FOR this medical doctor and his fellow Rotarians in Japan, the cup still runneth over with generosity and compassion for Dabawenyos.
Yes, the altruism of Dr. Atsushi Sasaki and his equally generous compatriots continue without letup, despite the beating that Japan’s economy is getting in the ongoing worldwide financial meltdown. (Just last week, that country slid from being the world’s second biggest economy to No. 3, yielding to China, the awakened economic behemoth).
Dr. Sasaki, a respected leader of the Rotary International (RI), past president of the Rotary Club of Wakayanagi and past assistant governor of RI District 2520 of Miyagi, Japan, was back in Davao City last week with yet another package of projects and donations for the less fortunate of Davao and neighboring areas.
The bountiful goodies consisted of several laptops, 60 sets of pianica ( a popular Japanese musical wind instrument), and a slightly-used electro-cardiogram. As in the past 14 years, the donations were made through the Rotary Club of East Davao, now headed by newsman Antonio M. Ajero.
In his latest Davao sojourn last August 12-16, Dr. Sasaki came with an unexpected philanthropist, Tadatsugu Maruyama, a 72-year old Mintal (Davao City)-born Japanese retiree whose father, a medical doctor in Mintal, met his tragic end in the hands of fellow Japanese, soldiers who suspected him of spying for the enemy.
It was the first time that Maruyama came to back Davao City after leaving for Japan with his widowed mother and older brother in 1945 at the age of seven. To make his trip back to Mintal more meaningful, Maruyama donated P100,000 for the establishment of a library in the Mintal elementary school. It was Maruyama-san’s way of compensating for the fact that of all the four Maruyama brothers, he was the only one who failed to attend classes in the school, as they had to leave with their mother to Japan in 1945 when Japan surrendered to the Allied Forces in the Pacific. His late father’s admonition about the importance of education stuck to his mind though he heard it before reaching school age.
On the other hand, for the umpteenth time, Dr. Sasaki was here checking on the progress of past and continuing projects and asking for more proposals pledging that he and his colleagues back in Japan would seriously consider for funding, despite the hard times. There were times in the past when he was in Davao City twice a year implementing projects and strengthening the bond of friendship with fellow Rotarians here.
Due to Dr. Sasaki’s donation, the Tugbok District Health Center in Mintal headed by Dr. Maribel Carmelotes, now holds the distinction of being the only public health center in Davao which has an ECG, said to cost about P400,000 when brand new.
Dr. Sasaki was there to demonstrate the use of the ECG to the center’s staff headed by Dr. Maribel Carmelotes in the presence of Mintal barangay captain Ramon “Abay” Bargamento, concurrent president of the Rotary Club of Calinan, who assisted RC East Davao in the task of identifying the beneficiaries of Dr. Sasaki’s donations.
About this time last year, Dr. Sasaki, his wife Yumiko, and other members of RC Wakayanagi were in Davao to turn over a custom-built ambulance costing P1 million to the town of San Isidro, Davao Oriental. On the second day, his party and members of the RC East Davao, also known as RED Rotarians, motored to Malamba, Marilog in Davao City, to also turn over an outhouse toilet they built for G. Astilla National Minority High School, the first public high school for the lumads in the city. According to immediate past president Ronnie Go, it has two bowls for boys, and three bowls for girls built at the cost of more than P200,000. What was lacking in manpower and some materials, plus supervision were provided by Rotarians, led by past vice president Jun Tan and Director Rey Fuentes, both structural civil engineers and private contractors. Past secretary Val Dionisio provided transport.
Among the other impact projects that Dr. Sasaki’s club and two other Japanese clubs –RC Funabashi West and RC Ishinomaki South, had implemented include a mobile hospital with equipment worth P6 million; a Topscon OMS-90 operation miscroscope and other cataract surgical instruments worth P670,000; firetruck; neuro-uro surgical intensive care (ICU) ward and instruments worth $14,500; mobile emergency disaster resue equipment, a complete set of brand new top-of-the-line accident rescue equipment worth $16,000; two-storey classroom worth P600,000 at Sasa Elementary School; college scholarship program worth more than P1 million now; water system in Kapatagan, Digos, Davao del Sur; and water system in Caliclic, Island Garden City of Samal.
When Dr. Sasaki was in Davao, he intimated another to fellow Rotarians about a plan for an expanded computer literacy program similar to what he had implemented in Luzon, where he gave away close to 200 computers and laptops to students.
He had also given laptops to college scholars of RC East Davao and train them by remote control so they could be capable of not only teaching kids to become computer literate but also able to repair them in case of breakdowns.
In the middle of spirited discussion about projects, including challenges that come in the way of success, Dr. Sasaki would smile and say “let’s enjoy Rotary!”, paraphrasing an annual theme of Rotary International a decade or so ago.
