Ang Manggagamot

There is this anime I saw in Animax about an unlicensed surgeon that charges a million dollars for his operations. Though he may be unlicensed, this character apparently has highly specialized skills in surgery, even greater than most licensed top doctors in reputable hospitals. I doubt if this anime character has a real life counter part, but still, I would find it very interesting if there is. On the other hand, this cartoon character or his real life existence perhaps would just further strengthen the beliefs of some that medicine, like justice, is only for the rich. Only those who can afford to pay the professional fees of doctors and other medical expenses can receive proper or even adequate medications. This should not be.

Poverty or insufficient financial resources may prevent patients from affording, rather, receiving full proper medication but this on the other hand impels them from seeking alternative medicines. There are many forms of traditional healing in the Philippines among them faith healing is one form that is often sought for by desperate patients and similarly by intrigue.

I had a first hand encounter with a faith healer two weeks ago and another yesterday. By the term “faith healer” I am referring to those spiritual healers that operate on patients with no other tools except for their bare hands. Before my personal encounter with a faith healer two weeks ago, I have only seen such kind of medication on television, often times being proven false. At present, I am not in the position of contending that all faith healers and faith healing are bogus or am I admitting that I am a full believer of such. But I am a slight believer of the metaphysical world and have had a first hand experience of such healing yesterday. In other words, I am situated between the skeptic and the believer. Regardless of my belief I find my recent encounter with faith healer Pering Duaz very interesting.



The initial thought I had when I first saw manong Pering was that he was a groovy lolo because he came in the chapel wearing a pair of sunglasses and a white collared shirt tucked-in in his jeans, with his white hair brushed up; later on bringing out a pack of Philip Morris from his pocket and lighting one stick. I actually had second thoughts that he was the faith healer everyone was waiting for. It was only when people started greeting him and his assistants approaching him that I realized that he was the person we were waiting for. Manong Pering immediately started healing after his arrival. The first patient, a Polish woman, approached him then laid on the table. No rituals or whatsoever as I was anticipating. Perhaps I anticipated for some sort of ritual because I had a vague understanding of what faith healing is. Come to think of it, it might be because I was thinking more of voodoo rather than faith healing, which is very different. Two thoughts came two me after the first time I saw Pering Duaz operate, one was how does he perform such “operations” and the other was that if foreign patients come to Pangasinan and visit Pering Duaz for the alternative medication he provides suggest that he may indeed be legitimate for what he is doing. Just imagine the Philippine medical tourism industry stimulated by faith healing.




I do not know the exact procedures surgeons do when they extract gallstones from a patient’s body, but I do know that Manong Pering removes gallstones by putting in his fingers without any incisions and anesthesia then take the stones by hand. Amazing? Bogus? I have yet to find out and want to keep an objective mind about manong Pering and his method of healing. There have already been several cases wherein the method on how Pering Duaz performs healing has been proven bogus. One example of which is a man from Baguio named Labo who was actually sent to prison in Germany because of his fraudulent healing. I do believe that Duaz’s surgical operations of removing gallstones or tumors may be a fraud and are only brought about by the quickness of his hands. However, what really amazes and intrigues me is how he performs his “spiritual injections”; he has an invisible syringe that he uses to inject medicine to his patients. I was amazed and intrigued up to now because I felt a light prick at my back when medicine was “injected” into me even if I neither saw him holding any syringe nor needles, which he may have used to create the sensation. Yet, Duaz’s hands that pretend to be holding a syringe were actually far from my body so he could have not used a small needle to make the sensation of pricking.

Again, I have no definite position in this matter. On one hand, I am both skeptic and cynical about Duaz’s faith healing. Then on the other, I am considerate that his healing may be legitimate. Well, perhaps the only way I can make a firm position is when I am able to have the blood coming out from Duaz’s patient be DNA tested, checking if the blood people see during his operations are actually the patient’s blood. If that may not be possible, we can just have the blood tested whether it’s human’s or not. Nevertheless, performing such tests may have several implications, most especially to those who seek for alternative medication because of financial deficiencies. Proving Duaz to be false may just bring their hopes of getting better further down. So for now, I would just keep an objective mind about this matter and besides, it is natural for us to bear some doubts.