Access to healthcare has always been a struggle for people living on the fringes of Philippine society, leaving families with little to no hope of living longer with their loved ones due to life-threatening illnesses.
20-year-old Carlyn Jade Caballero, a resident of Baybay Dalaguet, Zone 3, Barangay Bacuyangan, Hinoba-an, Negros Occidental, witnessed firsthand how limited government services impact those living far from urban centers.
She saw her mother, diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019, struggle to access proper treatment.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the Philippines, which logged 33,910 deaths in 2024.
Caballero’s residence is over a hundred kilometers away from Kabankalan. In this city, her mother received a chemotherapy in a private hospital, with each session costing over P12,000, excluding other fees, medicines, and transportation, every 21 days.
The situation worsened as her mother’s diagnosis came at the onset the COVID-19 pandemic, which made travel even more difficult, not just in the province but the entire globe.
According to Dr. Conrado Gabriel Lorenzo of the Philippine Cancer Society (PCC), the average cost of cancer treatment in the Philippines is P1 million. Still, expenses can exceed this amount for late-stage patients.
Lack of facilities
Caballero said that there was a state-run hospital closer to their home; however, she said that it lacked a specialized cancer treatment facility that her mother needed. So their family had to travel kilometers despite soaring costs and health restrictions.
“It is really important that rural areas also have better access to facilities for Cancer patients. There are people out there dying because of cancer that couldn’t get treated on time because of this very reason—not having enough resources to go to hospitals far from home,” she said.
“My parents had to borrow from a few Microfinance institutions. We had few debts from other people, too. As my father was a laborer, he had a boss who lent him money when we fell short, since his pay wasn’t really enough to cover everything we needed,” she added.
“My mom’s family—mother and siblings, though far from us, also gave financial support for the chemotherapy sessions and medications.”
Caballero looked for an answer on how she could help her mother ease the burden she was carrying.
“From household chores, cooking, and washing their clothes became tasks I never thought I could handle. It was challenging at first, but it came in handy for the entire family,” she said.
Caballero said that one night, when their family was eating dinner, her mother suffered difficulty breathing and then immediately rushed to the hospital.
The oxygen tank sustained the breathing of her mother, who was fighting cancer, she said.
Her mother was brought to Eleuterio T. Decena Memorial Hospital (ETDMH) in the town, and hospital visits became frequent as her mother’s illness progressed, she added.
Caballero said her mother was later referred to Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH) in Bacolod City, where patient numbers increased and led to alleged neglect of some patients as COVID-19 cases increased.
“Death was inevitable, and patients lining up on the sidewalk, lying on the improvised cardboard bed waiting to be treated, were a sight her mother experienced, also going through the same agony as the others,” she told Brigada News FM.
Only one family member was allowed to assist her mother inside the ward due to the Department of Health (DOH) ‘s strict quarantine protocol, she added.
Her mother’s struggles with food diets, hygiene, and longing for family members lasted for a week before she was discharged, Caballero said.
“Loose clothing, stressed face, and weight became lighter due to the experience—they watched as her father helped her mother from the vehicle to the prepared bed and an oxygen tank beside it at their home,” she added.
Despite everything her family endured, Caballero recalled her mother’s ability to smile even in adversity, such as when she handed her a flavored drink, a moment she described as “unforgettable.”
Days later, her mother opted to go to the hospital as “she felt much weaker in her body, and she struggled to move.”
Emotional strain
Caballeros’ memory emphasized the emotional strength families must draw upon when facing critical illness, and it also stressed the ongoing need for more accessible, affordable cancer care resources for rural communities in the country.
“Good thing there was this Malasakit Center in Bacolod when she had the operation for removing the left breast, so the hospital bills were reduced to almost nothing, and we just needed to provide for the pocket money, daily expenses, and medications,” she said.
Caballero added that her mother was closely watching her as she and her aunt took turns accompanying her throughout the hospital stay, hoping for her recovery.
A week after that, she said that she heard loud cries across a hospital room and witnessed a patient take a last breath.
She prayed to herself, “I hope this never happens to us.” It was a silent prayer she could never mention to her mother, to never add up to the agony she felt, Caballero said.
But destiny always has a way of exposing things. On March 23, 2021, exactly 2 weeks after their stay in the hospital, she felt her whole world crumbling down into pieces as her mother died due to her illness and multiple organ failure, Caballero added.
She said that she was, at the foot of her dying mother, holding her only hope—rosary beads as she silently prays for a miracle to arrive. “The doctor and nurses were there watching the family, helpless as we were losing the battle we had fought for a long time. Their service for my mother will now end.”
She said that she “could never hear my mother’s laughter again in my lifetime.”
“Being the eldest meant I needed to be strong for my sisters and not make my father worry about me. Months after my mother passed, I tried some hobbies—learning guitar, flute, and crocheting, and even practicing the organ —to make my world bearable again,” Caballero said.
“Every poem I wrote after that was full of grief, and I couldn’t really find the inspiration to make fun writings again for some time,” she added.*
Reymund Titong is a Filipino journalist steadily building his voice in the field of news reporting, driven by a commitment to tell meaningful and relevant stories.
He serves as a correspondent for Rappler, maintains a personal blog on Medium, and is the communications officer of Hope Builders Organization Negros Island.