Outreach and Volunteer Work

It was December 2003, when Dr. Jess Socrates, a medical doctor based in the United States, visited the island of Palawan in the Philippines. While visiting the Rehabilitation Center of Bahatala, a Palawan Non Government Organization operated by his brother, Dr. Jose Socrates and wife Cecile, he was introduced to a roster of over 75 children in the island with cleft lips and palates. Palawan’s remoteness makes it difficult for major, established cleft lip charities to reach and service.

In developed countries like the USA, a newborn baby with a cleft lip abnormality can get repaired expeditiously. The child grows up normally with his peers. In Third World countries like the Philippines, a child born with a cleft lip abnormality may be doomed to keep this disfigured face throughout his life. The reason is obvious. The cost of surgical repair is way beyond the capability of an indigent Filipino family. Yet, it takes only a relatively small amount of money and the willing expertise of a plastic surgeon to repair the face and change the entire life of the affected child.
Upon his return to Manila, Dr. Socrates was introduced to Dr. Laurence Loh, a plastic surgeon and his brother at the Phi Kappa Mu Fraternity. He started talking to him about these kids. After a few sentences, Dr. Loh interrupted him and asked him to say no more. He volunteered to repair the disfigured faces of these kids. Dr. Loh traveled extensively as a volunteer with “Operation Smile” all over the world and had done thousands of cases. He became the Medical Director of Operation Smile in the Philippines.

In conjunction with Bahatala and Operation Smile, led by Dr. Socrates, Phi Kappa Mu International launched “Operasyon Handog Ngiti” (Operation Gift of Smile), an effort to repair the cleft lips and palates of the children in Palawan.
Doctor Socrates flew back to the United States to mobilize his Fraternity brothers. At that time, the Phi Kappa Mu International, based in California, had just acquired its non-profit status. Through Phi International, donations were accepted from Fraternity brothers and the public to help fund the repair of the cleft lip and plate of these children. Socrates’ wife, Luz, invited her friends to a fund-raising Filipino fiesta. Expected expenses were primarily to cover the transport of the patients and their parents from a distant barrio to the facility, to provide living accommodations while away from home, to pay for airline tickets and living accommodations for the volunteer plastic surgeon and anesthesiologist, to pay for OR nurses, and to purchase of necessary supplies like sutures, scalpel blades and medications.

In October 2004, almost a year after the initial encounter in Palawan, Dr. Loh and a volunteer anesthesiologist flew to Palawan. Working for two full days till late at night, Dr. Loh successfully repaired the lips of 20 children.
The various projects of Phi International have expanded not just to repairs of cleft lips and palates, but also mobility assistance for disabled persons, children with congenital defects, housing for the poor and much more.