LAST Sunday, we said farewell to a committed professional who dedicated his life to his country in service, advocacy and sacrifice. Dr. Alfredo “Alran” Bengzon, at the age of 91, quietly left to meet his Maker on March 1.
At his age, he saw the world change and the Philippines with it. After the war years and rebuilding lives put on hold by disruption, he went on to the Ateneo de Manila, where he was an active student, member of the Glee Club, and in the Honors section. He chose medicine as a career and went to the University of the Philippines for his medical degree. After earning it, he trained in Germany, the United States and Canada before coming home to practice his specialization, neurology.
This is a normal career pattern, but Alran was onto his country’s contemporary conditions and became an activist Filipino in opposition to the dictatorship that was in place. Thus, aside from his medical practice, he was a member of Manindigan, an active movement for democratic return of government. It was for all activists of the time, a life-risk, career-risk proposition.
He survived all those risks upon the return of democracy and was back in his career mold when he was appointed to head the Department of Health (DOH). There, he was an activist official who pushed and pulled, spoke and advocated, campaigned and publicized the need for the Generics Medicine Law, which was eventually passed with clear and constant opposition from vested interests in the field.
At the Health department, he injected an energy that was much needed to bring health care to all Filipinos. He visited the department’s medical facilities all over the country, fraternizing with the medical personnel assigned there to show that the department had them in mind, cared for them, supported them in their efforts to bring health care to all citizens.
Along the way, he was appointed to the bases talks panel to negotiate with the US for the return of US bases to the Philippine fold. This was a political role, but he knew how to handle it from his perspective, experience and the nationalism that he had always advocated to his children, his colleagues and his fellow citizens.
Further on, he was a founder of Medical City, a tertiary hospital for which he served as its head for a number of years as it developed into one of our world-class hospitals. He was also one of the founders and the first dean of the Ateneo University School of Medicine.
In time, he was honored with the Magsaysay Award, particularly for his work in the medical field.
As an individual, Alran was a bit of a perfectionist which he showed when he took up golf. He had learned from a pro, but always kept analyzing his golf swing on his own time toward making it the perfect swing. He focused on golf until he won a club championship against formidable opponents. After that, he quit golf and went back to focus on his professional career in medicine.
I remember him particularly for one incident. When he was the newly designated Secretary of Health, he advised some of us who were working in the Leveriza slum in Manila with Sister Christine of the Good Shepherd nuns, who lived there, that we should gather together those who were visibly sick, emaciated or old because they probably had tuberculosis. So, we put out the word that on a certain Saturday they should all gather in the open space to be seen and treated by the DOH team sent by Dr. Bengzon. It was a shock to see how many there were in that area that we who had been working there never saw because they kept to themselves. But Alran had that gut instinct that many in this country do not have health care, do not go to health facilities and just wait out their lives waiting for death because they cannot afford otherwise. This was a revelation to my ignorant self that I have never forgotten and for which I have tried to emulate in some small way Dr. Bengzon’s inclusion of health care for all his struggling fellow Filipinos.
The world has changed many times since Dr. Bengzon’s time, but the memory of his relevant life and the institutions he made better will remain as a constant memory and a model for the rest of us.
