Basilan and Sulu are provinces in the southern Philippines home to a vast population of Muslim families. Healthcare service in these areas is limited and is mainly categorized as Level 1 hospitals with limited capability to provide treatment to critical medical situations.
In this regard, the Adventist church in the Zamboanga Peninsula, in partnership with the Wood’s Medical Mission Team, organized medical missions in four locations in Basilan (Malamawi Island, Maluso) from July 3 to 4 and Sulu (Upper and Lower Sinumaan, Talipao) from July 6 to 7. The healthcare initiative served more than 2,600 patients, of which 326 received dental care and service, 67 underwent minor surgeries, 414 received free reading eyeglasses, 122 children were circumcised, and 115 persons received spine and joint manual alignment. More than 500 kids received dental kits.
“It is a blessing to come to this place and extend God’s healing hands to Muslim communities in Basilan and Sulu,” said Percy Wood, Head of the Wood Medical Mission Team. “To see how each individual is relieved and blessed with the health care service they receive is more than anything that this world can give. It’s a joy that cannot be replaced,” Wood added.
Pastor Glen Sajulga, Health Ministries Director of the Zamboanga Peninsula Mission, drafted the whole program. This medical outreach caught the attention of various health care practitioners and volunteers who expressed interest in joining the initiative. The collaboration of multiple entities made the preparation relatively easy.
“When we organized this mission project, people just started contacting me and expressing their enthusiasm to be a part of it. Everyone just wanted to be a part of God’s work in reaching out to Muslim communities in these areas,” Sajulga said.
Others expressed their support by sending in donations and monetary assistance to help fund the project. Some church members, the Julianos from General Santos City, pledged to provide school supplies to children living in Bud Bongao and Sinumaan. SULADS (Socio-economic Uplift, Literacy, Anthropological, and Developmental Services), a non-government and nonprofit charitable educational institution in the Philippines that aims to educate and inspire the unreached indigenous people, also extends assistance in the distribution of eyeglasses and dental kits to all four locations.
Adventist Muslim Relations top brass, Pastor Ranny de Vera, forged partnerships with the Special Forces Units in Basilan and Sulu to ensure the team’s safety and address the group’s logistical and transportation needs. Brethren in Basilan, under the leadership of Pastor Nemrod Obejero, collaborated with the Isabela City Government Unit and gave the group their utmost support- providing food, berthing, and support personnel.
In recent years, Basilan and Sulu were provinces known to be nested by violent separatist groups in the southern Philippines. BGen Eugenio Boquio, now commander of the 1101st INF Brigade, recalls memories of the very place where two of the medical outreach occurred. He narrates that the locations where the medical missions took place were battlegrounds for the Philippine Armed Forces and separatist groups.
When asked about the medical mission, Boquio said, “you are one of the game-changers here in the province of Sulu.” He implied that there are things that the local government cannot address but NGOs, especially the SULADS (their general term for Adventists), were able to brave and provide for the sake of the communities and minorities living in the affected provinces. The Tausugs (one of the major minority groups in the southern Philippines) remember the Adventist community as the first group to reach out and help rebuild their community.
In Basilan, Hon. Amin Hataman, Provincial Board member representing the 1st District of Basilan Province, echoed the same sentiments saying that “it is really nice that this kind of cooperation transcends any kind of boundaries that religion might have” pertaining to the collaboration of Muslims and Adventists, hoping that there could be more collaboration in the future.
The medical mission was deemed a success because of individual efforts who dedicated their time and skills to making this initiative a reality. Barbette Tabenas, a local from Basilan said, “we know that even in a million years we cannot repay you, but God knows. Thank you for your altruism in showing that you care for the people of Basilan. Buhi diay ang mga Adventista ani nga lugar.”
Pastor Cart Aguillon, Zamboanga Adventist Mission