Father Mick: A fighter for victims of injustice

Philippine Daily Inquirer/Feature

TWO MONTHS SHY of 80, Irish priest Fr. Michael Sinnott has worked as a missionary in the Philippines for more than four decades, devoting the last few years helping disabled children, whether Christian or Muslim.

His abduction by armed men on Sunday night has shocked not only his fellow priests belonging to the Missionary Society of St. Columban but the leaders of the Philippine Roman Catholic Church.

Fondly called Father Mick by friends, Sinnott is the latest in a lengthening list of foreign and Filipino missionaries kidnapped by lawless elements in the volatile Mindanao region.

An aunt of his, Sr. Theophane Fortune, a Columban missionary sister, also served in Mindanao years ago.

In recent years, Sinnott had been in ill health.

Fr. Pat O’Donoghue, regional director of the Missionary Society of St. Columban, said Sinnott suffered a heart attack in 2005 and underwent a quadruple bypass surgery in Cebu City.

“Father Sinnott has recovered, but he has to be on medication every day. He has no medicine with him right now and that is a big concern for us,” O’Donoghue said.

‘Kind to victims of injustice’

O’Donoghue described Sinnott as “a very dedicated and humble man.”

“He is exceedingly kind and generous to the poor and the suffering and those who are victims of injustice. He has spent 55 years of his life for them,” O’Donoghue said.

In 1995, Sinnott and several others filed a complaint in court related to what they deemed was a miscarriage of justice in the murder of a church lay worker.

Most of Sinnott’s life has been spent in parish work in Zamboanga del Sur province.

Love for children

Eleven years ago, he set up Hangop Kabataan Foundation and a small school that attends to special children, including the blind, deaf and mute, colleagues said.

The school is about half a kilometer from the Columban house in Pagadian City, where Sinnott was seized.

After his heart surgery and needing to reduce his workload, Sinnott devoted his time to his charitable project.

“He considers the life of the children as more valuable than his own,” said fellow Columban missionary Fr. Sean Martin.

“Father Sinnott is very well-loved here,” Pagadian Mayor Samuel Co said. “He takes care of children, whether Christians or Muslims, especially those who are in need of attention due to physical disabilities.”

No stranger to violence

Typically Irish, Sinnott, who speaks Cebuano, has a very good sense of humor, O’Donoghue said.

“But he can be quiet and a little reserved. He is very incisive in analyzing things. This I must say, he is a very respected and a much loved priest in the diocese of Pagadian because of his gift of himself,” he added.

The Irish Columban missionaries are not strangers to danger and violence.

In 1997, Msgr. Desmond Hartford was kidnapped in Marawi City and held for nine days.

A fellow missionary said Hartford was “betrayed” by some people he had helped and that his experience caused his health condition to worsen, eventually leading to his death.

In 2001, Fr. Rufus Halley was on his motorbike when armed men tried to abduct him in Balabagan, Lanao del Sur. He tried to resist and the gunmen shot him dead.

During the martial law years, two Columbans, Fathers Brian Gore and Niall O’Brien, were thrown into prison, along with several church workers.

Malate martyrs

During World War II, four Columbans were killed by the Japanese. They are now known as the Malate martyrs, for whom a commemorative statue has been erected. A book was written about their martyrdom.

Sinnott hails from Ireland. He was ordained in 1954. After studies in Rome in 1957, Sinnott came to the Philippines. In 1966, he was recalled to Ireland to serve as rector of the Columban seminary.

He returned to the Philippines in 1976 and has stayed since.

According to Columban Fr. Kevin McHugh of the Malate Church, most of Sinnott’s missionary life in the Philippines has been spent in Mindanao. He had worked in Iligan City and also in Kapatagan town in Lanao del Norte. "The last 11 years were devoted to the disabled," McHugh said. 

"The last 11 years were devoted to the disabled,” McHugh said.

Fr. Sean Coyle, a Columban based in Bacolod City, responded to a blogger’s criticism that the Irish priests were putting themselves in danger.

The blogger had written: “Having a higher calling doesn’t mean you have to dive into a situation with reckless disregard. I recommend not raising a finger to free him. He made his bed, so let him sleep in it.”

Coyle retorted: “The Columbans have been working in Pagadian for more than 60 years. We are not a foolhardy group of people putting our own lives or those of others in danger. The population of the area covered by the Catholic Diocese of Pagadian is 80 percent Catholic.”

