Yesterday afternoon Marcus, Luke and I went
to Bahay Sanay to Doc Soc’s wake to pay our respects to him and spend some time
with his family. We chose to go at a quieter time, because we didn’t want to
take the chance of Luke disrupting the services that have been going on every
evening. As I knew it would be, the wake was terribly sad. Soc’s death is just
such a huge loss to so many and he is so greatly missed. If you didn’t see the
article I posted on what kind of man Soc was, please read Dempto Anda’s
Inquirer article here.
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| Soc with his beloved grandson, Ethan |
While Soc was very active in fighting
corruption, he also devoted his life to helping heal and rehabilitate people
with disabilities. Not only would he conduct operations and work on
rehabilitation for free when people came to his organization, Bahatala, but if
he heard of someone in a far flung village who had never been able to walk, or
whose infected limb needed to be amputated, he would take the time to find that
person, and provide the treatment he or she needed.
I was so moved yesterday by one of the people
at Soc’s wake. I watched a family of four come in – a couple with their two
sons. I noticed that the older son who is likely a teenager, was shuffling in
more slowly than the others. When I looked more closely, I realized he must
have been born with a severe disability, as his face wasn’t totally formed. He
had eyes but his forehead extended to where his nose should have formed, and he
had a very small mouth. He was walking but his feet were tiny – I realized
later that he did not have legs and had been fitted with prosthetic legs and
feet. This boy had been one of Soc’s patients, and later his mom proudly showed
us the legs that Doc Soc had given her son. The four of them walked up to Soc’s
coffin and stood there silently offering prayers. I was moved to tears watching
them – as I can only imagine the despair and hardships this boy and his family
have faced, and how they must have felt to find a doctor who was so
compassionate and kind and caring, who made it his mission to help this boy
walk. Later on before the family left, Soc’s patient once again went to the
coffin to bid a final farewell to Soc.
Soc was brilliant and accomplished, but you’d
never know how accomplished he was if you just glanced at him on an average
day. He seemed most comfortable in his favorite t-shirts, that almost all had
holes, shorts, and flip flops. This is what he wore almost every time I ever
saw him around town. He lost many of his teeth some time ago and had dentures
but never seemed to want to wear them. His family had a slideshow of photos
going during the wake and there is a wonderful photo of Soc grinning widely,
without his teeth in, and a quote from him saying, “Be thankful I only lost my
teeth! Others have lost their limbs!” That was Soc.
Soc also loved dogs, and every time he came
to our house he would often spend a longer time playing with our dogs Harper
and Scout, than he would visiting with us. There were several fantastic photos
during the slideshow of him playing with the poor dogs on Starfish island in
Honda Bay who are all disabled. Some nutrient deficiency, or maybe too much
inbreeding, seems to cause these dogs to end up with their back two legs
paralyzed. With his love of dogs and life’s mission to help those with
disabilities, these dogs must have been very special to him.
I was chatting yesterday with Soc’s sister,
Luchie, who is a Christian. She told me she’d invited Soc to many of her
church’s events and since Soc would try anything, he was always game. She then
started saying, I think, that she wasn’t sure exactly what he did believe with
regards to God. She started saying “but…” and trailed off. I finished her
sentence for her – “he lived like Jesus did. He was compassionate and kind and
selfless and he dedicated his life to helping those who most of society would
rather just forget about.” He was such a good man.
The day after Soc died, a colleague of mine
visiting from Manila was at the Puerto Princesa airport waiting for her flight
back to Manila. She had some time so went to the Vibes massage kiosk in the
waiting area, where blind people have been trained to do excellent head,
shoulder and back massages for a nominal fee. After her massage she chatted
briefly with the blind masseuse she’d had, who immediately started telling her
about Doc Soc and how devastated they all were to hear of his death. The
masseuse said, “para na siyang tatay sa aming mga may kapansanan dito sa
Palawan” (“He was like a father to all of us with disabilities here in
Palawan.”)
Thank you for all that you did Soc. You are
so greatly missed and you will never ever be forgotten.
