The New York resident who has helped hundreds of sick children, including the Aguirre twins of Silay City, yesterday said her Filipino-Chinese "amah" who risked her life to bring her food while she was detained at a Japanese concentration camp at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila during WW II, inspired her to do what she does today.

Dorita Holland Urrata, founder of the Children's Chance Connecticut, told the DAILY STAR since she retired about five years ago, she has dedicated her life to helping indigent children around the world, especially from the Philippines, who are in need of medical help in the United States.

Yesterday, Urrata and Menchu Aquino-Sarmiento, Philippine Airlines Foundation executive director, were in Silay City and met Evelindia Aguirre who thanked both of them for their help that led to the separation of her grandchildren, Carl and Clarence Aguirre, who were conjoined at the heads at birth.

During their visit hosted by Mayor Carlo and Maridel Gamban, and Dr. Ceres Gay, vice mayor Jay Jalandoni presented Urrata and Sarmiento with plaques of appreciation and said he will sponsor a Sanggunian resolution making them adopted citizens of Silay.

The twins were malnourished and in dire need of medical help when Dr. Gay brought their plight to the attention of Sarmiento.

Sarmiento, in turn, informed Urrata about the twins and she called Dr. James Goodrich of the Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York City.

PAL Foundation then provided free air fair for the twins and their single mother, Arlene, to go to the United States.

THEY'RE WALKING

The formerly conjoined twins, who were separated by Montefiore doctors last August after a series of staged surgical procedures, two of which were participated in by Filipino neurologist Dr. Willy Lopez, are now 3-year-old boys.

They currently reside in a home at Westchester County, N.Y., Urrata said.

During the week the boys who wear helmets to protect their scalps jump on a school bus at 8:45 a.m. and head to pre-school.

At Blythedale Children's Hospital, the twins also continue to receive aggressive occupational, rehabilitative and speech therapies.

Clarence, the younger of the twins, is now running unassisted, and although Carl is not yet walking independently, he is making steady progress, Evelindia said.

The boys' speech has also improved. They now speak dozens of words and two-word phrases.

They are set to undergo scalp and skull reconstruction surgeries, since the children each have only about half of a full skull. The reconstructive surgeries will involve creating and building skulls, providing full head coverage, a Montefiorre medical bulletin said.

The Aguirre twins are just two of the many children from the Philippines Urrata and Sarmiento have saved.

PAL Foundation gives priority to helping sick orphaned and abandoned children because they have nobody to care for them, Sarmiento said.

She said that during the current visit of Urrata to the Philippines she has introduced her to several children in need of medical help in the United States, and one of them is scheduled to leave for the US this Saturday.

Roberto Mal-ang of Cagayan de Oro is 14 years old but is 3 and a half feet long and weighs 25 pounds, and has multiple congenital anomalies, ambiguous genitals and only one kidney, Sarmiento says.

He will undergo treatment at the Yale-New Haven Medical Center.

ANA'S LESSON

I owe my existence to a Filipino-Chinese "amah" named Ana who risked her life to bring me and my family food at a Japanese concentration camp where we were detained, during World War II, Urrata said.

Urrata said helping others is her way of repaying the kindness Ana showed her family.

For a year Ana would bring any food, including rice cakes that she could find for them, Urrata said.

However, she said the Japanese put up a bamboo fence that stopped people from the outside from bringing food to the Americans and other Caucasians detained in the concentration camp.

Urrata, het parents, and brother were living in the Philippines before the war. Her father worked for Miguel Osorio of Victorias Milling Co. and they lived a life of comfort in a compound overlooking Manila Bay until war broke out, Urrata said.

The Japanese rounded up all the Americans and Caucasians into trucks and brought them to the UST concentration camp, she said.

Urrata, who vividly recalls her 3 and a half years in the concentration camp, said they had to wake up at 5 a.m. everyday and line up outside their room to bow to the Japanese commandant.

Food consisted of very little rice cooked in water with fish heads, she said.

My father said we existed on 156 calories a day that is not even equivalent to half a glass of milk, Urrata said, adding that many of their companions in the concentration camp died.

After the war Urrata said they searched for Ana but could not find her and they suspect that she could have been killed by the Japanese.

Urrata said all her life she has done volunteer work but it was only after her three children were through school and she retired as an assistant to the head of a diversified manufacturing factory about five years ago that she volunteered for a group called "Healing the Children."

However, she decided to create her own foundation when "Healing the Children" did not want to get involved in helping children in countries like the Philippines and Africa.

Urrata said she wants to buy a house in the Philippines, where she has many friends, live in the country for most of the year and only return to the United States in the summer.

However, she said she will have to find out first if it will still be possible to help children effectively away from the United States.

She also wants her grandson, Sebastian, 15, to study in the Philippines.

When Urrata left the Japanese concentration camp in Manila she was 6 years old with a lot of vivid memories of horror but it was also the place where Ana's lesson of sacrifice for others left an indelible mark on her life.*CPG

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