Bet’s pack of goods caused woman’s food poisoning?

DAGUPAN CITY – Myla Landingin is a typical poor housewife, frail, dark-skinned, and thin. For her, a pack of "relief goods" – a kilo of rice, canned goods, coffee, sugar, and other goods – from a candidate means relief from hunger.

Little did she know that the food items she received from a congressional candidate in Pangasinan’s fourth district would nearly cost her life.

Landingin reportedly suffered from food poisoning after eating Maling (canned meat loaf), included in the bag of goods, for dinner Saturday. She spent her 36th birthday in the hospital Monday.

Still very weak and having a hard time breathing, Landingin told The STAR at her bedside at the Region 1 Medical Center (R1MC) that she and her husband, Gerry, each got a bag of goods and P100 from the camp of Dagupan City Mayor Benjamin Lim, who is running for fourth district congressman. Inside the bag was a tarheta or a small poster of Lim.

Overjoyed, she had the two cans of Maling fried for their dinner. But she was the only one who ate it because her three children, aged 10, five and three, opted to eat rice with chocolate milk. Her husband, a security guard, was then on duty.

The following morning, Landingin began to vomit, had loose watery bowels and felt very weak that she had to ask a neighbor to call her husband.

She was rushed to the R1MC. Laboratory test showed signs of food poisoning but her doctor could not yet ascertain if the luncheon meat and rice she had for dinner caused it.

Dr. Joseph Fama, her attending physician, told reporters that Landingin was severely dehydrated, had very low blood pressure (90/70), and low pulse rate.

"It’s more of infectious diarrhea and her fecalysis showed she had puss cells," Fama said, adding she could have died if she was not immediately brought to the hospital.

Fama said Landingin was already in stable condition but could not yet say when she would be discharged.

Her fecalysis needs about a week more to be cultured so the microorganisms that caused the food poisoning could be identified.

But she said she is still thankful because her husband and children were spared from the near-tragedy. "Otherwise, we will all be here almost dying," she said in the dialect.

She said she learned a bitter lesson from the incident: Never eat canned goods or anything from a candidate.

The STAR contacted Lim for comment, but his son, Marc Brian, who is running for mayor of Dagupan City, spoke on his father’s behalf.

The young Lim branded the report as black propaganda of their political enemies. "This is the worst one because it already involves the life of a person," he said in a phone interview.

"They are using this to destroy our campaign," he said, adding, though, "This will not definitely destroy us."

He said they could put up with political attacks. "But this one is different. I’m calling on them to stop this black propaganda," he said.