DSWD worker helps child-burn victim

CEBU, Philippines - Like most 3-year olds, Shai Lourece plays tricks by writing on her elder siblings’ notebooks or curiously sucking a ballpen to see if it tastes like candy. However instead of getting a scolding or an angry rebuff, the elder siblings simply smile and hug her because her playful tricks mean she is alive and well.

After falling on a burning pit at the age of one, Shai suffered 2nd-degree burns on the face and extremities, keeping her siblings and parents worry that she would grow up physically distorted that would make the subject of taunts and laughter. Even today, at her young age, Shai gets stares at and then avoided as if carrying a contagious disease. Her mother Josephine Cadellero hurts the most.

Josephine, 48 years old from Barangay Campuyo in Manjuyod town of Negros Oriental and a mother of five kids ages 18, 17, 11, 7 and 3, earns a living by doing laundry for other people. Her income, with that of her husband Reneboy, could hardly sustain their daily needs for food. What little is left is divided equally among the children as their “baon,” but securing more the younger ones. Of course, nothing is left for the medical rehabilitation of Shai.

Not a day would pass when Josephine does not cry for her inadequacy to provide the necessary medical treatment, and for her guilt for leaving Shai that day of the accident to gather laundry from her customers . She promised never again to leave her daughter.

As the mother was fulfilling her promise, their income dwindled, making life for the Cadellero family harder until the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) of the DSWD. “We were so hard-up that I was thinking of letting some of my children stop schooling for a while, but help came: through Pantawid Pamilya. The program has really helped with children’s needs in school. I am not anymore afraid that they might stop schooling,” said Josephine in Visayan dialect.

Shai’s condition and her family’s struggle to give her a normal life as possible, amid the hardship, did not go unnoticed for Philip Tampus, DSWD’s municipal link, who hails from Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu.

Being one of the parent-leaders, Tampus saw the efforts of Josephine to find ways to help her fellow beneficiaries and it was through this example that he decided to bring the story of Shai to the Office of the President through presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda. 

Lacierda’s office immediately referred the condition of Shai to PAL Foundation in tandem with The Children’s Burn Foundation for possible plastic surgery, reconstruction and release of contracture at her right and left cubetal area—to make Shai look normal and a chance to live one.

However, Shai’s family has to provide the necessary documents and, knowing their situation, Tampus set the clock in motion by lobbying for help from the Manjuyod LGU to the provincial office and up to the congressional office of Jocelyn Limkaichong. With all these and the many worker resources pulled together, Shai and mother Josephine were able to travel to The Children’s Burn Foundation in California, USA through PAL Foundation.

Once again the DSWD’s 4Ps has proven to be more than a conditional cash transfers program for poor households, with children 0-14 years old, involving cash outs of P500 per month per household if conditions for health services are complied with by the beneficiaries.

For Josephine, 4Ps became a lifeline of hope for her family and a tool towards forgiving herself for what happened to her daughter. For Shai, it was her bridge for a second chance to live normally and fulfill her dreams. For the Manjuyod LGU, the Negros Oriental provincial government, Rep. Limkaichong and the Office of the President, it was a simple act of coordination and collaboration, creating a strong message that the government cares.

For Tampus, who went out of his way to help a burnt child, he said: “I just did what I believe is right and, working for the DSWD, I believe in second chances.”