The collaboration through public-private partnership forged between the Philippine Army and a private corporation has conveyed noteworthy impacts to three district hospitals in Caraga (Region 13).
The 3rd Special Forces Battalion (3SFBn) of the Army and the Solaire Resorts and Casino recently joined their resources to upgrade the facilities of two district hospitals in Surigao del Sur and one community hospital in Agusan del Sur province.
In a statement released Sunday, 3SFBn Civil-Military Operations (CMO) Officer, 1st Lt. Krisjuper Andreo J. Punsalan, said the partnership has facilitated the donation of 380 bedsheets, 250 face towels, 200 hand towels, 550 bath towels, 1,250 pillowcases and 500 bathroom mats to Lianga District Hospital and Marihatag District Hospital in Surigao del Sur and Bayugan City Community Hospital in Agusan del Sur.
The deliveries to the hospital facilities, Punsalan said, were completed on Saturday (October 26).
He added that the donation was designed to increase the quality of healthcare services of these hospitals to the people of the two provinces.
Ending insurgency
In the same statement, Lt. Col. Joey B. Baybayan, commander of 3SFBn, said public and private partnership may complement the success of the whole-of-nation approach to end local communist armed conflict.
Baybayan said healthcare is among the issues that people clamor in the area during the conduct of Needs Assessment Survey (NSA) of the Army through its Community Support Program (CSP).
“This simple initiative can somehow provide comfort and quality service to any resident who will be admitted in their respective district and community hospitals,” he added.
The 3SFBn commander also expressed gratitude to the management of Solaire Resorts and Casino for providing the identified district hospitals with the needed facilities through its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program component.
He likewise commended the local government units (LGUs) in Marihatag, Lianga and Bayugan City for their commitment in providing continued quality health services to their constituents.
“We can see that public-private partnership can greatly impact the whole-of-nation approach to end local conflicts by addressing the basic issues through convergence in corporate social responsibility,” Baybayan said.
Building schools for IPs
Baybayan also mulls forging partnerships with other private corporations to help build schools in their areas of responsibility, particularly in the communities of indigenous peoples (IPs).
He said the project can be done with the support of the LGUs, the legitimate IP leaders and the Department of Education (DepED).
The building of schools through partnerships will address the illiteracy problem in IP communities and will help end the exploitation of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), including their front organizations.
Baybayan said CPP’s front organizations are exploiting the IP communities through various fundraising schemes.
Education was among the issues raised in a recent dialogue between the provincial government of Surigao del Sur, the LGU of Lianga, the party-list group Bayan Muna, and the militant IP group MAPASU (Malahutayong Pakigbisog Alang sa Sumusunod) last week in Lianga town.
The military said the militant group MAPASU continued to defy compliance with DepED’s requirement to provide better education to the IP children.
Instead, they tried to convince the provincial government of Surigao del Sur to pull out the Community Development Teams (CDTs) in the area.
The militant groups failed to convince the leadership of Surigao del Sur to remove the CDTs during the dialogue.
“Without the military, communist NPAs can terrorize the locality and government agents in the far-flung sitios making development through delivery of basic social services impossible and the hinterlands fertile for a protracted conflict,” Baybayan said. (PNA)
