Foreign donor provides armchairs to paraplegics

MAMASAPANO, Maguin­danao – A foreign donor has made life easy, somehow, for 50 paraplegics, dozens of them innocent civilians maimed in armed conflicts, by donating wheelchairs in a gesture that made many recipients shed tears of joy.

The donor of the wheelchairs, One World Institute, which is jointly managed by Dr. Thomas Stern and his spouse, Yolanda Ortega-Stern, has promised to send the local government unit here 50 more as part of the local government unit’s social welfare thrust.

Mamasapano Mayor Datu Akmad Ampatuan, who led the distribution of the wheelchairs yesterday, said he merely tried soliciting assistance from the institute after learning it has been helping rehabilitate paraplegics and did not even expect it would respond to his request positively.

“I felt so emotional when the institute replied and told us we will be given 50 wheelchairs as initial assistance to our poor people,” Ampatuan said.

Ampatuan said as a counterpart, his office spent for the shipment of the wheelchairs from Manila to the town proper here.

Ampatuan said they learned of the institute’s humanitarian outreach activities in the Philippines and abroad through a non-government organization, the Royal Kalam Group.

Born with congenital deformities in his lower extremities, Solaiman Kaiinda, 60, said he is certain he would be more productive now with a wheelchair provided by the institute.

“I intend to put up a sari-sari store now that I can move around our yard using this wheelchair,” Kaiinda said in the Maguindanaon vernacular.

Parents of eight-year-old Rahima Masukat, a mentally retarded child who has been suffering from cerebral palsy, both cried when their daughter smiled at them after helping her sit on her wheelchair.

“This is my first time ever to see a wheelchair,” said Abdul Masna, a polio victim.

Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Datu Zaldy Ampatuan, who has been reaching out to foreign donors since his election as the ARMM’s 5th governor in 2005, said he is elated that NGOs and funding outfits abroad have lately been active in helping the poor Moro communities in the South.

“We are thankful to these donors. The ARMM government alone, due to limited fiscal capability, can hardly sustain a drawn-out social welfare and health campaign in far-flung areas in the autonomous region,” the 40-year-old regional governor said.

Ampatuan, who has ministerial control over the ARMM’s health and social welfare departments, said he has been stretching the budget of his office to help the region’s poor communities, even spending a big chunk of his special purpose funds for the procurement of ambulances and to sustain the needs of sectors displaced by recurring conflicts in many areas.

Ampatuan procured in Manila last week a brand new ambulance for Lamitan City in Basilan, a component province of ARMM.