CLINICAL MATTERS

Last week, I was invited to give a talk at a public health convention hosted by the Health Sciences Society of Ateneo entitled, “Public Health Convention 2025: To Health and Beyond.” The overall theme was “Navigating Spectrums: The Philippine Public Health Landscape.” Most of the talks I get invited to do nowadays are for physicians or academics, and so giving a talk to college undergraduates and high school students was a refreshing change of pace.

My talk wasn’t until 11 a.m., but I decided to arrive early for the opening plenary. The keynote speaker was former Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Dr. Manuel Dayrit, a good friend and respected colleague. I have personally known Dr. Dayrit since he graciously asked me to deliver a memorial lecture in honor of his father, National Scientist Conrado Dayrit, back in 2017. We have since encountered each other several times in conferences like this one, and we also exchanged notes digitally during the pandemic. Dr. Dayrit was the Health Secretary when the original SARS outbreak started, and his team was able to successfully contain the cases that arose at that time. Many of those lessons were incorporated into in the institutional memory of the Interagency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) and helped us manage the pandemic. 

I was glad I came early because Dr. Dayrit spoke about “Health is Political: Public Health in the Philippine National Elections.” His talk focused on his own experiences and observations about how politics in the Philippines impacts health and vice versa. He spoke about how the politicians we elect directly determine our health as a nation in terms of the policies they make and their willingness to address social inequities. He mentioned how important it was for local leaders to understand how the health system worked and prioritize support for it. He lamented how some politicians ignorant of the health system would just buy medicines for handing out without even consulting doctors or healthcare workers. Finally, he used the example of Dr. Jose Rizal as a story to illustrate the points he was making. On a visit to the Rizal Shrine in Dapitan, he noted how Rizal, as a doctor, not only treated patients during his exile but also made significant public health improvements in his surroundings. He showed Rizal’s toilet facilities and the water reservoir that still stands to this day as well as the classrooms he set up for teaching the local students. He showed how doctors can positively impact societies wherever they are, not just by taking care of patients, but by being active in improving the community. At the end of his lecture, he was deluged with many questions and comments, showing that his presentation had made a profound impact on the young minds present. 

My own observation is that health is indeed political, and that public health and the people benefit when we have good leaders who make health a priority. It is important, however, to distinguish good politics from partisan politics. Politics can serve as a force multiplier and is an important vehicle for reform. Since health is a common good, there should be no room for partisanship when making evidence-based policies that benefit everyone. Politicians should be willing to support public health initiatives regardless of which political party is in power, much like with most of the public health policies enacted during the time of the pandemic.

After the plenary, I headed to the breakout room for my talk. The topic assigned to us was preparing for future pandemics and the lessons we learned from our COVID-19 experience. There were two speakers in our session, me and health communications expert Billie Puyat Murga. It was not a coincidence that we both decided to talk about the important role of communication in pandemics.

While the science underpinning the policies during the pandemic is based on evolving empirical evidence, convincing politicians to approve these policies and getting people to follow are just as important and ultimately spell the difference between success and failure. I spoke about how, as a member of the Technical Advisory Group of DOH, I used my TED fellow training to convince the policy makers to approve an early lockdown which saved hundreds of thousands of lives. I continued to give advice to the government and worked with the DOH and the IATF, not just in formulating pandemic rules and regulations but also in communicating these to the public. I did this by participating in government briefings, writing media articles, and posting on social media. At the end of the day, the Philippine pandemic response was very effective, with fewer than 67,000 confirmed deaths compared to 1.2 million deaths in the US. In addition, we were able to vaccinate 70 percent of the eligible population in a record amount of time despite vaccine supply issues and disinformation from anti-vaxxers. 

Billie Puyat Murga, who has a master’s degree in public health (Health Promotions) from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as well as being a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs, worked with the DOH in messaging and health promotions during the COVID-19 pandemic. It turned out we were both under then Undersecretary Maria Rosario “Rosette” Vergeire, with Billie working with Asec. Beverly Ho in health promotions, and me working as part of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG). Billie laid out the theoretical underpinnings of effective communication strategies and gave structure to what we had been doing intuitively to make sure these lessons are incorporated into future pandemic plans. The students enjoyed both of our talks, and there were plenty of questions afterwards.

One Philippine Science High School student asked me about how I ended up where I was, since she knew I was a Pisay alumnus and a Balik Scientist. I told her that it was really about trying to give back to our country that had paid for our education. I also told her that my son Lino, who is also a current Pisay student, gets an earful from me almost every day about how important it is to work hard and not waste taxpayers’ money. After all, a farmer who might not be able to afford to send his son to school was paying taxes that were sending him to school, and it was the least he could do to recognize that he was the recipient of something special.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to stay for the entire conference, but from what I saw, the future looks bright for the field of public health in our country. With such bright young minds engaged in improving health for all Filipinos, I can’t help but be optimistic that our country is going to be in good hands.