I have a confession to make, she told me. And with those simple words, she caught my attention.

My name is Nancy and I am a Breast Cancer Survivor.

In a medical mission in Tambo, Paranaque last May 24 2009, a 65 year old woman came up to me complaining of numbness on her right and left hands. With a history of breast cancer status post radiation therapy, status post surgery, before I could even speak, she told me up front that whatever tests I was going to order for her she will not be able to afford it. She had no money.

Discussion closed.

So I told her a bunch of technical stuffs like recurrence, Batson's plexus, and statistics to scare her until halfway I realized, how pathetic I was.

This is human being who told me she just survived something horrific in her life. Someone who just went through hell and somehow among all the physicians in that room, she wanted to share her story with me.

So I stopped talking and started listening. Intently. About how difficult it was without money even in the Philippine General Hospital. About how the 4 other women she was in the same room with in PGH eventually fell to the disease.

I listened as she told me how she was transformed by the grace of God and how she was willing to serve him until the end.

It was at that moment amidst the noise, the confusion and the squalor that pervades all medical missions that I realized, I had a lot to be thankful for.

There is a lesson we can learn in the recent fiasco involving Dr. Hayden Kho and Katrina Halili that speaks to all of us.

Lessons like looks can be deceiving. Never trust anyone and when all things fail, there is always a sunshine after every storm. Or a good PR.

What I find appalling though was the swine flu epidemic suddenly lost momentum after the sex scandal. I mean who cares about schools being closed when where is a scandal? Sex always tops the bill when it comes to making headlines.

Being a physician myself, I could not understand how a fellow physician could actually tape himself knowing that the truth, especially when there is evidence, always comes out in the end.

We all have our share of "wild days" that's true. I mean, hell I have more than my fair share. We are only human of course. What is an abomination though is when we use our "wild days excuse" to destroy another human being. We could argue of course that katrina wanted it. I mean look at her in the video. What however we sometimes forget is that there is always the element of "consent" that should always be respected.

Just like in the crime of rape.

I support Katrina Halili and her efforts to stand for herself. Of countless women who have in time and again committed mistakes and yet were willing to stand in the fire.

As for my colleague, I hope that you'll understand the gravity of the situation.

I have always been a volunteer ever since my medical school days up to now especially with AMDA and AMMS. Call it atonement since I cringe every time I hear the word charity being misused of course many many times. And I guess what I learned from my experience especially in meeting selfless people like Dr. Fe Del Mundo and Dr. Primy Chua is that there still are physicians, in the defense of my profession, who never let the title of a physician get into their heads. Who, no matter how impoverished treat people with respect.

This is what the oath of Hippocrates was meant for.

Yes. I said yes for the first time to an out of town medical activity for 3 days in a province I have never been with a group of people I have never met.

I do have a friend who lives in bataan though but I guess that doesn't really count. Anyway bataan is a province subdivided into 11 municipalities with its own history of anguish, terror and Death Marches. No wonder some of the medical technologists who stayed with us kept insisting on seeing the ghost of a white lady while we were there.

Of course I never was the type to believe in something supernatural. Although I have to admit there is something rather eerie about the place, I didn't get the ghost vibe. Still there is sadness in that place. A sadness so deep I cannot even begin to fathom it. So I eventually decided to take it slow and simply enjoy as this soft orange hue covered the afternoon sky in Balanga.

I watched until the world unfolded, so beautifully, right before my very eyes.