Learning from Betty Go-Belmonte

In the past few months, the Philippine STAR published several stories of poor patients needing help. In this regard, the STAR would sincerely like to thank the following people (partial list): PCSO through Manoling Morato; UNILAB - Biomedis through their cluster    head Constante Calubaquib, medical director Dante Sibug, marketing director Ritchie Keyser, and manager Julie Sumalpong.

Also, many kind and generous angels from foreign lands: Belgian photographer Sidney Snoeck, Geoffrey Patey of Australia, Roger Sikkes, Reinhard Woegerer, Steven Hopkins, Mila Whiting, and Charles Taylor.

Thank you, too, to JC senator Mel Velasco, chairman of The Outstanding Filipino Physician Award; Vicente Pacheco, JPIC-Santuario De San Antonio Parish; Peachy G. Lim; Jun F. Vizcarra; and Katrina Ripoll.

If you personally know any of them, please extend our patients’ heartfelt “thank you.” I never thought there were so many caring and compassionate people.

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I did not meet the late founder of the STAR, Betty Go-Belmonte, but I feel that I know her already. You see, I have been reading her collection of daily columns, called “Pebbles,” published in the STAR from 1988 to 1994.

It started early this year, when Judy of Operation Damayan, the STAR’s socio-humanitarian arm, approached me with a letter request for a sick child. Looking at the file, I saw “chemotherapy, P150,000.” It’s too expensive, I thought. And then without a warning, Judy dumped on me a two-foot pile of patients’ appeals saying, “Doc, this is just from one hospital. I have more if you want.”

A few days later, I bumped into Milet Dioso, a long-time secretary of Ma’am Betty, and she told me, “Doc, you should look at Ma’am Betty’s past columns.”

And so I read through her old columns, and I was struck by some very unusual articles. For one, where can you see published handwritten letters from readers asking for a discount on their hospital bills? There was another letter looking for a lost man. Later, I learned that the STAR reader did get a hospital discount and the lost man was found the next day, all because of Betty Go-Belmonte.

An Angel For Sick Kids

Reading through her columns, I could feel that she was a religious, motherly, and compassionate person. She was known for writing spiritual and uplifting articles she called “angel stories.” Stories like “Angels in men’s clothing” and “Looking for a Good Samaritan.” One time, Betty saw a young man stop his car and pick up a banana peel. She published the plate number of the guy’s car, CFE 535, to commend him through her column. Well, that’s her style.

I also learned that one of her favorite charities was the Philippine General Hospital. In fact, PGH residents constantly wrote to her. In her April 18, 1991 column entitled “An appeal in behalf of 5 tots at PGH,” two resident doctors at the time, Dr. Marimel Untalan and Dr. Cindy Gaitin-Ama, wrote her in this simple format:

This letter was written at the request of the family of Leonido Manansala, a three-year-old boy with acute myelogenous leukemia. He needs antibiotics and chemotherapy. In behalf of his family, I would like to ask for assistance for the medicines of Leonido.

Signed, Dr. Ama.

And there were many more letters. Only the names and diseases changed.

Like manna from heaven, Betty replied:

Dear Dr. Untalan and Dr. Ama,

I can immediately set aside an amount corresponding to one-week treatment for all five of them. As readers begin to respond to this appeal of yours, I shall coordinate with you. Please keep in touch. My prayer partners will join me in praying for your little patients. As you treat them medically, we will be praying for their miraculous healing.

Love,

Betty

Two days later, on April 20, 1991, Betty announced, “There is hope for the tots.” More than a dozen STAR readers responded to the call. Four donors went to PGH to give their donations. The others coursed it through the STAR, like the Hindu Temple, Inc. who wrote to her:

Dear Betty,

On behalf of the Indian community, please accept our donation of P5,000 for the five tots. Betty, your column is our inspiration. Please keep up the good work. When the daily turmoils of life leave us too busy to think of the poor and the needy, your column strikes us like the rays of the sun in an unlighted room. I shall be visiting these kids on Sunday morning at PGH together with our Indian volunteers.

Best wishes,

Vishnu Hathiramani

Truly, helping the needy cuts across race and religion.

An Angel Till The End

Her secretary, Milet Dioso, relates that Betty died of cancer at a young age of 60. But during her illness in 1993-’94, she would frantically publish patients’ appeals almost daily.

“I knew she was in pain,” Milet said, “I could hear her expressions of pain when we talked over the phone. Still, Betty insisted that we publish and help these sick children.”

Why did she not complain to God about her illness? Why did she continue helping strangers even though she was in pain? Betty simply said, “It is all because of Him.”

 After she passed away, Betty was hailed as one of the outstanding Tsinoys by the Kaisa Heritage Museum, where her large portrait can be seen. Today, her charitable foundation, the STAR’s Operation Damayan, has been diligently continued and expanded by her son, STAR CEO and president Miguel G. Belmonte. Everyone says that Miguel inherited and imbibed a lot of his mother’s compassionate qualities.

The STAR is a unique newspaper because it does various charity works throughout the year, namely helping sick children, building classrooms and libraries, giving free education for adults, conducting medical missions, giving gifts during Christmas, raising funds for calamities and disasters, publishing deserving cases from patients’ appeals, and recently, helping preserve our environment. You can learn more about these by logging on to www.philstar.com. Go to Operation Damayan.

A few months ago, I saw Judy again with her growing pile of patients’ appeals. “Maybe there’s a way to help some of the sick kids,” I said. “I’ve been getting some lessons through Ma’am Betty. God bless her soul.”

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E-mail comments to drwillieong@gmail.com.