RIYADH, 20 August 2004 — The doctors, dentists, nurses, and other civic-minded individuals who volunteered thir services in the medical missions of the Philippine Guardians Brotherhood, Inc. (PGBI) Riyadh Chapter will be given awards, the group’s chairman has said.
Boggs “Mico” D. Bolor, who is also the Guardian’s coordinator for the Central Region of Saudi Arabia, said Ambassador Bahnarim A. Guinomla has been invited to hand over the awards on Sept. 3.
“To all of them, we owe a lot in the name of public service and we hope that they will always make themselves available if and when the PGBI will call on them for help,” Bolor said.
In the group’s latest medical mission on Aug. 6, the volunteers served stranded Filipinos sheltered at the OWWA Center or Bahay Kalinga.
Dr. Federico Alfonso Puente of the Philippine Department of Health, Bailano Salik of the Department of Social Welfare Services, and Danny Reyes from the OWWA Center also took part in the activity.
Puente and Salik were sent by their departments to Riyadh as part of the Philippine government’s special program to serve Overseas Filipino Workers, particularly the so-called “vulnerable” workers and those not amply covered by health insurance in their places of work.
Bolor said his group also rendered medical services during the overseas absentee voting from April 11 to May 10 and during the 106th Philippine Independence Day celebration.
“We hope to render free medical services as often as possible,” he said.
One of the active and biggest Filipino organizations in the Kingdom, the PGBI is one of the four factions of the original Guardians, a fraternity of military officers and enlisted men in the Philippines which broke up apparently over political differences.