HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPE-VINE: OUR NEW ABNORMAL
SM SuperMalls, SM Cares, the Estée Lauder Companies, and St. Luke’s Medical Center rolled out the pink carpet in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month at the Fashion Hall of Megamall the other week, on October 6th, with free breast exams among the slated activities. As is the tradition at SM, it was just one of several launches connected to Breast Cancer Awareness Month, happening at SM Malls across the country.
At SM City Cebu, the Pink Cancer Chat was launched; and that signifies 15 years now of SM City Cebu ‘painting the town Pink’ in October. This year, the Cebu mall joins forces with cancer experts - the Philippine Society of Medical Oncology, and I Can Serve Foundation Inc., in creating activities that support breast cancer survivors, and fostering the dissemination of information on early detection as the most effective way for prevention and cure of breast cancer.
Iconic landmarks located at strategic SM SuperMalls were illuminated in Pink for the month of October, symbolizing hope and solidarity with those affected by breast cancer. SM Megamall’s Time Man statue, the SM Mall of Asia Globe, the SM Lanang Fountain in Davao, are just some of these ‘pretty in pink-ed’ landmarks.
This is so important in the light of the statistics that demonstrate that Breast Cancer is the third most fatal type of cancer afflicting Filipinos, behind lung and liver cancer. Based on reports, of an annual total of 86,484 cancer cases reported, 27,163 are breast cancer cases. The more pertinent fact is the alarming 9,926 fatalities of Filipino women; in spite of the fact that medical technology today will say that if detected early, breast cancer is quite curable.
The Philippines has the highest rate of breast cancer in Asia, ninth highest in the world in pre-pandemic 2019; and as can be extracted from the high number of breast cancer fatalities, it’s often diagnosed in the advanced stages. An estimated 70 percent of these cases occur among indigent women, sadly making treatment and affordable care sensitive issues.
I can only hope that attitudes have changed; but I recall being shocked and outraged years ago, when I would talk to my friends who work with I Can Serve, and they’d recount their experiences as social workers with communities of these indigents afflicted by breast cancer. They’d ask these women why they didn’t consult with doctors earlier, whether they’d feel or notice the lumps, and a persistent refrain was how they noticed the lumps, felt sick or diminished as time passed, but they’d constantly live in denial of wanting to know if there was anything was wrong with them.
Prodded to explain why this was the case, in spite of the information campaigns about detecting breast cancer early, and/or how it is so treatable if caught at an early stage, the stark reality and sadness of their replies I still remember. They would explain how they didn’t want to be a financial burden, how they feared that their husbands would desert them, think them defective or contagious. And so how it was a choice to suffer in silence, and just await their fate.
That for me was so sad and it angered me - that in this day and age, men could still be thinking this way and instill so much fear, that long held beliefs and the stigma of being afflicted with cancer could be so strong that it could motivate women to such silence, and that all the work on information drives and awareness campaigns could add up to nothing in the face of such commonly-held opinions, no matter how wrong and misplaced they were. The battle is an uphill one, and the work of the private sector in pushing the awareness agenda can never be underestimated.
Among the speakers at the Megamall launch was Susan B. Afan, a survivor and current President of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. She asked me to impart the following information: On November 8, the lecture series of the Ramon Magsaysay Transformative Leadership Institute (RMTLI) will feature Dr Ravi Kannan, an oncologist from India, and a 2023 Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation awardee. He will speak about Heathcare being an Inclusive Ecosystem.
Dr. Kannan also advocates early detection, “Our fear should not be the fear of cancer, but our fear of delay in diagnosing cancer. Early detection will save lives… because early cancer detection is now a highly curable disease. It reduces the cost of treatment, it reduces the side effects of treatment, and so we must focus on early detection.” With treatment in India often discontinued because of underlying poverty, Dr. Kannan may well have great insights on how to overcome local superstitions and folk wisdom that work against early detection.