(46TH IB FACEBOOK)
TACLOBAN CITY — More than 150 residents from remote communities in Jiabong town, Samar received free medical and dental services during a Medical and Dental Civic Action Program (MEDCAP) conducted by the 46th Infantry Battalion in Barangay Casapa.
The outreach activity benefitted residents from the barangays of Casapa, Bugho, Nagbac, San Andres, Cristina, and Mercedes, where access to healthcare services remains limited due to distance and lack of medical facilities.
Among the services provided were free medical consultations, dental check-ups and tooth extractions, circumcision procedures, blood pressure monitoring, and the distribution of medicines and vitamins.
According to the 46th Infantry Battalion, the activity, held on May 11, served 66 medical patients, 31 dental patients, and 57 beneficiaries who underwent free circumcision.
The MEDCAP was conducted in partnership with the local government unit of Jiabong, the Office of Senator Ronald dela Rosa, Samar Doctors Hospital, ACDI Multipurpose Cooperative–Catbalogan Branch, AFPFC MPC, The Joyful Giver, and the Rotary Club of Makati Primea, together with volunteer healthcare workers and civic organizations.
Residents expressed gratitude for the free healthcare services, particularly those who traveled from distant villages to receive medical attention, medicines, and dental care.
Lt. Col. Marvin Inocencio, commanding officer of the 46th Infantry Battalion, said the outreach program reflects the military’s continuing commitment to community welfare beyond security operations.
“This Medical and Dental Civic Action Program reflects our continued commitment to serve the people beyond security operations. With the support of our partners and stakeholders, we bring healthcare services, hope, and compassion closer to our communities,” Inocencio said.
(ROEL T. AMAZONA)
The significance of Our Lord’s Ascension
A NUMBER of very meaningful considerations can be drawn from the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven. One is that with it we are reminded that like Christ, who is the pattern of our humanity and the redeemer of our damaged humanity, we actually came from heaven and are meant to return there for our definitive state of life after “passing” the test God has given us if what he wants us to be is also what we ourselves would like to be.
With our Lord’s Ascension, we are told that heaven is now open to humanity after it has been closed due to the fall of our first parents. We have been alienated from our Father God and are now reconciled through the redemptive work of Christ.
Our Lord’s Ascension also brings home to us our true home which is heaven where there will be “no more tears, pain or death, (cfr. Rev 21,1-4) where “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, or the heart of man conceived,” (cfr. 1 Cor 2,9) It’s there where we become a new creation, achieve the perfection of our humanity, and where we enjoy endless peace and bliss.
We really need to develop a yearning for heaven, but doing so by being keenly aware of our duties here on earth. The latter are our daily ordinary pathways to heaven, aside from the sacred means Christ has given us. Yes, we have to always keep heaven in mind and live our earthly life with this goal in sight, using our daily duties and experiences as pathways to reach God.
Yes, as we yearn for heaven, we should be keenly aware of our duties here on earth. We need to see the organic connection between our earthly life and duties and our heavenly yearning. We cannot have one without the other.
In this regard, we have to do a lot of apostolate which would require of us that we, first of all, should be driven with love for God. Otherwise, our apostolate, our love for the others would have no steam to run on.
We need to see to it that our love for God always grows everyday, so that our love for others would also correspondingly grow. In this, we have to realize, first of all, how much God loves us. Only then can we start loving him and loving the others.
That is why we have to pray and consider the truths of our faith that show us much more than what our senses can discover. We can say that a person who does not pray is a person who cannot fall in love properly.
That’s because a prayerless love is a love that is simply driven by earthly elements that cannot last for long and cannot cope with all the demands of true love. It’s love that would be completely at the mercy of earthly and temporal conditions.
With sincere prayer, we would manage to keep our mind and heart, our thoughts and desires to somehow start and end with heaven. Thus, we can fulfill what St. Paul once said: “Set your hearts on heavenly things, not the things that are on earth.” (Col 3,1)
We have to learn how to relate everything to heaven, and not get entangled with our merely earthly and temporal affairs. Everything is meant to start and end with God who is the Creator of everything and the very foundation of reality.