80th year

The missionary group Sinnott belongs to was founded in 1918 and named after the Irish saint, Columban (b. 543).

The Columban missionaries came to the Philippines in 1929. At one time, the Columbans in the Philippines numbered more than 200. Now they are about 40—Irish and Filipinos.

They run parishes and schools all over the country and work with grass-roots Christian communities. In May this year, the Columbans celebrated 80 years of missionary work in the Philippines. With reports from Julie S. Alipala, Ryan D. Rosauro, Ed General, Richel, V. Umel and Jeoffrey Maitem, Inquirer Mindanao

‘Deep calls to deep’

Philippine Daily Inquirer/Opinion/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.” (Psalm 42:7)

These words were roaring in my head all throughout last week, rising and crashing like a thundering symphony. Like a movie sound track gone awry. Brutal, majestic, exploding like Mozart’s “Rex tremendae.”

Like the psalmist and Job, thousands of Filipinos were left helpless in the face of the unprecedented rage of nature that swept Metro Manila and Rizal Province to the edge. There were those who described the tragedy as “biblical” in proportion, except that there was no Noah’s ark in sight.

Like many lucky ones, I was high and dry in my Quezon City home during those terrifying moments. But with all forms of media churning out endless images and news accounts of the disaster, those who were out of harm’s way but wanted to be connected through various modes of media communication experienced what is called vicarious traumatization.

I went to Marikina last Sunday to experience for myself the aftermath of the great deluge and the destruction that Storm “Ondoy” wrought. I was with some Benedictine Sisters who visited poor residents who were slowly rebuilding and emerging from the wreckage of their homes. The nuns have a big relief effort going on at their social action center in St. Scholastica’s in Marikina, but they felt that something more could be done besides handing out relief goods. And this was to visit quietly, almost unobtrusively, the scenes of destruction. And to listen.

And so we made our way through alleys, walked past mountains of mudded personal belongings on sidewalks and entered some wrecked houses. The residents were busy cleaning up, spading out the mud, hammering away, sorting out things, throwing out personal belongings that were beyond repair.

Busy as they were, they were eager to talk to strangers.

“Come inside my ravaged home,” a woman in an alley invited me. “Stay a while, and we will tell you our story,” she eagerly said, not sounding a bit defeated. And so I listened without pen or paper or recorder.

Other women emerged from their doors and extended the same invitation, trying to outdo one another in narrating what they went through in Tanong, Marikina, on Sept. 26.

Arm in arm, they said, they braved the neck-deep flood waters, children in tow, until they reached higher structures to perch on. Their remaining lifelines to survival—their cell phones—were of no use.

Many such stories continue to be told thousands of times but each story, each telling, is a survivor’s own. The day Ondoy let loose torrential waters equivalent to a month’s rain will forever be etched in every individual survivor’s memory and in collective memory.

But long after the waters have subsided, how do the survivors expunge the terror from their memories? How do the bereaved move on alone after the loss of loved ones? Will the sound of raging waters haunt them for the rest of their lives?

After coming from Marikina, I called my friend, Dr. Lourdes A. Carandang, a noted clinical psychologist and specialist in post-disaster therapy. “Deep listening empowers,” she told me. Having someone to listen empowers survivors of traumatic events. Just as empowering is the telling of the story itself.

Story sharing and deep listening are empowering especially for survivors of traumatic experiences.

One should not be surprised to find survivors eager to talk to strangers about something so terrifying and devastating, Carandang added. And it is good that way, she affirmed. Would that there were as many listeners as there were stories to be listened to.

Post-disaster relief and rehabilitation should go beyond the material and economic. The survivors need healing not just of their physical wounds but of their spirit as well. Adults, and children most especially, are vulnerable to the long-term psychological effects of their horrible experiences if no one helps them ease their trauma.

Carandang has been involved in addressing the post-traumatic stress of survivors of major disasters and helping them come to terms with their pain and loss. She and her team of psychologists’ field experiences could provide insights in handling cases.

In 2005, after killer landslides and flash floods brought the provinces of Quezon and Aurora to their knees, I sought out Carandang who shared her ground-breaking book “Pakikipagkapwa Damdamin: Accompanying Survivors of Disasters” (Bookmark). The book was the result of her and her Ateneo University team’s efforts (funded by Unicef) to give psychological aid to survivors of the 1990 earthquake, the 1991 Mount Pinatubo and 1993 Mayon Volcano eruptions.

