Gift of heroes

Amid all the ugliness arising from the schism between the administration of President Aquino and the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Renato Corona shines some truly meaningful and welcome news. The international news giant CNN named Robin Lim as its 2011 CNN Hero of the Year. CNN itself described Lim as “an American woman who has helped thousands of poor Indonesian women have a healthy pregnancy and birth,” referring to Lim’s Yayasan Bumi Sehat, or Healthy Mother Earth Foundation.

Absent in that portrayal is the fact that part of Lim is Filipino. And in her heart and her deeds, she is all Filipino. The daughter of a Filipino mother and an American father, Lim spent part of her life growing up in Baguio, surrounded by the old world traditions of her grandmother, Vicenta Munar Lim, who had been a midwife and a healer. “Lola Vicenta had such a profound influence on my life that I did not identify with my American-half. I became deeply Filipino, like my mother and my lola, so much so that when I was a teenage mother-to-be, I chose to give birth, not in a hospital with a doctor, but with a midwife,” Lim said. She gave birth to daughter Deja safely.

Not everything always go so well. Two decades ago, Lim experienced the pain of losing a loved one when her younger sister Christine died due to complications arising from her pregnancy; her baby died as well. All this despite the fact that Christine was in the United States, known as a bastion of the best medical care in the world.

Lim is a big believer in alternative and holistic medicine including herbal remedies and homeopathy. This belief comes from way back in Lim’s past when her lola inspired her to go down a different path. A registered midwife in the United States, Lim believes in the integration and balance between the old and the new when it comes to giving birth: “Doctors and midwives, in particular, must practice in a culturally appropriate manner, including the hilot on the birth team. I have seen this working in Mt. Province in the Philippines, and my organization, Bumi Sehat, instituted it in Aceh post-tsunami (after the 2004 tsunami).”

Much of her devotion to the age-old traditions of the Filipino hilot can be seen in Lim’s novel, published in the Philippines in 2009. “Butterfly People” is a paean to old Baguio and the story of a child named Vicenta who grows up to learn the traditional ways of healing. Lim helped out by freely providing care to others in Baguio and nearby places.

The path to becoming CNN Hero of the Year began with Lim’s decamping to a tiny village in far-flung Nyuh Kuning in Bali, Indonesia. She established the Yayasan Bumi Sehat in 2003 to provide care to the poorest of Indonesian mothers and their infants, earning her the name “Ibu Robin,” or “Mother Robin.” Lim clearly applied the art and the heart she found here in the Philippines to save babies in Indonesia.

The recognition from CNN puts her mission in the public eye. “Every baby’s first breath could be one of peace and love. Every mother should be healthy and strong. Every birth could be safe and loving, but our world is not there yet,” Lim said upon accepting the award in Los Angeles.

Filipinos are familiar with the award, after a Filipino, Efren Peñaflorida Jr., won the 2009 CNN Hero of the Year award. Peñaflorida, a teacher by training and social worker by calling, championed education for out-of-school youths by teaching from his “pushcart platform” and founding the Dynamic Teen Company at 16. Together with DTC, Peñaflorida volunteered to teach as many impoverished Filipino youths as he could through the K4 (Kariton Klasrum, Klinik & Kantin) Outreach Program. Like Lim, Peñaflorida was selected as one of 10 such CNN heroes and chosen by a Blue Ribbon Panel that adjudged his contributions as being the most significant. Lim’s efforts underwent the same process and received the same honors.

That two Filipinos have been named CNN Hero of the Year in the five years the award has existed speaks to the fact that, despite the deep divisions that scar our country, ours has always been a nation given to sacrifice and service to others. From the examples of Efren and Robin, we know that we can be a nation with a gift of heroes, that we can raise ourselves above the petty squabbling of small concerns and draw from the collective generosity and nobility that also distinguish Filipinos from other peoples.