PHYSICIANS and health workers have put Health Secretary Janette Garin on the spot for not acting swiftly on the case of murdered barangay health worker Rosalie “Saling” Calago, who was shot dead in Negros Oriental on May 24.
Calago and her husband, Barangay Kagawad Endrick “Bayoto” Calagok, were at their home in Tacpao, Guihulngan City, when they were allegedly attacked by soldiers from the 11th Infantry Battalion.
The protesters, led by Magdalena Barcelon, chairman of the board of trustess of the Council for Health and Development (CHD), descended at the main office of the Department of Health (DOH) in Manila on Monday and urged Garin to act on the case, more than a month after the killings happened.
Barcelon said, “The couple was peppered with bullets, and their bodies scorched inside their home at around 10 p.m. by suspected elements of the 11IB based in Mckinley, Guihulngan City.”
Apart from the CHD, which manages the Community Based Health Programs (CBHPs), members of the Health Action for Human Rights (HAHR) marched to the DOH to reiterate their call that justice be rendered to Rosalie and her husband, Endrick.
The protesting groups also asked for an audience with Garin to demand immediate action on the Calago murders and other attacks against health workers.
“The entire national network of CBHPs, health and human-rights advocates are saddened and outraged that despite the Philippines being a party and a signatory to almost all major international humanitarian and human-rights laws and treaties, the government cannot protect its own health workers and local officials,” Barcelon said.
Where the government fails to deliver even the most basic health services, community health workers (CHWs) and health practitioners of CBHPs bridge gaps in the delivery of health care in our country, she added.
Seven out of every 10 Filipinos die without ever seeing a doctor and the poor do not have ready access to health services, which CHWs provide for free.
“But, instead of support and protection, CHWs are persecuted because they have clearly shown to the community the systemic roots of their ill health and taught them the need for unity and action to resolve these problems, they are vilified and identified as members of the New People’s Army. Tagged guilty by association with the guerrilla movement waging a civil war, health workers are subjected to state-backed vilification campaigns. Worse, they are tortured, illegally detained, arrested on trumped-up charges and killed,” Barcelon said.
CHD-CBHP and HAHR challenged Garin and the DOH to undertake an “impartial, thorough and speedy investigation so that justice may be served and the people behind the crime will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
The same groups said they “hold the DOH and the Aquino administration accountable for the human-rights abuses inflicted on health workers.”