Carandang and her team’s “helping manual” could very well have been written for the 2005 Southern Luzon tragedy. It also found context in the catastrophic 2005 tsunami tragedy that killed more than 200,000 in Asia and Africa. And in last week’s deluge that paralyzed Metro Manila and Rizal province.

“All persons have inner resources that can be resurfaced, affirmed and reactivated in times of crises,” Carandang stressed, “and this can be done through a helping process that respects their dignity even in the worst of circumstances. This is the essence of accompanying the survivors—by being with them, listening deeply and sincerely to their stories, and knowing and affirming that they have these inner resources.”

More on pakikipagkapwa-damdamin next week.

Odette and Ondoy

Philippine Daily Inquirer/Opinion/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

So many pieces have been written about Odette Alcantara and her life and times since her sudden passing on Sept. 22. She was going to turn 69 tomorrow.

I last saw Odette on Aug. 31 at the Ramon Magsaysay Awards at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Although I attend the awards every year and write about the awardees, this year was special because our common friend, environmental lawyer Tony Oposa Jr., was one of the awardees. Odette was there, wearing her “10MM” dog tag which one got by signing a pledge to care for Mother Nature and which Tony conceptualized along with Odette and their fellow greenies.

Suddenly Odette was gone.

Yesterday my fellow women writers and I were supposed to go to Odette’s Blueridge home to celebrate her spirit but last weekend’s disaster-without-compare wrought by tropical storm Ondoy caused changes in our ability to go as a group.

I learned that Odette’s ashes will be scattered in her farm in Tanay, Rizal sometime soon. Tanay, one of the worst hit by Ondoy, and like so many places in Metro Manila and Rizal, is in ruins. Last Sept. 26 Ondoy brought a six-hour downpour that was equivalent to a month’s rain. The destruction was unprecedented. More than 200 lives lost and counting. It was extreme weather at its worst.

Ondoy missed Odette by four days. As I watched TV images of the roaring torrents, I imagined Odette’s spirit rising above the waters, warning, reminding. Ondoy is not the enemy. The enemy is us.

Odette and Ondoy. Two Os reminding mightily.

We, the Women Writers in Media Now (Women) celebrate Odette in a special way. It was at the old Heritage Art Gallery in Cubao, QC that our group often met during the dark days of martial rule. Heritage was a haven for activists, writers, artists, religious and other subversive types. Odette was always there, inspiring, comforting, hatching ideas, plotting moves, conspiring with kindred spirits.

After the place burned down, Odette did not fade away from our lives. She turned her Blueridge home which had a “recycled” ambiance similar to Heritage, into a new haven.

Planet Earth became Odette’s passion and soon her Blueridge home hummed with talk about trees, garbage, composting, recycling, segregating, reviving, invigorating. It wasn’t all talk. Odette walked her talk and moved many people to walk with her and dig their hands into the compost. She went out of her way and out of her comfort zone to teach, to inspire, to admonish, and most of all, to show why. She was Mother Earth personified.

Tall, lithe and almost always ruggedly attired, Odette cut an unthreatening, all embracing, welcoming figure. She had a penchant for outré puns and jokes. Everybody knew she was behind the “Los Enemigos” by-line that churned out funny but subversive tirades against the obnoxious enemies of the motherland and Mother Earth.

I have written a number of stories and column pieces on topics and issues that Odette had brought to my attention. She would call and talk non-stop about the latest object of her zeal until I realized that, yeah, that’s a good story. And then I’d be on my feet.

Odette often gathered the Who’s Who in the environmental advocacy and introduced them to her chosen few in media. There was always great home-cooked food, wine, art, classical and patriotic music to go with the conversation. And I often went home with a story to pursue and write.

She brought several of us to Vigan, Ilocos Sur to experience the historic place and relish its antiquity. Who else could have helped coin the catchy name KaiVigan (friends of Vigan), if not Odette? During that trip we laughed out loud at the jokes of artist Onib Olmedo and gasped at the torrid tales of writer and art enthusiast Lorna Montilla, both of whom passed on ahead of Lola O and just as suddenly.

