I-Witness: “Ambulansiyang de Paa (Ambulance on Foot)”

Seven years after her first documentary focused on Bansud, a remote village in the Philippines, Kara David returned. Improvements that had come to the village after her first report—solar panels, batteries, electricity—were no longer working. Some were broken. Some items had simply disappeared. But on this return visit, it was the lack of health care that became the focus of her attention. This village, like so many others in the mountainous areas, had no doctor. More important, in many situations there was no means of reaching doctors and clinics other than on foot. A hammock slung from a bamboo pole, carried by two men, becomes an “ambulansiyang de paa”—an ambulance on foot. The journey toward medical help can take four, six, eight hours. Only the most severe cases are offered even this basic transport, and patients have been known to die during the trek. Local nurses and doctors, as well as local officials, acknowledge the massive problems reported here, but with few resources, they can do only what is possible. For demonstrating this great need and for presenting these problems to a television audience, a Peabody Award goes to I-Witness: “Ambulansiyang de Paa.”