversary, Magee said it decided to make “a journey home because the Philippines is the home of Operation Smile.” It was also its way of saying thanks, he added.

“Filipinos have a special gift of warmth, hospitality and openness that tells people— come back and work side by side with us,” he said.

Magee’s wife, Kathleen, a pediatric nurse, said the Philippines gave the Operation Smile volunteers the opportunity to make what was impossible for many possible in order to have new lives.

But there is still a huge backlog of patients. Oral cleft is among the top 12 congenital defects in the country.

Data gathered by Operation Smile showed that one in every 500 or about 4,000 Filipinos are born every year with a harelip, a cleft palate, or both.

At least 10 percent of the cleft children, or 400, die before reaching their first birthday and 12 percent, or 480, do not live past the age of five.

“We want to reach these unfortunate children so we can treat them at an early age,” Manzano said.

Filipinos can help the children  by donating P30. “If every Filipino donated P30 to change the lives of children with a deformity in the country, we can stir a revolution,” Magee said.

Others have also started Christmas fundraising drives, Manzano said.

To donate to Operation Smile, one can go to its website at http://philippines.operationsmile.org/how-to-help/donate/ for details, or to send P30, one can key in SMILE to 4483 through Smart and Sun networks

Journal Entry #4

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP

It’s always a joyous occasion when Operation Smile volunteers gather together, especially after a successful mission.  At the after-mission dinner we threw at the end of the second leg of The Journey Home, I had the privilege of witnessing once again such special moment.

 

I’ve been with Operation Smile for 19 years, and I’ve attended many similar gatherings.  Yet, the easy camaraderie among the volunteers when they meet never ceases to amaze me up to now.

 

You’d know at once that our ties go deeper than ordinary friendship just by watching a volunteer’s face lights up upon seeing someone he or she had worked with in a previous mission in some part of the globe; or upon seeing the spontaneous hugs all around; or upon hearing the excited shouts of greeting from across the room.

  

Kathy Magee was right – we’re family!  The joy of giving binds us together; we have the same DNA.

Words alone could not capture the fun, excitement and fellowship we had at the after-mission dinner so I’m sharing with the Operation Smile family a few photographs taken during the event.  How I wish everyone could have been there. 

 

I would also like to share Dr. Bill’s and Kathy’s message to the volunteers. Much to their regret, a previous commitment to our long-time partner in Cebu kept them from attending the dinner. 

Message from Bill and Kathy Magee

Kathy and I wish to thank Jajo Quintos and the Board of Operation Smile Philippines; Bobby Manzano and the staff of Operation Smile Philippines; and the staff of Operation Smile International for collaborating with our hundreds of volunteers from the Philippines and around the world who have so nobly represented their countries in "The Journey Home".

The idea of how to thank the Filipino people adequately for beginning Operation Smile 30 years ago was one that was easy to conceptualize. Kathy and I knew fully well the reason we came back to the Philippines after that first trip to Naga City in 1982 was because we saw that a tremendous need existed. However, equally important was the hospitality and warmth of the Filipino people and the beauty of their culture, which was so responsive to help with what we knew we were able to offer.

We also recalled the strong history of camaraderie between the United States and the Philippines. We had seen so many clips of Gen. MacArthur proclaiming the words "I Shall Return," as he left the shores of the Philippines to reorganize and plan the recapture of these islands. We believed that the strong stand that MacArthur made in World War II on the warfront was analogous in some ways to the stand that we were able to achieve in peacetime with humanitarian goals.

At that time in 1982, there was no vision to expand Operation Smile beyond Naga City. However, as the power of our relationship grew through the children of this beautiful country, it became obvious that people of different cultures and different religions could work side-by-side; that together they could enhance the friendships and positive relationships throughout the word by caring for children.

Back in 1982, there were but a few groups coming to the Philippines, sporadically, to help with the cleft lip and cleft palate cases. As we exposed our friends to what we saw, they also told their friends and their friends told their friends. At the same time, the leadership of the Plastic Surgery Society and the other medical societies in the Philippines joined us, and, hand-in-hand, we began to extend our mission.

On the home front, in the United States, a large Filipino-American community took on the challenge of helping us to raise the money for the equipment and supplies that would make these endeavors possible. Generous donors such as CBN and Dr. Pat Robertson stepped up and not only offered us money for the missions but also film crews, which the local film crews from our TV stations in Norfolk, Virginia joined, to document and brand Operation Smile throughout the United States which led to more volunteers, more money and more involvement.

Today, the fact that Operation Smile is in over 60 countries and has operated on over 200,000 children worldwide with the involvement of over 7,000 volunteers is a testimony to what began 30 years ago in Naga City.

