Filipino leads war on Ebola in Liberia

On Wednesday, 138 Filipino peacekeepers under the United Nations Mission in Liberia will arrive in the country on board a chartered flight from the West African nation. The soldiers will be brought immediately to Caballo Island in Manila Bay, where they will be quarantined for 21 days before being allowed to return to their families. This does not mean that the peacekeepers who served in Liberia, which now has the most number of Ebola cases, are infected with the virus. It is merely a precautionary arrangement to ensure that Ebola does not enter the country.

Aside from the peacekeepers, overseas Filipino workers coming from Ebola-stricken countries will also be subjected to the same rigid safety measures.

Incidentally, some people have been asking me what was the purpose of sending troops to Liberia. In the case of the Golan Heights, we were part of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force created to separate the Syrians from the Israelis and establish a buffer zone between the two forces.

Liberia is a different case. I was at a loss for a specific answer as to our mission in that country. So I called up my friends at the Department of Defense. They replied that in Liberia, our troops made up part of a protection force for the United Nations mission, specifically the Office of the Special Representative of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. As in the case of the Golan Heights, no replacement units are to be deployed in Liberia.

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It was in December 2013, that mysterious deaths were reported in a small village in the West African nation of Guinea. By March 2014, the private health organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders confirmed Ebola as the cause of the mystery deaths. The World Health Organization (WHO) ignored the warnings about an Ebola global emergency. By July, MSF announced that Ebola was out of control with the disease rapidly spreading into Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal and Nigeria.

Liberia, the country most affected, has roughly 50 doctors attending to almost 4.5 million people. The country’s first woman president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, recently came under fire for failure to set up a system capable of managing the disease.

But there is one bright spot in the Liberia Ebola crisis.

Firestone Liberia is a 185-square-mile rubber plantation operated by Bridgestone Americas, the largest private employer in Liberia. Its president and managing director is a Filipino, Ed Garcia.

In a recent article in Fortune magazine, written by Drew Hinshaw, Garcia narrates how he handled an epidemic that has so far resulted in more than 5,000 known deaths and more than 13,000 cases.

Firestone first detected the arrival of Ebola in March, when the wife of an employee was diagnosed with the disease. Immediately, “we went into crisis mode,” recalls Garcia. Two isolation clinics were built using shipping container vans; company trucks were converted into makeshift ambulances; protective suits used to clean up chemical spills, also known as “hazmats” (hazardous materials), became medical gear to protect those who may be exposed to an infected patient.

“It was like flying an airplane and reading the manual at the same time,” said Garcia. Janitors were trained how to bury Ebola corpses; company teachers went from door to door to explain the disease—something crucial because unfounded rumors continued to spread like wildfire among the people. Firestone built its own treatment center and set up a comprehensive response to quickly stop transmission. Dr. Brendan Flannery, head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Liberia, hailed Firestone’s efforts as “resourceful, innovative, and effective.”

An article by Alex Newman in The Wall Street Journal describes the Firestone rubber plantation as a “sanctuary of health in a country where cases are doubling every three months.”

For his work in making Firestone Liberia the success story in West Africa’s Ebola crisis, Ed Garcia has been hailed as a hero who has shown what diligence and common sense can accomplish in stopping the spread of the disease.

Some personal notes on Ed Garcia.

Ed, aged 60, is from Iligan City. His wife Marissa Son is a Cebuana. A product of La Salle Academy, Iligan City High School and St. Alphonsus Redemptorist Seminary in Cebu, Ed originally studied for the priesthood. He left the seminary and enrolled at the University of the Philippines before joining Firestone, where he has spent the last 32 years either on the plantation or in the United States. He currently oversees the entire Firestone Liberia operation—its rubber farms and rubber wood and hydroelectric power plants, along with 120 housing communities with schools and medical clinics for the employees and their dependents. Garcia is responsible for more than 80,000 people.

Incidentally Ed’s father is retired Philippine Constabulary colonel Antonio Garcia, who passed away in 2008. His mother is Rosario Leanillo, 90 years old and presently residing with one of five children in the United States.

Most of the personal information on Ed Garcia was provided by Fr. Ramon Fruto, rector of the Redemptorist Seminary in Cebu. He is now retired and stays at St. Clements Iloilo Retreat House. It was Father Fruto who served as a role model for his students and instilled in them a compassion for the poor and a commitment to justice.

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My thanks goes to Francisco “Jing” Alampay, president of Digiscript Philippines, for furnishing me with the news reports on Ed Garcia that appeared in Fortune magazine and The Wall Street Journal.

Jing and Girlie Alampay were part of a wonderful Filipino expat community working in Jakarta, Indonesia, during my stint in the foreign service. Jing was director for Business Development at Sinarmas, a leading business conglomerate in the Indonesian capital.