Once Odette came to my house unannounced to see for herself my backyard edible garden and composting efforts then wrote about what I did in a magazine. She liked a column piece I wrote (“Someone is stealing my garbage”) and included it in a book of stories (“Doon Po sa Amin”) about persons who did their part for Mother Nature.

I did write a Sunday Inquirer Magazine cover story on Odette’s efforts to turn Blueridge green (“Green Becomes Blueridge”) and make it a showcase of recycling, composting and other pro-nature activities. Odette, with the help of her green-blooded neighbors and friends (Inday Berroya and Clean and Green’s Narda Camacho, among them), turned the barangay’s mini-garbage dump into a garden-sanctuary and ecology center.

Odette held seminar workshops for interested residents. Dealing with hard-headed residents of an upper-class village was no joke, she said. Touching on people’s lifestyles could touch off a neighborhood crisis. “But I’m a chess player,” Odette said to me, explaining how her chess background helped her plan her moves.

In no time, residents and their household help recited “papel, bote, lata plastik” (paper, bottles, cans, plastic) like a mantra and learned how to segregate their waste.

Odette’s green zeal reached beyond her Blueridge sanctuary. She traveled to remote places to teach and show how. She cooked up events not just on Earth Day but all throughout the year in order to bring Mother Nature’s message across. She played godmother to a number of organizations and movements that continue to thrive and strive to make Planet Earth a wondrous place. Only she could have thought of gathering 100 Ramons on the 100th birth anniversary of the much-loved Pres. Magsaysay and make them plant trees.

Something in me softly aches when I think of Odette as having left us for another realm. Adios, Lola O, beloved friend. I can imagine you laughing at the title of this piece. We have lost much this September of our lives, but we will rise again and continue.

PCIJ at 20

Philippine Daily Inquirer/Opinion/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

This week the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) is celebrating its 20th anniversary. How time flies. The past 20 years have indeed been colorful, dangerous years for this journalistic endeavour which is an Asian first and which continues to be not only investigative but innovative as well in its reporting and use of new forms of media technology.

Part of the celebration is a seminar for Asian journalists. The theme is “Peace, Human Rights, Good Governance: East Asian Democracies at the Crossroads.” Why this theme? In the next three years, PCIJ explains, a number of countries in Southeast Asia will witness strategic shifts in leadership through elections and parliamentary processes. General elections were recently held in Indonesia. The Philippines will hold its first national automated elections in May 2010. Parliamentary elections in Cambodia are scheduled to be held in July 2011. Thailand and Malaysia have recently witnessed changes in political leadership, while other nations in Southeast Asia continue their evolution into fuller, more stable democracies.

PCIJ hopes that the gathering would foster better understanding and engagement between and among independent and mainstream journalists, civil society groups, academe and development agencies about common concerns with protection and promotion of human rights, peace and good governance in both the restored and restricted democracies of Southeast Asia. It will provide learning sessions for journalists from Southeast Asia and in the process encourage cross-border reporting and correspondence on these concerns.

Events are unfolding in Asian countries even as these countries grapple with common concerns – how to keep the peace and settle pockets of internal conflict, how to institutionalize, protect and promote human rights, and how to sustain reforms and democratic processes and to uphold good governance. These critical issues rate high on the agenda not just of governments but also of journalists, civil society groups, academe, business and the professions. These concerns are unfolding amid dramatic changes in media and technology, and media consumption patterns across the region.

PCIJ thinks that the reformed and young democracies of Southeast Asia have done very little to foster interaction and engagement among their peoples. To PCIJ, this is a stark, if sad, evidence in the paucity of media reports with a regional perspective, as well as the nearly total absence of cross-border reports on common concerns like peace, human rights and democracy, done by teams of journalists from across national borders.

Since its founding, PCIJ has produced about 450 investigative reports and other stories in major Philippine publications, produced five full-length documentaries, and launched over two dozen books and video documentaries. PCIJ has won many major awards including nine National Book Awards, a Catholic Mass Media Award, and more than two dozen awards and citations from the Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Investigative Journalism and a Ramon Magsaysay Award for one of its founders and executive director for many years, Sheila S. Coronel who now heads the Tony Stabile School of Investigative Journalism at Columbia University and who continues to serve in the PCIJ board.

Seasoned journalist Malou Mangahas, the present executive director, is pushing PCIJ to new heights and frontiers of investigative reporting. Other members of the board are David Celdran (chair), Howie Severino (vice chair), Dominick Danao, and me.

