‘ Walking time bombs’

The Department of Health (DOH) said some 12 million Filipinos are hypertensive and half of them are ‘walking time bombs’

Doctors once described cult leader Ruben Ecleo Jr. as a “walking time bomb” who could die anytime from coronary heart disease.

Ecleo’s lawyers used that description to support their petition for the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association divine master to be allowed to post bail.

That convinced the court and Ecleo gained temporary freedom on a P1-million bail in March 2004. Where’s the walking time bomb now? Did he explode?

The Department of Health (DOH) said some 12 million Filipinos are hypertensive and half of them are “walking time bombs” because they are unaware of their condition.

Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial said some of them are extremely at risk and can figuratively “explode” to develop complications like massive stroke, heart attack, heart failure and kidney failure.

Ubial advised Filipinos to undergo hypertension screening to know whether or not they are walking time bombs. Do that even if you’re not pleading for bail.

The DOH said some 200,000 Filipinos die every year due directly or indirectly to high blood pressure, making hypertension the third leading cause of death in 2014, behind acute respiratory infection and pneumonia.

Ubial advised people with hypertension to adopt a healthy lifestyle, have a regular exercise, a diet that is low in fat, sugar, salt and high in fiber and avoid tobacco and alcohol consumption.

What a way to live. They should avoid going to Bohol during the fiesta season in the month of May.

But a first quarter Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey said half of Filipinos consider themselves poor, higher than the 44 percent in the December survey.

That added at least 1.5 million more families to those who described themselves as poor and 400,000 added to those who rate themselves as “food-poor.”

Blessed are the food-poor for they wouldn’t have to avoid the succulent and fatty lechon in their diet.