Yesterday was an unusual weekend for me. I learned how people misjudges others' intentions and kindness over their own narrow-mindedness. 

It all started last year when me and my husband decided to bring someone from the Philippines to take care of our kids.  We had several applicants but we decided give the opportunity to our neighbor's wife who asked my parents for help.

We spent more than two hundred thousand pesos for the visa, processing, ticket and stuff. July 28, 2008, Marie arrived in the Riyadh airport and we picked her up with the Saudi Liason Officer.

The saudi sponsor asked too much money for the iqama. Two months ago, we paid another 50,000 pesos for transferring her sponsorship under my husband's name and company, but it also has been pending to date because the sponsor has been delaying the documents.

Last week, her husband got sick and was hospitalized. Yesterday, her mother in law sent her a text message asking her to go back to Philippines immediately.

I had mixed emotions when I talked to Marie.  She didn't want to go to Philippines, thinking that her family has not yet paid their debts and going home would mean no job or income for both her sick husband, herself and her two small kids.

Her mother in law talked to me over the phone. She asked me to send Marie immediately to Philippines. I told her that the decision is on her daughter in law but she blurted out that Marie is refusing to go home because she is thinking of her debts from me. 

That was it.  For them, I am the reason why Marie doesn't want to go home.

Marie and her husband knows how much we spent for her visa and everything she needed to leave the country.  If I count all that we spent for her, it has almost reached three hundred thousand pesos.  I knew she could not pay all of that, that's why we didn't ask her to.  When she arrived in Riyadh, I told her that I will help her and she will help my family too.  I just asked her to pay 60,000 pesos in a period of one year, considering that I wil be giving her almost 13,000 pesos monthly salary.

Marie is a smart girl. She thinks of her family, especially of her kids and her husband. But her in laws are pressuring her.  This is something I could not understand.

How could they ask her to leave her work and go home without nothing to her sick husband. How will she buy all his medicines and pay for the hospital bills?  When I asked the same question to her mother in law, she told me "bahala na, basta sama-sama sila dito".

It is so sad that people back in the Philippines think that life is so easy abroad.

Last year, when I brought her here, I was the "good" person in our place.   Yesterday, I suddenly became a monster in their eyes.

I wonder how long will they talk about me in their all-day tsismisan sessions.

 


 

 


 

Even before the WHO declared Influenza A H1N1 pandemic alert level phase 6, I have been following the progress of the disease in many countries, especially in the Philippines (where my parents and relatives are), Saudi Arabia (where my family lives), United Arab Emirates, Singapore, USA and Canada. I am deeply obsessed of knowing the latest information on the number of new cases being counted and the progress of treating the patients as well as on the efforts to control the spread of the virus. When I reach home, I relay the news to my husband. I talk to my family about it. I call my friends to update them. I feel that everyone needs to be aware in order to protect themselves from the spreading infection.

Being a pharmacist, although I am currently not engaged in professional practice, I have no doubt that scientists will be able to find a vaccine against H1N1 soon. I am always praying and hoping that a vaccine would be available and that drug manufacturing firms would exhaust all their resources to come up with a prophylactic drug to solve the pandemic.

The development of a vaccine takes on a long, arduous task for scientists- using several methods from seed strain, to mammalian eggs to virus genetic codes and caterpillar cells. As Influenza type A H1N1 strain was just recently discovered, it might take a while before the world receives its first vaccine.Right now, we should all pray that the drug be available before the virus could mutate in a pattern similar to the one the world had seen in the deadly 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which claimed an estimated 20 to 50 million lives in many countries across the globe. After all, H1N1 is a virus and it could be very fatal.

Today there was a report that the number of infected people in Riyadh reached to 45. In the Philippines, the tally has reached 473. WHO has confirmed 52,160 cases with 231 deaths from only the 94 reporting countries. Yet, the number is rising every minute.

Since more than two weeks ago, rich countries started a race of making advance orders of the yet-to-be-released- Influenza type A H1N1 vaccine from giant pharmaceutical manufacturers. As per the reports, US government has confirmed advanced order of $811 million worth of the drug while UK, France, Belgium, Finland, Australia, and China had ordered 90, 50, 12.6, 5.3, 10, 4 million doses of advanced orders, respectively.

The question is if the world’s biggest vaccine-manufacturing companies would be able to produce enough vaccines for the world’s population. And if they do, when will the vaccine be released?If we’re able to answer those two questions, the third saddening question follows: will the underprivileged countries (like Philippines) be able to acquire the vaccine for the majority of its “poor” population?

WHO director-general Margaret Chan says it’s impossible to produce vaccine for all 6.5 billion people on the planet. Based on the WHO’s estimate last May, world capacity for producing vaccine against the novel influenza is about two billion doses. If an individual needs two shots for complete immunity, the vaccines will only be enough for 15 individuals in every 100 people.

When asked if the Philippine government should join the cluster of countries making advance orders for the upcoming vaccine, Dr. Yolanda Oliveros, director of the Department of Health (DOH)’s National Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said that they haven’t planned on placing an order yet because they have not determined the priority group. It means that the DOH should first identify to whom the vaccines should be made readily available as to the country’s priority. Quoting her statement, the determination of the group who will first benefit from the vaccine against A(H1N1) is dependent on the country’s goal,: Will it prioritize public service? Will it focus on economic sustainability, or will it concentrate on minimizing casualties? If it is social service, then health workers, policemen, and the military will be the priority. If it’s economic productivity, we will concentrate on working groups. But if the goal is reducing mortality then we will prioritize the very young and the very old.

How long it would take for the DOH to plan against further spread of the virus, remains another question. Have we not yet lost our trust in our government to protect us- or at least our loved ones back home?

Right now, we could only hope that Philippines is ready to take on the challenge of supporting the citizens if the worst of scenarios come.