Pre-deployment Seminar For DTTB Batch 23: Highlights of the First two Days

I am now at Aloha Hotel posting this blog after a sumptuous lunch. Today is the second day of the pre-deployment seminar. I arrived here in Manila Sunday evening. It wasn't a nice flight, with intermittetn turbulence and a noisy crying infant right behind me. By the time I touched down at NAIA, Stephen, a fellow DTTB, texted me that he, Celna and Mai-Mai were already at the hotel. Stephen and I are sharing the same room.

After a late dinner and a brief chit-chat with my DTTB-mates, I had to sleep early. Sunday was a "from-duty" day and I only had 3 hours of sleep. In fact, that Sunday afternoon, I woke up with a bad cramp on my right leg. It was excruciating and I was almost limping while leaving the house heading for the airport.

Anyway, here are the highlights of the first two days of the seminar:

Day 1: meet the rest of the DTTB Batch 23; found out later that we were 14 in all, with 3 others who were former DTTBs but decided to re-apply again for the program, call themselves "returnees"; bonded immediately with the Mindanaon group, particularly with Kish and Prince, both Moslems, together with Kuya Don, a father just like me and an Orthopedic Surgeon who decided not to proceed with his private practice and instead head for the barrios for some "soul searching"; morning activities were mostly introductory, with Dr. Kenneth Ronquillo giving a brief oversight of DOH, DTTB, the Millenium Development Goals, etc; afternoon was livelier, the topic was about the benefits and salary of a DTTB; included in the topic were leaves, privileges and breakdown of our salary; we were also broken down into smaller groups; belonged to group one a.k.a BnB (bulaklak ng Barrio); at the end of the day, we booked our flights for Nov 14 back to our respective regional offices and had our photo i.d.'s taken for the necessary papers to be accomplished the next day.

Day 2: morning started with a light breakfast; elected our batch officials; was elected as batch president; the morning session was mostly a repeat of the afternoon session the other day; more privileges were mentioned but mostly focused on our duties and responsibilities as public health workers; just ended our late lunch.

This afternoon I believe will be a continuation of the morning sessions. We are currently busy preparing our papers for GSIS, Pag-ibig, PHILHEALTH, etc. The afternoon session will be focusing more on the specific roles and duties of the Doctor to the barrio.

I am getting excited. One of the former DTTB talked about her experiences and she said, "2 years is too short for a life-changing experience." Her experience in DTTB did change her life and her outlook about life. She now works with the HHRDB, the agency which handles the DTTB program.

Anyway, I am currently enrolling my batchmates to a mailing list which I just started. Emails and cellphones will be one of the essential tools that will help us get connected to each other.