Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia inspects the ambulance donated by China to the province. Chinese Consul General in Cebu Jia Li handed over the donation on August 10, 2020. | Photo from Capitol PIO
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Consul General Jia Li of the Chinese Consulate in Cebu has assured of China’s support for the Philippines in the fight against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) anew as he handed over a brand new ambulance donated by the People’s Republic of China to Cebu province last Monday, August 10, 2020.
In a Capitol news release, the official was quoted as saying that China is working with the Philippines as the two countries are “one family.”
“China is working with the Philippines and cooperate with you to combat COVID-19 because Chinese and the Philippines are one family. We will do our best to help the Philippines and we want to combat this disease as fast as we can,” Jia said in the news release.
Cebu province has sisterhood agreements with at least five Chinese provinces.
“Jia said China is also on the next stage of its cooperation with the country particularly in the area of health care through the provision of a vaccine against COVID-19,” the news release read.
Quoting Jia, the Capitol said China had also sent a team of Chinese medicine experts to Manila.
Traditional medicine
The Consul General also invited Cebu province to participate in an online international conference on traditional medicine hosted by the Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (FUTCM).
According to the Provincial Information Office, the province will be participating in the conference.
Governor Gwendolyn Garcia said the Capitol’s participation in the medical conference was in line with her earlier announcement of establishing a council for traditional and alternative medicine.
Read: Capitol to train 16K BHWs on alternative health care
According to Garcia, she is particularly interested in the first part of the conference that would tackle about combatting COVID-19.
“It is so significant nga they are actually talking about traditional, dili ang western big pharma kind.. ila traditional Chinese medicine. So, I will be very interested here kay we’d like to listen,” the governor said.
(It is so significant that they are actually talking about traditional medicine and not like the western big pharma kind. They are for traditional Chinese medicine. So, I will be very interested here because we want to listen.)
“Imagine duna gyud university on traditional Chinese medicine, duna silay presentation by a traditional medicine, Chinese expert, acupuncture specialist, and duna’y presentation by an expert from the Philippines,” she added.
(Imagine, they have a university on traditional Chinese medicine, there will be a presentation by a Chinese traditional medicine expert, an acupuncture specialist, and there will be a presentation by an expert from the Philippines.) /dbs