So, let us summarize:
(1) Thomas Hunt was an American lying alone in a hospital in Cagayan De Oro, Philippines... penniless and dying.
(2) The Expatriates' Ladies Charity found out about this poor man, and first started a blood drive for him, and then started collecting money to pay for his medications because Thomas Hunt could not afford them himself and nobody else would pay for them. This charity struggled for weeks to raise money to medicate and hospitalize this man, to contact any American governmental agency that could help, and to save his life.
(3) Thomas Hunt unfortunately, eventually, inevitably died.
(4) Grace L. Songcuya (aunt of the adultrous wife of the dying Thomas Hunt) decided to sue the Expatriates' Ladies Charity saying that the group raised money for Thomas Hunt and then kept it all for themselves. Does anybody want to guess where Ms. Songcuya thinks this "withheld" money should go?
That's it: This relative of the unfaithful wife of a dying man, part of a family who did nearly nothing to help the dying man, sues the charity that raised money and tried their best to save the dying man.
Now, I'll say for one of course that we expatriates are rightfully angry: These are our wives who this woman is suing; these are the ladies who spent weeks trying to save this man's life; these are the people who were at his side as he slowly slipped away... while Grace Songcuya and her family stood by and watched.
We expatriates are angry... but Grace Songcuya is from The Philippines. If anyone should be truly disgusted, it should be the Filipinos who are reading this article about this woman. It should be the Filipinos who are writing letters to the newspapers and local news stations about this woman. It should be the Filipinos who are rushing to this charity's defense against this woman.
UPDATE:
Since this post seems to be getting hits, I'll add these links at the bottom to create clearing house of Thomas Hunt related information:
External link: Original Yuma Sun Story
External link: Zink's Website about Thomas Hunt
My post: The Sad Story Of Thomas Hunt
My post: Thomas Hunt Died
My post: The Thomas Hunt Saga Hits A New Low
UPDATE 2:
According to this post at the Yahoo CDO Expatriates' Group (some information I thought might be kept under wraps, and thus I did not post until now) was made publicly available today: The information is that those people Ms. Songcuya is suing are aware of her prior record of official misconduct and abuse of position, and the fact that they are also aware that it is a further and renewed abuse of her position as a court clerk to summon a member of the expatriates community in to make a legal statement on Tuesday afternoon. It's not part of the coverage here, but has been covered on the Yahoo CDO Expatriates Group (1 and 2)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Hate to write this, but welcome to the Philippines. Just about every encounter I've had with Filippinas in Hong Kong and here in Europe has involved money, borrowing and never paying back, dodgy contracts, cheating on husbands and boyfriends, passport fraud and so on. (all of these not personally as I've always been to sceptical and cynical to fall for this kind of deals, so far).
(Luckily there are exceptions to this rule as I see every time I read about your own family life in CDO and I'm happy about that. Personally I've never encountered happy stories such as your. Good to see they still exist)
Yes... I generally operate from a position of extreme skepticism as well, which is why I am so confident in the integrity of my wife's family.
But that being said, you just can't see something as depraved and mean-spirited as what this Songcuya woman has done coming: To go out and raise money to buy medicine for a dying man, and then be sued for supposedly keeping the money that was raised... who could even imagine that?
Well, don't worry: I hear that funds are flowing in from around the globe for the legal defense of The Ladies, the best lawyers in the state are being contacted, and by the time they are done, Ms. Songcuya will be sorry... and hopefully much poorer... for her evil efforts.
Hopefully as long as the money and everything was all accounted for and documented, i.e. this much came in on such and such a date, this much went out on such and such a date. Hopefully even the courts local to you should find in the Charities favor, just a real freaking pain to have to PROVE such a fact in court. As the saying goes "No good deed goes unpunished"
Tito John,
You just posted a comment, and yes... I was already aware of the things that you wrote about.
With all due respect, I'm going to leave your comment unpublished, because if Grace Songcuya is reading this, I don't want her to have any information that makes her aware of what is being planned against her, that would allow her to make plans for it or give her the ability to somehow avoid it or ameliorate it. I want to do everything possible to ensure that that woman is going to get blindsided in a way that would make even Hatton feel sorry for her.
Thanks for the comment though. I hope you understand my point of view.
TMF,
Yes... I've seen a compiled "list" of donations and expenses. I assume that The Ladies have receipts for the medicines they purchased since the list of purchases seemed to be in a detailed form that indicated that it was transcribed directly from some sort of receipt.
I think that the most irking part of this whole thing is that The Ladies actually wound up spending more on medicine than they received in donations by about $100, which came out of their own pockets. Thus, to be accused of withholding donations when in fact they gave more than 100% of the donations is extra annoying to me.
Jil,
Please provide me your e-mail address. I want to fwd you something concerning this subject.
John
Post a Comment