There are many individuals who were behind PCIJ’s growth and becoming. PCIJ was founded in 1989 by nine Filipino journalists who realized the need for newspapers and broadcast agencies to go beyond day-to-day reportage, that is, to go deeper and broader, show the bigger picture.

While the Philippine press is undoubtedly the liveliest and freest in Asia, deadline pressures, competition and budgetary constraints make it difficult for many journalists to delve into the causes and meanings of news events. PCIJ provides opportunities for journalists to go beyond their daily beats. This is not to say that the mainstream media are found wanting.

PCIJ does not intend to replace the work of individual news institutions but encourages the development of investigative journalism and to create a culture for it. PCIJ believes that the media play a crucial role in scrutinizing and strengthening democratic institutions, that the media could — and should — be a catalyst for social debate and consensus that would redound to the promotion of public welfare. The media must therefore provide citizens with the bases for arriving at informed opinions and decisions.

PCIJ is now a byword in Asian journalism. It is an independent, non-profit media agency that specializes in investigative reporting. The center funds investigative projects for both the print and broadcast media. It publishes books on current issues and an online investigative reporting magazine, i, on its official web site, www.pcij.org. PCIJ also publishes www.pcij.org/blog, a daily institutional news blog, and www.i-site.ph, a database and resource tool on Philippine politics and governance. PCIJ is also a training center for journalists. It offers seminars for news organizations in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. It also tackles issues involving the media and access to information.

PCIJ reports have prodded government action on issues like corruption, public accountability and environmental protection. Some have triggered the transfer or resignation of senior public officials and justices, and formed part of the evidence in the impeachment, and eventual trial for plunder, of a Philippine president.

Stem cells from me, for me

Philippine Daily Inquirer/Opinion/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

AVOIDING BEING MAUDLIN, I say, this is as straightforward as I can get:

Few people knew about what I went through from October 2007 to May 2008. During that time I was quietly battling a dreaded threat: cancer. I had lived a relatively happy, healthy lifestyle for many years. And then for some strange reason, I was going “lo-batt.” An enemy had struck. As I had disclosed earlier, I found myself next door to the pre-departure area. (See my four-part series on stem cell therapy, Inquirer, p.1, Sept. 14-17. This column piece is the side bar to today’s Part 4.)

God is the ultimate healer, one of my doctors reminded me. Yes, God worked through close family and friends, and in an amazing way, through persons of science, medicine and faith.

A novel therapeutic option, cellular therapy, was what I had in addition to the three standard therapies or the so-called “slice, poison and burn” procedures, to fight the dreaded C which was not in the earliest of stages.

But I continued to write my columns and a few features, and even went out of town for a story. My way of staying sane. I was never bedridden. But ask me another day about the dark night of the soul and I might tell you.

The plus was cellular therapy, a biological intervention (not pharmaceutical) which utilizes living cells to activate the body’s own immune system to fight cancer. It was not cheap (that’s all I can say). But, as they say, you can’t take your possessions with you. I console myself that in my own way I had participated in the advancement of molecular and regenerative medicine.

Survivor’s guilt notwithstanding, I continue to hope that cellular therapy would soon become affordable for many ailing people, the poor especially, of the developing world. (See today’s Part 4.) For it to be readily available, as in the case of other things cellular that used to be in the realm of science fiction. I say this in all seriousness. Cellular, remember the word.

In my case, stem cell therapy (Dr. Samuel D. Bernal) was the added boost to the radical procedures of surgery (Dr. Augusto Sarmiento), chemotherapy over several months (Dr. Marina Chua-Tan), followed by 30 days of radiotherapy (Dr. Enrico Tangco). For radiotherapy, or the “mopping-up operation,” I drove myself to the hospital every day for 30 days without fail for my 6 p.m. appointment no matter where I was coming from.

Everything was done at The Medical City. Its regenerative and molecular medicine laboratory is indeed something to marvel at.

Cellular therapy process begins with the subcutaneous (under the skin) injection of a granulyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), about 12 to 24 hours before the harvesting of a particular type of white blood cells, the monocytes, from the peripheral blood. The procedure is called leukapheresis. The G-CSF stimulates the bone marrow to produce the granulytes and stem cells and stimulate the release of the cells into the blood.

