EVERY emergency is an opportunity beyond charity and work of mercy. It also calls for groups and individual’s innovativeness, creativity, resourcefulness, and even fun.
A group of wives of Freemasons in southern Mindanao had made waves in local and national dailies and the media during the onslaught of Typhoon Pablo, internationally named Typhoon Bopha, in late 2013 for their unconventional assistance to the victims. It was considered to be one of the most devastating natural disasters that hit Mindanao in history.
While most civil society organizations and relief aid agencies were busy providing food, water, medical, clothes, and construction supplies to victims, this group of women started emptying their wardrobe cabinets, laundry and garage boxes and drawers with feminine supplies. They noticed nobody was looking into the private, personal and specific hygiene needs of women in the evacuation centers.
And they were proven right. Social hygiene supplies exclusively for girls and women are often neglected in widespread emergencies and calamities like Bopha. The group distributed and later launched a massive fundraising campaign for women panties, sanitary napkins, panty liners, bras, hairclips, combs, lipsticks, manicure and pedicure kits, wipes, skin lotion, and medicines for monthly sickness and crams. Some emergency social hygiene kits nowadays also include medicines and contraceptives.
Chemists and pharmacists of the University of Immaculate Conception (UIC) in Davao City have connived to make hand sanitizers of 80 percent ethyl alcohol from their own resources and donated it to the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC). This effort of the College of Pharmacy and Chemistry and the BS Chemistry Coordinator of UIC is commendable when SPMC, frontliners and the general public are at loss of where to get the needed substances for disinfection and protection against Covid-19.
Big business establishments are also stakeholders in this fight against the pandemic. In Manila, Isuzu Philippine Corporation lent starting March 28 two units of their Isuzu D-MAX and one unit Isuzu MU-X to the local government of Biñan City, Laguna for their healthcare providers and frontliners. Private individuals also offered vehicles and lodging facilities to ferry frontliners to their holding place to their assigned hospitals. The family of a well-known actress and owner of a national chain of motels also opened their establishment in the country for the use of medical frontliners.
Big and local food chains have likewise donated a regular stream of food and snacks for frontliners in hospitals and medical care institutions. Many simple kitchenettes and carenderias everywhere make meal packs for police and civilian personnel who are manning checkpoints and those in the barangays packing and distributing relief goods to their constituents.
Finally, making useful alternative gadgets and equipment is appreciated as well. The University of the Philippines has succeeded in making its own brand of Covid-19 Testing Kits and have it approved by the Food and Drug Administration thus making it fit for public use. Meanwhile, a Taiwanese company offers to make 1,000 ventilators here in the country for use of Covid-19 patients in hospitals. The global demand for hospital ventilators reaches an all-time high in March 2020.
