Gregorio, Forgive Us All

Gregorio, Forgive Us All (Based from Our Health, Our Lives by: Book Project Committee,
NEHCC, NCCP )

It was a sweltering hot that afternoon – not unusual in the Philippines, but not a time for hurrying
either. That’s why I knew something was wrong when a man came hurrying up the stairs of the
convent. The man was Gregorio and he told me his wife. Lina, who was pregnant, was sick with
cholera. He and a friend had carried her for four hours from their mountain home using a
hammock as stretcher. When they arrived at the town of Togoc, they found the doctor hadgone.
Togoc is one of the several parishes situated in the mountains of the Island of Negros with the
population of some 20,000 people. The pastor there now, Fr. Eugenio, tell me that they have no
doctor, though they still have a dilapidated clinic. When I was there, about a year ago, a doctor
sometimes visited us. Gregorio wanted to borrow our vehicle to take his wife to the hospital in
the lowlands – a two – hour ride over a rocky road. I explained to him that Fr. Hilario had taken
the jeepney, but would go with him to the clinic anyhow to see what could be done. We found
Lina dying at the clinic out in pain. Obviously, she desperately needed help, so we hurried out to
search for the young doctor assigned to Togoc for six month's rural training. But he was away in
an outlying and so we waited for what seemed like ages before he came back. He immediately
wrote out a prescription for Gregorio, who ran barefoot along the road to a little shop stocked
with pitifully small supplies of medicines. He was back in a few minutes, only to say the shop
didn't have the medicine. The doctor wrote another prescription. Gregorio speed away again,
only to return once more – breathless and emptyhanded. “We need dextrose,” said the doctor,
“but there is none here in town.” All of us fanned out through, the neighborhood asking people if
they had any. Finally, a woman produced a half-filled bottle left over from what her husband
used before he died. I brought it to the doctor. He looked up exasperated and said, “The clinic
has no dextrose needle. We'll have to take her down to “Kabankalan.” “Doc, you know she'll die
on the way,” I said. “Isn't there anything you can do? ”He then tried to give the dextrose with a
large needle, but the vein in her arms and legs had collapsed. He tried the veins on the neck. That
was no good either. We all stood there helpless as Lina screamed in pain. Gregorio was mute
with confusion: their little child was wandering around the bed. Finally, the doctor gave her
some Coca Cola –the only “medicine” available. Once more the doctor insisted Lina to have
Journey down to Kabankalan. Since the priest wouldn't be back, there was nothing else to do but
start the haggling for a rented jeepney. It would be expensive and Greoorio had nothing, but we
wherein no position to haggle with a life at stake. Gregorio laid Lina on the same hammock that
he had used to carry her down the mountain, and strung it up inside the jeepney. All the time she
cried out in pain. We had no sedatives, to calm her with. The doctor sat beside Gregorio. Before
they left I whispered to Lina to be brave. There would be help. “Hang on,” I said. The jeepney
moved slowly, bouncing along that terrible road, until it slowly disappeared from sight. I
whispered a hopeless prayer as if God who forgives would also, at a stroke, undo the
accumulated effects of our unjust system. When Fr. Hilario got back to the convento the
following afternoon, I poured out the story to him. As we were talking, Gregorio appeared at the
door. He looked as if he had walked the whole way back which was over 30 kilometers. His face
told the story – Lina had died halfway down the journey. She had begged to stop the jeepney: the
pain being too much. They stopped, and as they did, she died and so also taking the life of the
child inside. And now followed a strange development. The doctor and driver insisted that
maybe she
was still alive! They would not heed Gregorio's pleas to return to Togoc. So, the jeepney
continued on and deposited Gregorio and his dead wife at a doctor's house clinic in a large
barrio! The doctor was not there, and the housewife naturally got mad at Gregorio for bringing a
dead patient. But the jeepney driver would not carry Gregorio and Lina any further. “Against the
law, he said, and, “Of course, it would be bad luck too. “The young doctor must have had very
little understanding of just how destitute Gregorio was– how desperately poor most of our people
are – because what he did next still amazes me. He went on to Kabankalan with the jeepney
driver and asked an expensive Western-style funeral home to take care of the corpse. For
Gregorio, who had to pay for the expenses anything was better than to leave his wife in an
unfriendly house. Now Gregorio stood there numb and exhausted. What else could he do? The
funeral home would not return the body till he paid the bills for embalming and for bringing the
body back to Togoc. It was 8,000 pesos. This was more than any amount Gregorio had ever held
in his whole life. Just think that 250 pesos worth of medicine would have saved the life of both
Lina and her baby! It was the end as far as I was concerned. But not for Gregorio. He would
borrow the money from us and sell his land to pay us! I suggested we send down our vehicle for
the body, but there was a question about that being illegal. And then, would Perfecto our faithful
driver, overcome the same superstitious fear of carrying a dead body in his vehicle? “Apart from
that, “said Fr. Hilario. “Our beat-up vehicle might never make it down and up again.” Gregorio
watched us argue. He was beyond feeling. Finally, we decided to consult Perfecto. When Fr.
Hilario left, Gregorio pleaded, “Father, don't leave Lina in Kabankalan and he wept. Perfecto
was brief and to the point - “The vehicle will make it down, and we'll get it welded there. Then
I'll drive it back. I'm not afraid to carry a dead body.” Then we planned on how to deal with the
funeral home – there would be some brutal bargaining to do.I have not told this story well; the
details have been smothered over by so many similar incidents. Did Gregorio carry Lina for eight
hours, not four? Did we get the body back for150 pesos or what? The cases blur in similarity and
your mind stood making distinctions. Sometimes I'm tempted to think that if we had enough
money to supply the poor with medicine, or not to have about the wreck that our vehicle is, the
problems would end. That might help relieve our worry and tension, but it would solve the
problems, for they are recurrent and deep-rooted. (GIVE THE CURRENT SITUATION OF
HEALTH IN THE COUNTRY) When we brought Lina back to Togoc, Gregorio asked for the
lid to be taken off the coffin so that he could be photographed with his child and wife for the last
time. I'm afraid the pictures are not clear enough to be printed. But when I look at it I sometimes
wonder - “Gregorio, where are you now? Have you returned to your mountain plot? Who look
after your little child? Do you blame yourself for poverty, for Lina's death? Will you ever escape
from the shadow of failure that is not your fault, but is rooted in exploitative and oppressive
systems? Will we ever wake up?