Monday’s page 1 photo showed me hooked to the leukapheresis machine. This machine selectively collects the monocytes only while the other blood cells and liquid components are returned back to the patient. The procedure takes about four hours. In my case, leukapheresis was done two days after my surgery.

After they are collected, the monocytes are brought to the lab where they are grown using special media to convert them into dendritic cells. These cells are allowed to further mature using a mixture of growth factors and stimulating factors called cytokines. The mature dendritic cells are later fused with the tumor antigen from a tumor bank corresponding to the patient’s primary tumor. The tumor cells are irradiated before the fusion for safety reasons.

The fusion allows the mature dendritic cells to store the tumor membrane information in their memory. As a result, the dendritic cells acquire the ability to recognize and eliminate the tumor cells that they encounter in the body.

In my case, administration was done every three weeks through intradermal injection (two jumbo needles) on both arms. I would watch in wonderment the syringe deliver the light pink fluid containing a trained army. Oncologist Dr. Chua-Tan administered the stem cell injections six times over four months or one week before a scheduled chemotherapy session. She collaborated with Fil-Am Dr. Samuel D. Bernal, renowned stem cell wiz (physician, molecular biologist, lawyer, author and cancer survivor featured in Part 3 of the series.) A personal note: We called him Sammy when we were kids.

One good side effect was an increase in immune levels as shown in my blood chemistry, as well as great energy in fending off the aftereffects of chemotherapy. No nausea, no vomiting. I lost all my hair, of course (ask me about blisters caused by radiotherapy).

In the bigger battle plan that was dendritic cell immune therapy, the dendritic cells were programmed to recognize and zap the enemy cells to smithereens, keep them at bay, minus the collateral damage. Often, I would visualize it like an animation on screen. This was the gentlest procedure of all but by far the most magical.

I haven’t told half of my story, but I have to cut to the chase. In no time I was back on my feet and I hit the ground running, climbed hills, went out to sea, traveled far.

Last April, the portacath (through which chemo was administered), embedded under my skin on the collar bone, was finally removed. I had been wearing it like a badge for more than a year (though I could go swimming with it) long after the chemo had been over. It was no longer needed. I am keeping the thingamajig as a souvenir.

With stem cell therapy, I have indeed stepped into a new frontier, a brave new world of science and medicine.

Joy comes in the morning. All’s clear. I am very well. Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus.

(PART 4) Stem Cells: Regenerative medicine--Hope or just hype

Read Part 1: Amazing healing power within our bodies 
(with side bar, "What are stem cells?")

Read Part 2: From science fiction to reality

Read Part 3: Lab nerd tweaks tiny particles to renew life

Human Face column: Stem cells from me, for me

 (Part 4-Conclusion)

Philippine Daily Inquirer/Special Report/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

IS THIS THE HOLY GRAIL of medicine in the 21st century? Is this new emerging field going to provide dramatic changes in the way diseases and injuries are studied and treated?

Stem cells and regenerative medicine are the new catch words in health care. Scientists have discovered the stem cells’ amazing characteristics and therapeutic potential.

But stem cell therapy in the Philippines is not without its skeptics for a variety of reasons. It could be a threat to drug-dependent therapy.

Doctors will have to get out of their comfort zones to learn new ways. It is still very expensive and labor intensive.

Dr. Alfredo Bengzon, president of The Medical City (TMC), is undaunted. He has flung the hospital’s doors open to the technology and eagerly awaits a new breed of Filipino scientists who will carry it through.

Leading Philippine universities are preparing scientists and doctors for this endeavor.

With Dr. Samuel D. Bernal leading the team, TMC recently acquired more high-tech laboratory machines to boost its regenerative medicine section of which stem cell therapy is one component. TMC’s “regen” department was introduced to the public on Aug. 19.

Convergence of disciplines

“Regenerative medicine is a convergence of disciplines—cell biology, electrophysiology, molecular biology, biochemistry,” Bernal explains.

“It is difficult to carry out, it involves a major investment for an institution and requires a culture that is committed to providing a customized, personalized approach. This is the advantage of TMC,” he said.

Regenerative medicine, which includes stem cell therapy, is defined as innovative medical therapies that involve the engineering of living cells, tissues and organs for the purpose of preserving and enhancing organ function.

It is meant to prevent disease and maintain wellness as well as to restore or replace organ function that has been lost or impaired due to disease, injury or aging and with the purpose of improving the quality of life.

