[Featured Site] HealthActivist.ph

HealthActivist.ph is born because I took my journey towards health seriously. I told myself that if I am endeavoring to live a healthy life, I should make it as my advocacy and integrate it to my everyday life as a development worker. Despite my non-medical background, I took the courage to walk this path in…

Human Rights Online Philippines

December 13, 2013

6–9 minutes

environment, Genetically modified food, Genetically modified organism, GMO, Golden Rice, Health, philippines, Public health

HealthActivist.ph is born because I took my journey towards health seriously. I told myself that if I am endeavoring to live a healthy life, I should make it as my advocacy and integrate it to my everyday life as a development worker.

Despite my non-medical background, I took the courage to walk this path in the hope to learn as I progress. I am a firm believer that my health shouldn’t be in the hands of a medical or health professional but it should be in my hands and contribute to the accessibility and availability of the healthcare system for all Filipinos. For me, the first step towards health is to know your body, understand it and be able to respond to its signals accordingly. More in this in My Health Journey Page.

Let me walk you through my site.

Obviously, the site will start with the homepage in which it shows you the latest update I have on health through events I have attended/participated, research, documents, features, news and analysis I have either written or researched about.

About Me discusses about the author’s motivation on developing the site and a walk through of the site itself.

My Health Journey is a walk through of how I started my journey towards health.

Public Health is all about my advocacy because health is not just about losing weight and healthy living on your own but it has something to do about how the government and the institutions work in ensuring the people’s health. What I have been doing to achieve optimum health should be made available and accessible to everyone even those economically-challenged Filipinos. Communities must be able to chart their own health programs according to their needs in the community and should not be dictated by the institutions. For me, I want a genuine “health in the hands of the people” type of healthcare system in the Philippines with the support of the government, which is supposed to be lead by the people themselves and non-state actors (i.e. academe, church, media and private sector). The people’s health should not be a source of greedy profit-making by pharmaceutical companies and other health service providers whose main goal is to gain too much profit.

The page will contain the basic health statistics lifted from government and international health organization’s data for everyone’s understanding. It will also include reports and plans on events within the health calendar.

In this page, you will also get to read about health campaigns I am currently supporting/writing about such as:

NO TO GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS (NO2GMO) which affects radically our food system and impacts our health and environment.
BROWN RICE CAMPAIGN. A campaign that mainstreams/popularized the production and consumption of brown rice, a healthier option for consumers than consuming the white rice and/or the Golden Rice (a GMO-rice with beta-carotene).
PUBLIC HEALTH IS A CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUE. I am a firm believer that even if we take measures in becoming healthy through eating and exercise, if we have an environment that is polluted, we will never truly be healthy so I support demands and calls for renewable energies (rather than the building of coal-fired power plants), organic vegetables and herbal gardens (rather than plantations for biofuels and GMO crops), sustainable agriculture, (instead of monoculture and conventional farming) and pushing the government to implement these in the national as a complement to our progressive stance in the international climate change negotiations.
RATIFY OP-ICESCR. I also support a healthcare system founded on the people’s right to health as enshrined in many international conventions and declarations. One of which is the International Convention on Economic, Social, Cultural Rights (ICESCR). I want the Philippines to sign the Optional Protocol of this convention so we can make the government accountable to respect, protect and fulfill our ESC rights especially the Right to Health.
MORE FUNDS FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE (BUDGET ENGAGEMENT). I have learned that the budget is an expression of public policy. Therefore, when more funds are invested to ensure the people’s health, it shows that the government is giving it a priority.
Your Health is primarily about taking care of your personal health – body, mental/mind, emotional, social (relational) and spiritual health. For body health, it’s all about physical exercise and healthy eating; mental/mind health is about synchronizing the body and mind to be healthy; emotional health is about managing your stress; social (relational) health is about making relationships work to reduce, if not, eliminate stress; and, spiritual health is about discovering the source of your inner strength and how you use this and integrate it in your everyday life. For me, my spiritual health is being charged by advocacy and activism: participating in making the world a pleasant place to live in for everyone.

Environmental Health is a page composed of articles about issues that affect our health particularly public health from becoming realized. For me, I chose to focus on the worsening of climate change, continuous mining of our natural resources that brings pollution to water sources, lack of public road safety and spread of toxic chemicals in food, air and water.

HealthActivist.ph does not promise to contain all the information you may need about your personal health and the advocacy. It is just one of the many other health resources in the world wide web. However, it attempts to point you towards the right direction by making a mini-information hub within the site through its Health Resources page. It offers a list of the following:

Healers and Health Practitioners (who focuses on a holistic approach in looking at your health).
Healing Modalities (list of varied healing modalities apart from the conventional ones).
Health Institutions (list of both CSOs, NGOs and government agencies on health).
Home Remedies (How to’s: Home remedies and cure for specific illnesses).
Sources of Health News (list of sources of alternative/traditional healthcare news apart from the conventional ones).
Stories of Survival (gathering of stories of survival – cancer and health crisis survivors, etc.)
Wellness Products & Shops (list of organic products and where to shop for them).
Healthy Restaurants (list of healthy restaurants in Manila and in nearby provinces for your healthy dining).
The bias of my site is towards Preventive Primary Care, Right to Health and the understanding of Integrative HealthcareHealth Guaranteed as a consciousness. Therefore, as a part of this, I will tackle more of the considered “traditional and alternative” healthcare and be critical of the conventional healthcare provided by the Western medicine. Although, the latter has a role to play in the holistic approach towards health, I will dispute the effectiveness of synthetic, chemical-based drugs/medicine and will promote more of the natural cures and remedies. While most of evidences are anecdotal, my site will be a part of the push to do researches on these traditional and alternative ways to healthcare.

Healthactivist.ph aims to empower people to take action over their health both in the public health and personal health aspects. Hope you watch out for more of my health articles. Healthactivist.ph wants your HEALTH GUARANTEED!