Ang Caviteno Newsweekly October 15-21, 2018 Issue | Page 5

OPINYON
Oktubre 15-21, 2018
Museo ng Katipunan: Revisiting the
birth of Philippine Independence
By Jimmyley E. Guzman
IN the heart of the city of San
Juan, lies a museum in a place
called “Pinaglabanan” in honor of
our brave Katipuneros who shed
blood and fought for the freedom
of our motherland.

The Battle that Started it
All
Determined
to
overthrow the country’s Spanish
colonial regime, Supremo Andres
Bonifacio and his troops marched
toward San Juan del Monte on
the night of August 29, 1896,
and by daybreak, they attacked
El
Polvorin
(Ammunition
Depot) and El Deposito de
Aguas (Water Reservoir). Armed
with homemade guns (paltik)
and bolos, the Katipuneros
courageously and fiercely faced
the Spanish forces despite being
outgunned and outnumbered by
the enemy.

According
to
the
National Historical Commission
of the Philippines (NHCP),
though the Battle of San Juan del
Monte crippled the Katipunan’s
forces, their heroism and
fortitude fueled the resolve of
other Filipino patriots in the
surrounding provinces to take up
arms and support the Philippine
Revolution.

Museo ng Katipunan,
Pinaglabanan Memorial Shrine
The five-hectare Pinaglabanan
Memorial Shrine was declared
a National Shrine on August 1,
1973 through Presidential Decree
No. 260. With the initiative of the
Pinaglabanan Commemorative
Commission, created under
Proclamation No. 263 series of
1957 as amended and by virtue
of PD No. 1, it was declared as a
national shrine.

On August 30, 1996,
the centennial of the Battle of
Pinaglabanan, the Museo ng
Rebolusyon was inaugurated.
Ten years after, the Museo ng
Rebolusyon was changed to
Museo ng Katipunan.

On August 27, 2013 the
modernized Museo ng Katipunan
was opened to the public, which
presents a fusion of traditional
and hands on interactive exhibits.
The museum is supervised, and
maintained under the jurisdiction
of the NHCP.

Retelling the Story,
Immortalizing History
The
Museo
ng
Katipunan features the story of
Bonifacio’s secret society, the
Katipunan, and visually narrates
Philippine Revolution through
significant artifacts: reproduction
of archival documents such as
cedulas, oath, and membership
forms used during initiation rites,
and medals worn by Katipunan

Included also are variety
of “anting-anting” or magic
amulets made of metal, paper,
and cloth written with cryptic
Latin prayers and symbols, and
several types of bladed weapons
used by the Katipuneros.

Throughout the museum
galleries are large-scale artworks
created by renowned Filipino
artists.

Central to the exhibition
are the entwined lives of Supremo
Andres Bonifacio and his
lieutenant and confidant, Emilio
Jacinto. An interactive map
traces their beginnings in Tondo.
Their principles are outlined in
the “Kartilya and Dekalogo ng
Katipunan,” while holographic
images and audio recordings of
Bonifacio’s poem, “Pag-ibig sa
5
Tinubuang Lupa” evince his and
the Katipunan’s love of country.

Portraits
of
other
Katipuneros are also presented in
monochrome pastel drawings.

The
museum
has
also an e-learning room where
students can enjoy learning
through computer games and
quizzes. Likewise, a stereoscopy
room can be seen that features a
stereopticon viewer and late 19th
century photographs.
The
Museo
ng
Katipunan is open from Tuesdays
to Sundays, from 8:00 am to 4:00
pm. Admission is free.

For
booking
of
educational tours, please call at
telephone numbers (02) 576-
4336.
(NHCP/PIA-NCR/JEG/
PIA-NCR)
The Museo ng Katipunan in San Juan and the Pinaglabanan Memorial Shrine
(right). (photos by jeg/pia-ncr)
Immunotherapy: New hope for
Hodgkin lymphoma
AT A cancer-treatment forum
held in Quezon City recently,
hematologist Dr. Daryl Tan, the
Director of Research at the Raffles
Hospital in Singapore, narrated a
bleak tale: a 25-year-old woman,
in the prime of her life, was losing
her battle against a blood cancer
called Hodgkin lymphoma.

