When I was first asked to write the story of the Davao Medical School Foundation (DMSF), I thought I was signing up to document the history of a medical school. I did not realize I was actually signing up to trace the healthcare journey of Davao and Mindanao and the story of a movement that said: health care is not a privilege of the few — it is the right of every community.
The task was daunting — not merely chronicling five decades of institutional history, but capturing the soul of an institution that dared to bring medical education to a region that desperately needed it.
That is when I encountered FIRE. Not the destructive kind, but the kind that illuminates. DMSF defines its core values as FIRE: Faith in God, Integrity, Respect, and Excellence. As I delved deeper into the archives and interviewed the pioneers, I realized FIRE was not a convenient acronym. It was the literal and metaphorical fuel that sustained this institution through impossible odds.
Let me take you back to 1976, when I was 6 years old. Mindanao had only 61 rural health physicians — one doctor for every 5,194 people. The rural economy could not support practitioners. Violent conflict ravaged not just the countryside but the urban centers, too. And yet, a group of doctors, educators, civil society and religious leaders came together with nothing but a dream. My favorite quote from one of the founders, Sr. Florida Manzano, OP, said it best: “We have no money, we only have faith.”
As a caregiver to two loved ones, I understood that faith intimately. Not religious faith alone, but the faith that caregiving demands — the belief that your presence matters, that your small acts of kindness accumulate into something meaningful.
Writing this book while navigating the unpredictable terrain of caregiving was itself an exercise in walking through fire. There were days when the words would not come, when exhaustion clouded my vision, when I questioned whether I had anything worthwhile to contribute. But like DMSF’s founders, I learned that FIRE sustains you when nothing else can.
Integrity demanded that I tell this story truthfully — not as hagiography (focusing only on the good and leaving out the bad), but as an honest account of struggle and triumph. Respect required me to honor the voices of the community health workers, the Katiwala, who were the true heroes of this narrative. These volunteer health workers, trained in proper preventive measures, environmental sanitation, and treatment of simple illnesses, became the community’s first responders and trusted first line of defense. They later became institutionalized as the Barangay Health Worker (BHW) system. Excellence pushed me to ensure that this book would do justice to an institution that has trained thousands of doctors and health professionals serving communities across Mindanao and the world.
Caregiving taught me something else: the most profound healing happens not in gleaming hospitals but in the quiet, persistent work of primary health care. When you are caring for someone you love, you learn that health is not a product to be delivered but a relationship to be nurtured. You learn that prevention matters more than cure, that community matters more than institutions, that dignity matters more than efficiency.
This is precisely what the founders of DMSF understood from the beginning. Because Health for All — that noble aspiration enshrined in the Alma Alta Declaration — cannot be achieved through hospitals alone. It cannot be achieved through specialists who only serve urban centers. It can only be achieved through primary health care — the frontline defense that catches problems early, that empowers communities, that treats people not as patients but as partners in their own wellbeing.
The writing of DMSF’s story reaffirmed my commitment to a life of service. Not because I am particularly noble, but because I have seen what service does. It transforms the giver as much as the receiver. When I cared for my loved ones, I discovered reserves of patience and compassion I did not know I possessed. When I wrote about DMSF’s community health workers and rural doctors, I saw the same transformation — ordinary people becoming extraordinary because they chose to serve.
But here is the tension I grappled with while writing this book: How do you keep the FIRE burning in a world that runs on profit? How do you train doctors to serve the poor when the system rewards specialization in the cities? How do you practice primary healthcare — prevention, community participation, and health as a human right — when the medical industrial complex is built on procedures, prescriptions, and paying patients?
These are not abstract questions. They are the daily reality of every DMSF graduate who chooses to stay in Mindanao, knowing they could earn ten times more elsewhere. They are the reality of the Institute of Primary Health Care, which has had to rethink its funding models as foreign support dwindles. They are the reality of an administration that had to open an international medicine program catering to international students to help sustain operations and subsidize scholarships for local students.
I learned that living our values in a profit-driven economy is not about refusing to engage with money. It is about redefining what we count as profit. At DMSF, which remains a nonprofit institution, profit is not measured in pesos. It is measured in communities that have access to health. It is measured in the healthcare volunteers who bring care to the villages who have never seen a doctor. It is measured in the number of doctors and healthcare professionals who stayed in Mindanao to serve.
The DMSF founders understood something that we must never forget: you do not need deep pockets to change the world. You need deep conviction. You need integrity that cannot be bought. You need respect for every human life, regardless of their ability to pay. And you need excellence — not excellence for its own sake, but excellence in service.
DMSF has kept its FIRE burning for five decades — not because it was easy, but because it was necessary. For Davao. For Mindanao. For the poor. And for the future.