Kathy and I felt that the most appropriate way to thank the Filipinos was to acknowledge that their country is "The Home of Operation Smile," and to ask our generous medical and non-medical volunteers to consider a trip to nine sites in the Philippines where they could, as part of a multinational team, use the skills that they had acquired, in part due to their involvement with Operation Smile in their own countries and in international missions abroad. This could be accomplished by returning once again to the Philippines to stand side-by-side with the Filipinos to help even more of their children who still have needs of reconstructive surgery.

Tonight, we stand together to demonstrate our unity and commitment. Volunteers, donors and staff alike embrace a common goal, a wonderful sense of compassion and a commitment to children worldwide. I know of no better place to demonstrate that than within these beautiful islands. This moment in time will serve as a reminder of what ultimately led to the creation of the world's largest surgical humanitarian movement.

Each of you, who have travelled from your home cities in the Philippines and from cities across the world, serves as a living tribute to this message. You are an example to a worldwide community that through the children of our world we are able to make a statement that acknowledges that children are the only language that all of us share in common; that Medicine is a powerful vehicle; and that their combination has the ability to unite nations and people.

To the Operation Smile "Family" consisting of our donors, our medical and non-medical volunteer base, our Government Officials, our dedicated staff both here in the Philippines and worldwide, and to the Mothers and Fathers who have placed their trust in relative strangers to treat their most precious possessions, their Children, Kathy and I say thank you.

Operation Smile would only be a blip in time back in November,1982  if it had not been for all of you. You have allowed this "Family" to expand into a worldwide movement. You're the best!

Respectfully,

Bill and Kathy Magee    

Journal Entry #3

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP

The operating rooms in our four mission sites have fallen silent as I started writing this journal entry.  The tally for the last day of surgery:  35.

 

Since we started The Journey Home on October 25, we have provided 541 free reconstructive surgeries, 6,110 free dental treatments and over 7,000 free medical evaluations to indigents in Koronadal, Naga, Angeles, Silay and Cagayan de Oro.

  

We will transform more lives when we commence the third and final leg on November 22 in four more sites: Manila, Cebu, Dasmarinas and General Santos.

 

By the time I finish this piece and send it out (I took a break to see to the preparations and attend the customary end-of-mission dinner), many of our foreign volunteers would have returned to their home country carrying back with them not only photographs and souvenirs of the people and places they’ve visited, but also wonderful memories of the experience.

 

Performers in colorful mask and costume 

welcome volunteers in Silay City

Everywhere we went during this second leg of The Journey Home, we were received with so much genuine warmth and hospitality. We felt more than just welcome --- we felt needed.  It was an uplifting and very humbling experience.

Now, I understand how Dr. Bill and Kathy felt when they went on their first ever mission to Naga 30 years ago. Now, I know why they wanted to return for the 250 children they weren’t able to treat then.

Operation Smile brings hope and healing. Cleft children and their loved ones await our arrival because they have no one else to turn to.  We have a responsibility to help them for the simple reason that we can. Each and every one of us is an agent of change, a catalyst for transformation. It’s an awesome responsibility but one that we must do.

 

Seeing our volunteers in very high spirit at the thanksgiving dinner we threw for them upon their return to Manila from the mission sites, I am certain that we will keep fulfilling this responsibility for as long as there is one child in one corner of the globe who suffers from cleft abnormality.
 

For taking care of our volunteers during their stay in the mission sites, and making them feel at home, I would like to thank our site partners as follows:

1.    in Naga City, the Metro Naga Development, the Naga City Government and the Camarines Sur Provincial Government;

2.    in Angeles City, the Kapampangan Development Foundation, the Angeles City Government, the Social Action Center of Pampanga, the Rotary Club of Mabalacat;

3.     in Silay City, the HOPE Volunteers Foundation and its partner organizations, the Negros Occidental Provincial Government, the Silay City Government and the Bacolod City Government; and

4.    in Cagayan de Oro, the Xavier Science Foundation and the Provincial Government of Misamis Oriental.

I would also like to express my deepest appreciation to the administrators and staff of our partner hospitals, namely, the Bicol Medical Center, the Rafael Lazatin Memorial Medical Center, the Teresita L. Jalandoni Provincial Hospital, and the Northern Mindanao Medical Center.  They provided critical support for our mission and form part of the 1,000 volunteers we mobilized for The Journey Home.

