Dacawi: Humanitarian golds

By Ramon Dacawi
Benchwarmer

UST hours before China unfolded its pageantry and fireworks display in Beijing, Edgar Dacanay, a 36-year-old barber, was fidgety. Edlyn Joy, his two-year-old daughter, was an unsure starter for her next crucial bout. The kid is in a personal combat event of sorts she's too young to comprehend and wage and her family simply can't afford.

Edgar couldn't watch seeded Filipino boxer Harry Tanamor's debacle Tuesday night in the hands of Ghanaian light-flyweight Manyo Plange. He had to be at the corner of her kid. He learned of Tanamor's fate only the following morning, when he and his wife Merlinda were on their way to bring home Edlyn Joy. The kid had just pulled through her fourth bout and will rest for her next fight.

Each victory of the kid - and kids all over - is worth more than an Olympic medal. Her battle is protracted - against a dreaded Goliath who has no regard for disparities in age, weight and height, and too wily, deceptive and painfully brutal. Edgar and Melinda can only be relieved, thankful people came to cheer for their daughter and hope they will be around before the next round.

Edlyn Joy is battling cancer. The big C is at her tailbone, diagnosed as sacrococcygeal tumor. Doctors said it's malignant.

That's why hours before the opening of the World Olympics, people who heard came to see her being admitted for her next chemotherapy session at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center.

Juliet, a public school teacher, handed Edgar P5,000. She said it came from her brother Irwin Ilustre. Earlier, a woman delivered P4,000 at the barbershop, saying it was from an anonymous donor. A mother and son added P1,000.

As Edlyn Joy was being wheeled into the chemo room, a man caught up with them. He handed Edgar a wad, and reminding him of the power of prayer. When he has settled the kid on her bed for her six-day chemo confinement, Edgar remembered and counted the man's support. He then called him up, saying it was too generous - P16,000.

The man said he understands how difficult the ordeal was for Edgar and his family. He said he knew because he, too, survived cancer survivor. That's why he came, he said.

That's also why when Edlyn Joy's illness was diagnosed, her uncle Antonio, a farmer in Tubao, La Union sold his cow and had the small family land he was tilling tied to a loan. With no land to farm, he came up to watch over the kid, so her father can cut hair at the United Barbershop behind the Tiongsan Bazaar. So her mother can go back to work and repay her wage loan as a salesgirl at the Maharlika Building.

So Edgar and Merlinda could attend a court hearing last Thursday morning before bringing her home to their rented house in Loakan Proper Barangay. The hearing was about what happened to John Emerson. Edlyn Joy's elder brother, three years ago.

That was when John, then eight, and a classmate of his were walking to their second grade class when a passenger jeepney bumped him. He died two days after the accident in late January 2005.

Edgar said John, his second son, was able to push the other kid, saving him.

That's why Edgar can't give up on Edlyn Joy, whose other brother, Edmher, now 13, is in first year high school. That's why members of members of the Chrysanthemum Lions Club came to her hospital bedside, handing colostomy bags so Edgar won't worry about having to buy them for a while.

SunStar Baguio