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She Found A New Life Saving Little Lives in the Philippines
(Philippine Daily Inquirer Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)HER two boys drowned in a freak vehicular accident when their car fell into a ravine. Then she lost her husband Harold to bone cancer. Broken and devastated, she found herself staring in the dark at the end of the day, waiting for nothing. She felt it was either a life of this, or flying off to the Philippines for a month-long company posting that might help break the depression, she says.
This, to Wilma Redler, was a decision that would change her life. Not only did she stay in the Philippinesshes going on her 10th year herebut has come to love it, its challenges, its many faults and deficiencies, its people.
Work in the Skytech International Dental laboratory started off dramatically enough. Three weeks upon arrival in Manila from the United States, a supervisor at the lab, perhaps resenting the invasion of Americans, specifically Wilma and the new owner, decided to take over the lab with the aid of armed goons. She ensconced herself inside the lab, and the mutineers were denied entry.
Shortly after that, Wilma was told that there was a contract on her life. While fighting the takeover, Wilma stayed in the homes of workers who offered to protect her.
Touched to the bone
The concern of these people touched me to the bone, she says. They shared everything with me. If they had a last piece of bread, they gave it to me. I will never, ever forget that experience.
After three months, Wilma and company won the case, and her job at Skytech was secure. Her personal healing process was well on its way.
Meeting abused children from the squatters area near her home in Paranaque helped her forget her own problems. She would stop and give them food, until these initial encounters led to her meeting the parentsthe fathers were usually jobless drunks, and their mothers, abused and beaten.
Her heart went out to the children, and with the help of the Department of Social Welfare and Development and Bantay Bata, she decided to rescue them. The children are brought to her home, fed and clothed, provided with education and smothered with love.
Wilma has had as many as nine children living with her at one time or another. However, she has no plans of adopting them. At my age, she says, it would be foolish for me to adopt children. She nurtures them for others, and seeks out adoptive parents who can provide them with love and protection.
Six-year-old Edward Mabag goes to a Montessori school and speaks impeccable English. He and his three-year-old brother Edison currently live with Wilma, but they go home to their parents occasionally so as not to break the bond.
Margie, 13, and Angelo, 11, were siblings who came to live with Wilma when they were 5 and 7. Margie had been sexually abused by an uncle and could not speak for six months. Sarah lived in a kariton (cart) with her mother and her mothers boyfriend. Then there were Susan and Ella, Brian and Teresa, Angel and Christian. They have all gone to foster parents, although Wilma maintains an educational trust fund for all the children who have lived with her.
Let them go
Isnt it painful to know that she will lose them eventually? She smiles through moist eyes, saying, If you love them, you have to let them go.
These adoptive children share the womans home with a dozen or more birds and animals that Wilma provides with the same love and compassion she gives the children. There is nothing she wouldnt do for them. She has been known to wake up in the middle of the night to answer the call of a suffering animal. She would go to great lengths to save a sick bird.
While at the Calauit Game Preserve and Wildlife Sanctuary in Palawan, Wilma sought out sick animals needing her assistance. She utilizes her expertise in dental technology and avian veterinary science to pursue her interest in birds and exotic animals. She founded the Feathered Friends Foundation in 1999 to address the needs of birds, and set up an aviary on Corregidor Island.
After meeting wildlife veterinarian Dr. Nielsen Donato, who shares her energy and compassion for animals, Wilma was soon making dental crowns for mountain cats and jaguars; repairing damaged turtle backs with denture acrylic; creating beaks for birds; and doing dental fillings for orangutans and orthodontics for dogs. These are experimental pioneering ventures worthy of documentation in any scientific publication.
Up in arms
Ever a fighter for animal rights, Wilma has been helping prevent the capture and eating of endangered animals since 2000. She was again recently up in arms against exotic restaurants offering lizards, birds, pythons, dogs and wild boar as part of their menu. She has succeeded in some cases.
Answering a call from animal lovers, Wilma one day found herself at the Manila City Pound to stop the mass electrocution of dogs and cats. This is so inhumane. Other countries have already banned electrocuting dogs, she says.
As the new president of the Rotary Club of United Nations, Wilma, together with Rotarian friends and travel executives Wally Trinidad and Lito Carino, continues to offer education and livelihood to the poorest of the poor among the Mangyans of Mindoro.
A month ago, still another dream of hers was realized that may offer opportunities for jobs abroad to manythe first international Dental Technology Institute in the country, in partnership with the Emilio Aguinaldo College of Dentisty on San Marcelino, Manila.
To Wilma, there are many more endangered animals to rescue, many more abused children to save, many more dreams to realize. I am not needed in the United States. It is here that I can be of help. It is here that I can be happy.
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