ZAMBOANGA CITY, 24 January 2005 — Saudi Arabia has pledged more support to help the family of a Filipino Siamese twins, six months after Crown Prince Abdullah shouldered the pair’s operation in Riyadh.
The Manzo girls, Anne and May, now 14 months old, underwent surgery on March 20, 2004 to separate their joint abdomen, pelvis and lower organs at King Abdul Aziz Medical City in Riyadh.
Prince Abdullah paid $320,000 for the surgery and visited them during their recuperation. And now Saudi Arabia pledged more support to help the Manzo family pay for their house in their hometown in the central Philippine province of Cebu.
President Gloria Arroyo and Saudi Ambassador to Manila Mohammed Ameen Wali, along with other Filipino officials visited the two sisters on Friday in the village of Paknaan in Mandaue City.
Saudi Arabia still continues to send medicines for the twins, who returned from Riyadh in July.
The girls’ father Jose Marie Manzo told reporters that the Saudi Ambassador assured them that the Crown Prince would also pay for their new house.
He said they transferred Tuesday to their new house in the village, which he was supposed to pay by installment amounting to about five hundred pesos a month for 20 years.
A Cebu newspaper on Saturday quoted Manzo as saying that the ambassador had asked him about expenses for their home, then told him the Crown Prince would take care of it. “We are so thankful,” Manzo, a factory worker, said.
It said the Manzo family lived in a privately owned lot in Opao village, but was evicted after the owners sold the property last year.
President Arroyo and Ambassador Mohammed Ameen Wali also carried the twins outside the Manzo house and posed for photographers to the delight and cheers of hundreds of locals who flocked to the village to welcome the officials.
Wali also brought some gifts and some pictures of the twins while they were in Riyadh. He also handed the family about P10,000 for the girls’ milk and clothing.
The Crown Prince learned of the twin’s condition after the local newspaper Sunstar ran a series of stories about them.
