THE Public Attorney’s Office has been continually conducting medical-legal outreach programs for ‘neglected’ cultural minorities in the provinces, its chief, Atty. Persida Rueda-Acosta.
Since January this year, Rueda-Acosta said personnel from the agency’s central office have been working hand-in-hand with their counterparts in PAO’s regional offices to ensure the success of the missions that would benefit the members of the indigenous peoples (IPs).
The first leg of PAO’s legal-medical mission took place in the ‘Ayta’ community in Botolan, Zambales on January 7, 2025 which served 161 tribesmen while another 181, the following day in Hermosa, Bataan.
Meanwhile, some 142 members of the ‘Badjao’ community in Cebu province benefitted from PAO’s free medical consultations and medicines as well as legal assistance on January 31, 2025.
On the same day, PAO’s Deputy Chief Public Attorney Erwin Erfe, concurrent director of the agency’s Forensics Laboratory Division, said their team went to Ati Community, also in Cebu, where 87 members of the cultural minorities availed of the free services.
In Barangay Magsaysay in Marilog, Davao City, Erfe said he and the chief public attorney led their team on March 10 to the Obu-Manuvu tribe where 114 tribesmen and another 127 in Barangay Baganihan that benefited from the medical-legal outreach program.
Dr. Erfe said PAO’s medical personnel attended to the cultural minorities whose common medical conditions include upper respiratory tract infections, hypertension, arthritis/ musculoskeletal disorders and allergies including skin infections.
On legal matters, the PAO official said most of those who sought for assistance had problems on birth and death certificates.
” Of course, they’ve common problems regarding land issues and our public lawyers, especially in PAO’s regional offices, would be fully attending to them,” he said.
Rueda-Acosta said they’ve decided to put focus on the cultural minorities’ interest although similar outreach programs would continue particularly in detention facilities and depressed communities nationwide.
” These IPs are neglected groups, that’s why we are helping them. We make sure that all sectors of society would not be left behind as far as the free medical and legal services of PAO are concerned.”
The PAO chief said that its direction and goal have changed over the years as its personnel are now the ones that reach out to the Filipino people.