Is this field meant for a special few who have the financial means? A study by experts shows that regenerative medicine can greatly benefit poor developing countries with huge unhealthy populations. But governments and institutions would have to invest in the technology.

Bioethical questions

Bioethical questions must be clarified. Only the use of human embryos as a source of stem cells is being questioned on moral grounds. Pope Benedict XVI, in his first meeting with US President Barack Obama in Rome last July, stressed opposition to abortion and stem cell research using human embryos which the Catholic Church considers to be human life.

And why is stem cell therapy very expensive? “Mabusisi (labor intensive),” Bernal quips.

The equipment, reagents and materials needed for this technology are costly and are imported. Personnel are not easy to come by and have to be trained. But in the future, when more people opt for the therapy, costs could be dramatically reduced.

10 promising applications

A couple of years ago an international panel of 44 experts embarked on a study to identify the 10 most promising applications of regenerative medicine in developing countries. The majority were from developing countries.

Among the areas identified for the application were: (1) insulin replacement and pancreatic islet cell regeneration for diabetes, (2) autologous cells (from the patient) for the regeneration of heart muscle after myocardial infarction and cardiomyopathies, (3) immune system enhancement by engineered immune cells and novel vaccination for infectious disease.

The study also showed that regenerative medicine could potentially be used to improve health conditions in poor countries. For this purpose local efforts in health biotechnology are ongoing in countries like India, China (with huge government funding) and the Philippines.

Government support

In the Philippines, government support has not been huge but the Department of Health and the Department of Tourism are promoting efforts in this area. National Kidney and Transplant Institute and Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP) have acquired expensive state-of-the-art equipment for stem cell therapy and research.

LCP’s bio-regenerative program began in the 1990s but it was shelved after the center was razed by a fire in 1998. Dr. Juanito A. Rubio, LCP director, revived the program.

LCP is the first and only government hospital in the Philippines that does intensive study of the treatment of lung diseases and multi-drug resistant TB through its bio-regenerative program.

LCP is now inviting cancer patients to volunteer for clinical trials.

Heading LCP’s bio-regenerative team is Dr. Ma. Teresa Barzaga. Also in the team is Dr. Francisco Chung Jr., doctor of pathology and molecular medicine. Pulmonologist Dr. Sullian S. Naval heads research and development.

Medical tourism

Tourism Undersecretary Cynthia Carreon and Director Cynthia Lazo are working hard “to get the word out” that the Philippines is very much in the health and wellness revolution.

Regenerative medicine is in the list of health services the Philippines could offer. A good number of health institutions have international accreditation.

Medical tourism had its bad days especially when underground organ trafficking in developing countries was exposed.

But stem cells in regenerative medicine is exposing the amazing potential and expertise in countries like the Philippines. Soon it will no longer be for a select few who have the access and the wherewithal, but for the many.

There all the time

Are stem cells hope or hype? Has the Holy Grail been found? The quest for new cures will never be over, but one discovery always leads to another. In the case of stem cells, they were right in there all the time, inside each one of us, from the moment we became life.

(Editor’s Note: The writer’s account of her dendritic stem cell therapy is in her Human Face column Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009. Feedback to cerespd@gmail.com)

(PART 3)Stem Cells: Lab nerd tweaks tiny particles to renew life

Read Part 1: Amazing healing power within our bodies
Read side bar to Part 1

Read Part 2: From science fiction to reality
Read Part 4: Regenerative medicine: hope or just hype
Read Human Face column: Stem cells from me, for me

(Third of a series)

Philippine Daily Inquirer/Special Report/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

MANILA, Philippines—Physician, lawyer, chemist, molecular biologist, Ph.D. and MBA holder, professor of medicine, cancer director in US hospitals, leading figure in stem cell research, cancer therapy and bioregenerative medicine. Cancer survivor.

“Before I became a medical doctor,” says Dr. Samuel D. Bernal, “I was a hard-core chemist.” As a lab nerd, he poked, coaxed and tweaked the smallest particles of life. He then segued into medicine. His specialization: Stem cells in regenerative medicine and oncology, or the treatment of cancer. But he never really left behind the amazing world of molecules.

This Filipino-American doctor is a moving force in the regenerative medicine department of The Medical City (TMC) where he holds clinic when he’s not abroad.