Smile Ambassadors Chadleen (top), 

Janine and Shamcey (middle) 

and Nicole (above)

Volunteers are the lifeblood of Operation Smile, and when I talk of volunteers I refer also to people in the non-medical profession.  Our medical professionals are the best in the world.  Our volunteers from other professions are as committed and as essential.  They help organize our missions, raise funds for us, and spread the word about our cause.

For The Journey Home, many such people rallied to our call, from Binibining Pilipinas titleholders Janine Tugonon, Nicole Schmitz, Shamcey Supsup to popular actors Marvin Agustin and Jewel Mische to our former patients Chadleen Lacdo-o, Catherine Bandol, May Klaire Parparan and Angel Torres. 

A group of youths, who engage in online chats and call themselves Chatters Care for Kids, launched an information drive on the web to raise awareness for our mission.  Students of the Colegio de Sta. Isabel in Naga and Ateneo de Cagayan in Cagayan de Oro did manning duties in our mission sites.   An entrepreneur, Rica Buenaflor, and her friend, Chelly Ontengco, handled the  logistical arrangements in our Naga site.

To all who took part in the first leg and second leg of The Journey Home, please feel free to share your anecdotes, observations and reflections on this blogspot.   It was a pleasure and a privilege to work with you and I and my team look forward to working with you again, hopefully soon.

Salute to all of you!      

Journal Entry #2

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP

Good morning Operation Smile world! 

As I promised in my first entry in The Journey Home Journal, I’m updating you on the progress of our mission in the Philippines. We had another productive day yesterday: 118 surgeries, which bring our total to date to 506 (including the 46 we did in the first leg alongside the dental mission in Koronadal). 

Dr. Sonny Santos

That’s 506 new smiles that we’ve created!  Can you imagine the joy these children will feel every time they at look themselves in the mirror for the rest of their lives? 

I couldn’t thank our volunteers enough for doing a great job, and I would like to extend a special note of gratitude to those who travelled many miles from their home country to help us take care of our cleft children.   

This has been a most thrilling journey. I must admit that I had my initial doubts when Bill broached the idea of holding the 30th anniversary celebration in Manila with a nine-site medical mission. Mobilizing the resources to launch such a huge undertaking seemed a daunting if not an impossible task at first. But we believed in the cause and so we persevered, and the support came from even unexpected sources. 

Friends of Maansi taking part in the Paintathon

VXI, a business process outsourcing company, for instance, asked its employees to give just P30 each. They raised close to P1.0 million.  We got a call from a group of overseas Filipinos in Switzerland who said they wanted to help. They did a benefit dinner-dance and generated P500,000. Maansi Vohra, the daughter of our trustee Sanjiv and a high school student then, auctioned paintings that she, her family and friends themselves created. She raised P400,000 in just a day of fun and creative activity! 

There are more of these amazing stories.  A food chain, Cravings, raised P450,000 for us by selling baskets of gourmet goodies to their customers.  Couple Josiah and Chiqui Go saw us on Facebook and gave us P1.2 million from the percentage of sale of their Waters Corp. to sponsor the surgery of 80 children.  They made the donation in the name of their mother, who turned 80. 

Bill was right all along.  He has said time and again that if you knock on doors and ask people for money so we can operate on a cleft child whose family could not afford the procedure, they would more likely than not give. Children hold such a powerful appeal to people all over the world, probably because everyone is either a father or a mother or a brother or a sister. 

In fact, it’s so powerful that fierce rivals in business find common cause in Operation Smile. The San Miguel Group and the PLDT Group, which compete vigorously in various commercial spheres, gave generously to The Journey Home.  So did real estate firms Megaworld and Century Properties; financial institutions Citi, UCPB, Asia United Bank, PSBank and ING Bank Manila; and footwear brands Havaianas and Sanuk. 

Foundations that have causes of their own adopted ours as well like the HOPE Volunteers Foundation, the AY Foundation, the Kapampangan Development Foundation, the Mariquita Salimbangon-Yeung Charitable Foundation, Operation Blessing and the UPS Foundation. 

The insights I’ve gained from The Journey Home has been tremendous.  But there’s one simple act that has left an indelible imprint in my mind because I think it reflects the very core of Operation Smile. 

I am reprinting in full two e-mail messages, one recounting the act, and the other showing the response it elicited. These messages were sent by Bill, our founder, and Max Edralin, our founding president in Operation Smile Philippines.  Max has shared our journey since 1990. 

Bill’s message: 

“Craig, this is the story of Deo that I've been sending you some of the pictures. 