“It’s a common cancer
in her age group,” said Tan, “but
most patients—up to 80 percent—
usually respond very well to
chemotherapy. Unfortunately for
this patient, she was one of the
20 percent who do not respond
well. After she completed
chemotherapy, she relapsed. Her
cancer came back.”
Having
experienced
little success with chemotherapy,
the patient received the standard
next line of treatment in
Singapore for her condition: stem
cell transplant.

The treatment, however,
was unsuccessful. The patient’s
disease continued to progress, and
a huge tumor grew in her chest.
Tan dubs this scenario a “medical
futility,”
where
a
patient
degenerates despite medical
efforts. At this juncture, the
Director of Research at Raffles
Hospital said that specialists
would normally shift to a different
strategy where the aim is to let the
patient go peacefully.

Fortunately
at
that
time, a new type of treatment
for Hodgkin lymphoma was
approved in Singapore. It was
called immunotherapy – and in
this particular situation, it was
applied through an immune
checkpoint
blocker
called
Pembrolizumab. This treatment
was prescribed to the patient at a
time when there were almost no
options.

“After two months, her
tumor resolved. Since then, she
has been continuously receiving
immunotherapy and has been
experiencing its medical benefits
for one-and-a-half years. Now,
we are happy to say she is back at
work,” Tan reported.
What is Hodgkin lymphoma?

Hodgkin lymphoma is a
cancer of the lymphocyte, one of
the five main types of white blood
cells. The cancer is most common
among adults in their 20s and 30s,
and unlike lung cancer, which
has been very clearly linked to
smoking, its precise cause is still
unknown.

In its early stages,
Hodgkin lymphoma may show no
symptoms, but when it does, they
are usually in the form of swollen
lymph nodes.
“Patients usually come to us
because they feel a lump in their
neck, and then we send patient for
lab tests, and that’s when we find
the cancer,” Tan said.

Before immunotherapy
was introduced, the conventional
method of treating Hodgkin
lymphoma was chemotherapy
which uses drugs that are toxic
to cancer cells. However, these
drugs can also affect healthy cells,
elevating the risk of side effects
such as hair loss and diarrhea.

Immunotherapy, on the
other hand, helps the body’s own
immune system and strengthens it
to fight the cancer.

“We found that in
Hodgkin lymphoma, the body is
unable to fight the cancer because
the cancer produces a protein
that suppresses the patient’s
immune cells and prevents them
from fighting the cancer. What
immunotherapy does is it breaks
this interaction between that
protein and the immune cells, so
now the immune system is again
able to engage and attack the
cancer cells,” Tan explained.
A new treatment option
A l t h o u g h
Pembrolizumab has only been
approved for the treatment of
Hodgkin lymphoma less than
two years ago, it has already been
around for more than four years
and has been earlier approved for
the treatment of lung cancer and
melanoma.

“We found, though,
that people with Hodgkin
lymphoma respond even better
to immunotherapy than patients
with melanoma or lung cancer,”
he said.
The
current
recommendation is for patients
to continue receiving treatment
until they and their doctor see
that the cancer has not progressed
for two years. Depending on the
cancer though, some doctors have
reported stopping at six doses and
finding that the effects of the drug
endure. In other words, the cancer
does not come back.

Tan elaborates, “Studies
on immunotherapy drugs have
shown success rates of over 70
percent where tumors become
smaller, and some patients have
complete remission, meaning
there is no evidence of the tumor
left in the body. For patients
like mine, where we have run
out of options, a drug like this
that is able to give a 70 percent
response, is a most welcome
major advancement in medicine.”

In
the
Philippines,
immunotherapy
is
already
approved for the treatment of
non-small cell lung cancer.
Efforts to bring knowledge of
it to the public, as well as to
push for increased access to the
treatment, have been steadily
strengthened
by
concerned
groups and organizations, which
include members of the medical
community and advocate patient
groups.

For
example,
immunotherapy advocates, such
as the “Hope From Within”
coalition, a multi-stakeholder
collaboration that elevates the
fight against cancer, is working
on its new game plan that would
include promoting awareness,
prevention,
screening,
and
immunotherapy treatment for
Hodgkin lymphoma, advanced
melanoma, and head and neck
cancers.

Members
of
this
coalition include the Department
of Health, Philippine Society of
Oncologists, Philippine Society
of Medical Oncology, Philippine
Alliance of Patient Organizations,
and healthcare company MSD in
the Philippines.