A Day to Learn and A Night to Enjoy the Culture

Our morning began with a little business aspect of the Philippines. We sat down with rotarian Norris Oculam, the regional governor for region VII Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a leadership that is 60 years old. His region covers Cebu, Bohol, Negros Oriental and Siquijor Provence. They have 4 chambers under them and focus on their main super regions of agriculture, administration, industrial, and service(telecom, tourism, IT, call centers). Cebu has over 50,000 call center workers, many of who, we from the states, have talked to when we needed technical support. The financial breakdown for every peso the government gets in the Philippines 40 cetavos goes towards the debt, 30 centavos goes towards sciences/salary, and 30 centavos goes towards infrastructure. Since th government doesn't get a large sum of money, 725 billion dollars worth of what can be seen throughout the country (roads, bridges, etc) comes from the OPA, Office of Development Assistance, which are basically loans from overseas. The Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines has a strong structure and is also offering a discount card for Filipinos to use to help save some money thru purchases in the province.

The next visit was to Ramiro Community Hospital. It appears that most hospitals in Bohol are limited to general medicine and those that need specialized care need to go to bigger city areas such as Cebu City or Manilla. Ramiro is a hospital that employs about 70-80 nursing staff. Nurses are required to complete nursing school including a 1-2 year clinical. The Philippines is one of the biggest providers of nurses abroad, but the US usually requires a minimum of 2 years prior experience to work there. The downfall with Bohol hospitals is that doctors are hard to come by. Many physicians go to the city to work because of better trainined and better pay. The Ramiro hospital itself can care for 124 in hospital patients, with room rates varying from $20-$40 per day. The hospital is in the process of transfering all information into a computerized system to allow all patient information to be access internally, including digital images. The Ramiro hospital was started 37 years ago and is growing fast already with one new addition to the building adding many inpatient rooms for patients that includes an area for patients to go to overlook the Tagbilaran Bay, which provides a great therapy for patients in healing. We observed some cultural differences to the hospitals that we have seen in our district area. One of those include what they call "wards". These are big rooms that are specified to a particular care where several patients can be treated at one time at a cheaper price, but with no private room. For example, in the pediatric ward, there are 8 beds in one room. Many patients chose this option to help with the financial burdens. The nurses wear the traditional white uniforms with white hats.

We completed our visit with a lunch provided by Mr. and Mrs. Ramiro in their home located at the top floor of the hospital where they reside overlooking the bay. They offered us the kindest hospitality. We greatly enjoyed our visit.

Education in the Philippines is different in some aspects. Most obvious upon first visit to the Philippines is that all students are required to wear uniforms, no matter the level of education. Their schools include grades K-6 and then 4 years of high school. The age upon graduation varies depending on when the students started school. College eduction varies upon concentration, but are generally a 4 year program. University of Bohol and Holy Name University kindly invited us to visit their campuses to speak directly with leaders of the university. We are all able to compare personal education information with them, which was quite nice. Upon leaving Holy Name University we were able to see how their traditional end of school day is for them. It was a very moving moment as you saw every student stop what they were doing and face the flag as the school band played their national anthem and the Philippines flag was lowered. It was amazing to see such appreciation and respect from the students and faculty.

After a busy day learning a great deal about the business, education and health aspects of the Filipino culture in Bohol, we were escorted to relax upon a river night cruise where we enjoyed a dinner aboard a boat on the river and traveled up the river enjoying the beautiful scenes lit by colored lights. Near our turn around point we were given the most beautiful show given by the children of Bohol. They performed vocally, musically and performed some amazing dances, some of which we were able to join in with them and interact with the Filipino children and enjoy their smiling faces.

The Loboc YouthAmbassador Band blew us away with their amazing talents in a show for us after the river ride. The many performances in motion and music all from memory was unbelieveable and the music was beyond enjoyable. The students range from as young as 8 to the age of 18 and travel to other countries to compete and perform. Their next stop in a few months is to China. We have no doubt they will perform great.