ZAMBOANGA CITY, 4 June 2006 — Local officials bade farewell on Friday to the crew of the United States hospital ship Mercy after a weeklong medical mission in Zamboanga City.
“It’s a nostalgic goodbye for the Mercy after helping many our poor people in Zamboanga. We really appreciate the USNS Mercy medical mission in Zamboanga, said Councilor Milabel Velasquez, the acting vice mayor of Zamboanga City.
The ship arrived in this key southern port city on May 25 from Manila and is heading southward to Sulu and the Tawi-Tawi islands for a similar humanitarian mission, despite dangers of attacks by members of the radical Abu Sayyaf group. More than a thousand patients benefited the medical mission in Zamboanga and officials in Jolo Island said many Muslim villagers were awaiting the ship’s arrival to give the crew a warm welcome.
“We welcome the Americans and the medical mission will help a lot of poor people in Jolo and Tawi-Tawi and we thanked the US government and the crew of the USNS Mercy for this important humanitarian mission,” Sultan Sharif Ibrahim Ajibul Mohammad Pulalun, of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo, said.
Filipino military commanders in Jolo said they have tightened security on the island for the arrival of the 272.5-meter-long USNS Mercy.
A US Orion spy plane was spotted Friday flying over Zamboanga and nearby Basilan island where the ship was to sail on its way to Jolo. Health officials have begun screening patients in Jolo for free medical operation offshore and onboard the ship, which was last in the Philippines in 1986 during a humanitarian mission also. At least 25 percent of the ship’s crew members are Filipino-Americans and Capt. Henry Villareal, second to mission commander Captain Bradley Martin, is the highest-ranking Filipino-American aboard the ship.
The USNS Mercy is configured with state-of-the-art medical equipment and a robust multi specialized medical team of uniformed health care providers capable of providing a wide range of services ashore as well as on board the ship. Filipino civilian medical professionals and nongovernmental organizations are also working side-by-side with US and Philippine military personnel.