He is a 37-year-old who evidently was present on the very first mission that Kathy and I were on back in 1982. His mother heard that we would be coming back for the 30th anniversary to Naga City and so she came with her son just to say thank you to us for taking care of him those 30 years ago. When I saw him in screening I could see that the repair of his lip and nose was horrible and also that his speech was extremely nasal and not intelligible. 

Bill with Deo after surgery

On examining his palate I could see that it was at least 2 cm short of his posterior pharynx which would make it impossible for him speak intelligibly and even with extensive speech therapy he could never acquire normal speech. 

It was at that time that I felt that we should definitely operate on him. In looking at his examination sheet he was a priority four.

This would certainly mean that he would not get his palate ever repaired and at the very best would get his lip revised.

This seems extraordinarily unjust in my eyes because it was something that we had taken care of in the past and knew it was our responsibility. I felt to live up to our promise to people that we would do the best that we could for that long term. I immediately talked to Willie Go and also to Norrie Oelkers who was right there. Both felt that if there was anything we could do we should help him. 

Willie went down to the operating room where they were setting up with Dave the biomedical tech who was setting up the operating room. We explained to him the situation. He was in the process of trying to figure out if he could get the equipment up in time to do it that afternoon. 

It became obvious that this would be a real stretch and so we ended up having a team meeting with Connie who was the nurse in charge of the operative scheduling and also with Isabelle, the anesthesiologist, Andre, the team leader and Plastic Surgeon from Russia, and a number of the other team members. Together we were able to figure out how we might be able to do this on Sunday morning if we could get up at 5 AM and get started in the operating room extremely early. Everyone decided that this was an acceptable plan and we would move forward.

We loaded ourselves into the van somewhere around 5:15 in the morning and were off to the Hospital to begin what would be the first case of the 30th anniversary celebration in Naga city.

With the help of a wonderful group of people who circled around this mother and son we lengthened this palate and revise this lip and nose.

In the recovery room his mother joined him tearfully thanking us for extending ourselves to help them and virtually everyone present either had tears in their heart and/or tears coming down their cheeks knowing that they had all been part of something that was the right thing to do.

It was a wonderful way to begin the 30th anniversary in the Philippines. I hope that this will continue to broadcast the standard that all of us believe that whenever we can make it happen, we will make it happen.Craig, I will try to send you some more of the video so that you can put it behind this. Thanks again. Bill”

Max’s message:

"Thank you, Bill.  I want to say a few words.  I am deeply touched by this development.  I am probably your oldest link to the early years of Operation Smile still running around.

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been there in Naga, thanks to Bobby, to bear witness to this demonstration of our genuine concern for our patients.

I was there with you when we saw Deo and his mother come in during our press conference at the Bicol Medical Center last Saturday.  Having been involved in the formative years of OpSmile, I've been an early advocate of efforts to locate former patients to get success stories.  I would be overjoyed, for example, to see a former cleft lip who has become a politician delivering powerful speeches. I was the one who discovered that Catherine Bandol, a cleft lip at 2 years old, could sing because her father Ed, a radio broadcaster, told me so in an interivew 5 years ago.  (Catherine sang Moon River  during dinner last Saturday).

And so I went to see Deo where he was seated to interview him.  I could sense something wrong right away.  The boy, now 37, could not speak.  No wonder that as soon as he arrived Dr. Magee opened the boy's mouth and then muttered something like the palate was not properly done.  When we said our good nights last Saturday Dr. Magee said he would be up at 5 a.m. to go to the hospital.  I knew then it was about fixing the defects that Deo carried for the last 30 years.

We all praised Bobby Manzano and his team for the excellent preparations to celebrate the 30th year of OpSmile in Naga where it all began, praise, which Bobby and his team deserved in full dose.  Things went like clockwork.  But I think the highlight of the celebration was the happiness that we brought to Deo and his mom, witness the tears of joy after the operation, proof of the love, passion, and concept of family that Bill and Kathy Magee have always been talking about.

On my part, in my remarks last Saturday during the presscon I said what distinguishes OpSmile from all other medical missions is our consistency -- consistency on the part of our volunteers and the companies and individuals who have been picking up the bills all these many years, and consistency in our belief in the worthwhileness of what we are doing, which is to make it possible for everyone in the world to smile -- indeed,and it is never trite to repeat and repeat,  to change lives one smile at a time.

Mabuhay sila Bill and Kathy Magee.  Mabuhay ang Operation Smile.

MAX EDRALIN JR.
President, OpSmile Philippines
1990-1999”

For inquiries, contact:

Albert Santos                                                              

(02) 8119739                                                             

albert.santos@operationsmile.org.ph                    

    

Ricky Lepatan

(0917) 811 9807 

rylepatan@yahoo.com