Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala on the power of storytelling

What projects in the last two years are you most proud of? Why?

I produced two documentaries that dealt with untouchable issues and powerful personalities people are afraid to confront. One is the issue of Martial Law survivors titled 11,103 (2022) and the other is on illegal logging in Palawan titled Delikado (2022). I worked on these for some four to five years. I felt we needed to make people aware of the hard facts that people in power are trying to distort and erase. I wanted to pay tribute to the everyday Filipino who has become a martyr, a hero, a survivor of every imaginable injustice. I wanted to pay homage to those who fought for their truths, family, land, and country despite the risk to their lives and their families’ futures. I’m also proud that through the newly formed Filipino Documentary Society, of which I am President, we were able to stage two documentary festivals (Daang Dokyu and Dokyu Power) and showcased films that encourage critical thinking of our past, present and future.

On the cancer front, our foundation, the ICanServe Foundation, which I started with three other friends, including Crisann Celdran, staged a regional breast cancer conference called “The 6th Southeast Asia Breast Cancer Symposium”. We had close to 2,200 participants online, representing more than 20 countries. The summit provided life-saving information to people in the region, from medical practitioners to researchers, government, cancer patients, tech experts and various patient advocates. We were able to showcase also what our foundation has done that no one else has in the country and few in the region have attempted: We institutionalised breast cancer control programmes in local governments through our programme ATING DIBDIBIN (Take your Breast Care to Heart) and through local laws. The program has encouraged women to take charge of their health, banished their fear of check-ups, increased patient compliance, and decreased mortality rates.

During the pandemic, we were able to pivot and continue to provide services and assistance to women with breast cancer in poor communities. During the lockdown, we produced KAMAY GABAY kits for women to intensify their breast self-exam initiative since most were afraid to go to their community health centres for a check-up. We also provided more than 2,000 Grab car rides to the hospital for patients on treatment, which was useful during the lockdown when patients had to stop treatments because public transportation was suspended. We raised funds to provide medicines, PPEs and other protective gear needed by patients and community or barangay health workers. During the pandemic, we united the breast cancer community to create Patient Power Philippines, an informal coalition of breast cancer patient groups in the Philippines, to have a united voice and scale up our services together. As a founding member of the Cancer Coalition Philippines, which lobbied for the passage of the cancer law in 2019 (National Integrated Cancer Control Act), we continued to lobby Congress and the Senate to fund the law and increase support for cancer patients. We continued to liaise with the Department of Health to plan and execute the full implementation of the law.