Aside from being known as a champion of public health, Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan is also a strong advocate of community development. Currently, the former undersecretary of the Department of Health is busy helping members of the Blaan tribe improve their lives. This group of indigenous people can be found in seven Mindanao provinces. At present, they have a population of 450,000.
“They are one of the most marginalized IPs and oppressed people in Mindanao, Galvez Tan told the BusinessMirror in a recent interview via Facebook Messenger.
The Blaans have a long history dating back 1,000 years ago. According to their oral history, the Blaans originally lived by the sea but were pushed by the lowlanders to the mountains. During martial law, the Blaan ancestral lands became smaller as the political allies of the Marcos administration appropriated the land to build their own political fiefdom.
Under his Health Futures Foundation, Inc., Galvez Tan is developing a Blaan Wellness Tribal Village in Landan, Polomolok, South Cotabato. HFI recently completed a culturally sensitive Blaan birthing home in Polomolok.
“The reason why we put up the Blaan birthing center is because they were being discriminated by the health centers during their birthing period. Furthermore, the hospital staff are not culturally sensitive to the beliefs and traditions of the Blaan,” said Galvez Tan.
The doctor established HFI in 1998 to “advocate and act to the best interest of the poorest to achieve total health development.”
The HFI programs include community-based primary health care, health systems development, health and wellness promotion, health human resource development, disaster preparedness response and rehabilitation, ethnography of Filipino traditional medicine, indigenous people’s health, empowerment and development services, health systems review, health policy analyses, health planning and programming, local government capacity building on health and development, qualitative and quantitative health research, project proposal writing workshops and health and wellness workshops.
Galvez Tan and the HFI crafted a program to make the Blaans self-reliant regarding their health needs. So far, the Blaan community already has five midwives who passed the board examinations. One of the five midwives became a nurse after passed the nursing board exams. These health workers are currently working with their respective Blaan communities.
“No one is taking medicine yet. If the 2020-2021 school year starts there will be one enrolled in medicine and two enrolled in nursing. There are 12 new scholars in their first year in midwifery,” Galvez Tan said.
The Blaan community has a very interesting culture and tradition that has a huge potential for tourism. Moreover, ecotourism is going to be promoted in Polomolok to help these indigenous people.
There are also plans to put up a heritage village as part of the capacity building program so that visitors can experience the Blaan way of life, which also promotes a healthy lifestyle. For vegetarians like Galvez Tan, the place is a paradise as the village is growing 10 types of vegetables that are not sold in Metro Manila. “These plants are good sources of protein,” he said.
“There are 35 centenarians living in the area. In fact, I’ve met a 100-year-old man who can still climb the mountains. I found out that they have a plant-based diet consisting of beans, nuts, lentils, peanuts and related vegetables,” Galvez Tan said.
The affable doctor expressed concern over the eating habits of Filipinos. Citing the 1978 National Nutrition Survey, Galvez Tan said 70 percent of the Filipinos surveyed ate fruits and vegetables. However, there was a big drop in 2017 as only 20 percent of the respondents said they eat fruits and vegetables.
He said the proliferation of cheap canned goods and fast-food establishments contributed to the shift in the eating habits of Filipinos.
A firm believer in the potential of herbal drugs, Galvez Tan said the country must continue developing herbal drugs, saying they can potentially help millions of Filipinos access affordable medicine.
Galvez Tan is pushing for the development of herbal medicines because many Filipinos are going to benefit from it—from the producers to the consumers.
“We should remember that the Philippines is one of the top 5 most diverse countries for bio technology and biodiversity,” he said, adding that the development of herbal drugs will have a huge impact on the country’s health system, including our economy.
“Drug pricing is going to be a major concern in the country if we don’t invest in our natural resources,” Galvez Tan said. We are going to be plagued by high prices of medicines if we don’t move now,” he added.
The doctor said talent is not a problem because Filipino scientists have the capability to pursue scientific works in biotechnology. The problem, according to Galvez Tan, is the dearth of funds to pursue research and development.
Reproductive health management is also one of his advocacies. In his stint at the Department of Health, Galvez Tan and the innovative Health Secretary Juan Flavier pursued responsible parenthood programs aimed to provide a better quality of life to ordinary Filipinos. Under its “Let’s DOH It” slogan, the program got a lot of mileage.
Although the Philippines has achieved a 1.04 percent population growth in 2018, Galvez Tan said the country needs to target a 1.0 percent rate to achieve more growth and stability. “In the 1960s, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand have a population around 25 million. Now, the Philippines has 110 million while Thailand and South Korea have 80 million and 51 million, respectively,” he pointed out.
Galvez Tan urged government to integrate reproductive health in disaster, rescue and recovery management because a lot of pregnancies occur during the recovery period.