Whether health practitioners and medical schools realize it or not, molecular is the way to go in the brave new world of medicine. In the smallest and basic particles of the human body—the cells—are contained a wealth of information and potent forces that could open doors to new ways of treating ailments.

Bernal, 59, brings to his medical practice an approach that is personalized and customized down to the molecular level. This means debunking the one-size-fits all standard-of-care approach that puts patients in neat categories or assembly lines.

Impersonal care

“When I ask how a patient is and an intern just gives figures, I become red. I want to know how is the patient faring emotionally, spiritually? Is he comfortable, happy, sad, in pain?” Bernal says.

He rues the way patient care has become impersonal.

This is what moved him to file on behalf of a Filipino-American family, a landmark malpractice suit against a group of doctors, a hospital and a health insurance group in the United States that he accused of hiding behind so-called standard of care procedures. The respondents settled out of court for an unprecedented sum.

Born in Iloilo, Bernal went abroad after his father became a US consultant.

The third of four siblings, Bernal finished chemistry at the University of Illinois in 1969. He already had a doctorate in biochemical pathology when he took up medicine at the University of Chicago.

In 1979 he was a fellow in internal medicine at Harvard Medical School and, later, in medicine at the Peter Brent Brigham Hospital in Boston. He trained in oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard.

Multidimensional person

Bernal is a board-certified oncologist and is a diplomate of the American Board of Cancer Specialists. He has authored papers and books on cancer.

Bernal earned his Doctorate in Jurisprudence from Loyola University and is a licensed attorney. He also has an MBA degree from the Pepperdine University on biotechnology business strategies.

Since 1992, Bernal has been with the University of California in Los Angeles where he is professor of medicine. He is connected with several hospitals and biotechnology institutions and still finds time to teach at the Ateneo School of Medicine.

A multidimensional person, he is also into theater and literature.

Cancer strikes

In 2000, Bernal was stricken with cancer.

“I had no clue, I was completely healthy, writing a book,” he remembers. “I was doing the chapter on kidney cancer.” He noticed a change in the color in his urine and looked at a sample in the microscope. He could not believe what he saw.

Examinations later showed the cancer had invaded his abdomen, left kidney, liver and lung.

“You could be dying and you don’t know it. My head was floating, my mind went numb. It was a totally surreal experience. I was given a pronouncement of death, three to four months,” he says.

“I was on top of my profession and in control. Suddenly I was vulnerable. It was a setback. I had several papers and two more books in progress. I kept telling myself that my work was not finished.”

Customized treatment

Bernal consulted colleagues all over the world. He was advised to enter into a protocol. “I had to customize my own treatment,” Bernal says.

He went for abdominal and thoracic surgery even if it meant working around a major blood vessel to scrape and carve out the damaged parts.

“I was in the ICU for three weeks because my lungs would not re-expand,” he said.

“During the operation they got live cancer cells that were then cultured so we could observe their behavior and response to treatment. This is not ordinarily done,” he says.

Bernal’s cancer was the type that will not respond to radiotherapy or chemotherapy. The treatment he drew up for himself was admittedly expensive and difficult.

“A lot of it was based on molecular biology work of scientists and this knowledge was not available to clinicians,” he says.

Bernal devised his own dendritic immune therapy, using his own stem cells.

“The experts around the world encouraged me to do it myself. But at that time, they wouldn’t recommend it to their own hospitals. They said it was difficult, impractical and expensive. It was being done but on an experimental basis,” he says.

Intimations of mortality

“I prepared myself to face my mortality. I fixed my finances and properties. I was already divorced then,” Bernal says.

He lost 40 pounds. But after six months things began to clear up. After more than a year, Bernal was back on his feet.

No wonder Bernal is passionate about customized medicine and is on a personal mission to promote it. “The one-size-fits all protocol for serious diseases does not work. But 99 percent of cancer specialists cannot do it if their hospitals cannot do it,” he says.

Stem cell therapy, Bernal points out, is only one of the components of regenerative medicine. And because cells are not drugs that are mass-produced, they are not for food-and-drug approval.

He shares a 2006 study that shows the significant impact stem cell technology could have on poor, developing countries in addressing their health concerns.

“Even if 99.99 percent of doctors here would say it is inappropriate, here are these world experts saying otherwise,” he says. “The most powerful force for healing our body is in our own body.” (To be continued)