Community Service Rizal

Mental Health Seminar and
Affordable Clinical Check-ups on

Traumatized Earthquake Victims
In Digos City and its Neighbor Towns
Submitted by:
CAMPOMANES, Amie Rhose Julia Q.

AB Political Science 1A
16-718 TTh 11:10A – 12:40P
Submitted to:
Mrs. Leah C. Apsay

Instructor
INTRODUCTION
Community service is just one of the best gifts that we can contribute as
privileged individuals. Even our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal always seeks to promote
and secure the welfare of his community above all circumstances. It is rooted in history
that we are capable of making things better, together with great helping hands that
also aims to foster a harmonious relationship among every member of the community.
By upholding these values, we can claim that this underdeveloped country of ours will
soon be on the same ground with the highly developed countries. It is safe to assume
the fact of being a successful and prosperous country, but we should first focus on our
localities which will later on be subjected on the national arena.
COMMUNITY DESCRIPTION
Digos is a humble and small town; and is better known as the capital city of the
province of Davao del Sur. Digoseños are known to be compassionate towards other
Digoseños, and even people coming from different cities; having no conditions or bias
on whom to help. Our city is rich in agriculture, fishing industry and farmlands despite
of some calamities due to the vulnerability of some areas like drought, floods and
landslides. Just last year, countless earthquakes devastated a lot of properties in
Mindanao with Digos as one of the most affected cities because of the fault lines and
epicenters located near the city. It was truly heart-breaking as I witnessed the damages
upon my travel back home but it was also an eye-opener for me to extend my help to
the people in my city.
ACTION PLAN
Back on December 2019, I spent the whole day before Christmas with the
families that were highly affected by the earthquake. Me and friends who are still
students generated a feeding program and a small Christmas party to at least minimize
the trauma of the children in the area. The first program which consumed the whole
morning was for everyone in the evacuation center spearheaded by the local
government units. Similar to our planned program, they also conducted games and
other entertainments but was mostly for adults and teenager. In the afternoon, our
event was centralized on children that were probably traumatized during the calamity.
Days before going to the site, we gathered some help from other students who
immediately donated clothes, gave financial assistance and packed some relief goods.
With the money that we gathered, we hired some clowns to put smile on their faces
and minimize their worries, bought some toys for Christmas and cooked food for them
to enjoy for the afternoon.
Being there in the area is a bit saddening, witnessing families trying to fit
themselves to the evacuation tents lent by the government, watching them line up for
hours for water and having little to no food for the day. I was alarmed by the situation
and started to spread the word in all my social media platforms where news can easily
be delivered to people. I encouraged my friends who were with me in the event to also
post about the people living in the center and with our posts, we surprisingly gained a
lot of pledges from people that promised to also answer the call in helping the
earthquake victims.
Now that our financial aid is getting more help and the manpower also gained a
lot of volunteers, I was thinking of something else that might be affected by the
earthquake that cannot be easily addressed with some free housing or feeding
programs or even financial assistance. Earthquake is a disaster that can neither be
predicted nor prevented unlike the other calamities that we encountered in the past.
With that in mind, the possibilities of trauma are higher because of its unexpected
occurrence where people cannot even prepare for the risk reduction. We have to
consider that this calamity in one way or another puts a risk in the mental health of
some victims. In situations like this, mental well-being does not really gain attention
and help which I think is wrong and should be changed. Duty bearers always focus
more on the external damages that they forget to check the mental health of their
constituents. This kind of assessment should be reformed and internal damages should
also be addressed.
Therefore, I was planning to tap the help of the local government officials to
extend their help in securing the mental health of the people in the area that might be
disturbed by the trauma caused by the earthquake. They can conduct seminars and
initiate affordable to free clinical checkups for people to reassess their mental health. To
help the project be more attainable, a lot of groups concerning mental health in
different social media platforms are also easy to approach to ask for support and
expertise to be shared to the people in the affected areas. Slowly, we can decrease or
even eradicate problems concerning mental instability that were affected by the
distressing catastrophe.
The Philippines has recently passed its first Mental Health Act (Republic Act no.
11036). The Act seeks to establish access to comprehensive and integrated mental
health services, while protecting the rights of people with mental concerns and their
family members. However, mental health remains poorly resourced: only 3–5% of the
total health budget is spent on mental health, and 70% of this is spent on hospital care
(WHO & Department of Health, 2006). This republic act must be practiced and utilized
to benefit the Filipino people specially to those who experienced tragic and traumatic
events. In fact, the Department of Health spearheaded a mental health program and
one of its program components involve “extreme life experience” that provides
provision of mental health and psychosocial support during personal and community
wide disasters.
OBJECTIVES
 To promote the awareness of mental health to the earthquake victims.

 To minimize the case of trauma of the earthquake victims.
 To awaken government officials to expand their area of duty not only to the
visible damages of the calamity but as well as the mental well-being of their
people.
 To immediately address traumas to further prevent bigger mental health
concerns
 To harness capacities of LGUs and organized groups to implement promotive and
preventive interventions on mental health.
 To leverage quality data and research evidence for mental health.
VISION
A society that promotes the well-being of all Filipinos, supported by transformative

multi-sectoral partnerships, comprehensive mental health policies and programs, and a
responsive service delivery network
MISSION
To promote over-all wellness of all Filipinos, prevent mental, psychosocial, and

neurologic disorders, substance abuse and other forms of addiction, and reduce burden
of disease by improving access to quality care and recovery in order to attain the
highest possible level of health to participate fully in society.

Community Service Rizal

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Community Service Rizal

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Mental Health Seminar and

Affordable Clinical Check-ups on

CAMPOMANES, Amie Rhose Julia Q.

16-718 TTh 11:10A – 12:40P

Mrs. Leah C. Apsay

 To promote the awareness of mental health to the earthquake victims.

A society that promotes the well-being of all Filipinos, supported by transformative

To promote over-all wellness of all Filipinos, prevent mental, psychosocial, and

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