A Negrense has been named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines for 2007, the Philippine Jaycees announced yesterday.

Dr. Anthony Golez, 35, is being cited for his work in government service through disaster management

Golez in the first awardee to be cited by the Jaycees for work in disaster management.

Golez, spokesman and deputy administrator of the National Disaster Coordinating Council, will receive the award at Malacañang Monday, his uncle Art Golez said.

Golez is the son of Rolando Golez from Pontevedra, Negros Occidental, and Gloria Torillo whose roots are in Isabela, Negros Occidental.

Golez did his internship at the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Hospital in Bacolod City in 2000 to 2002 and started the Lingkod ER at the CLMMRH, a foundation that helps poor patients in the emergency room.

Golez obtained his degree in medicine at the University of Santo Tomas .

“I was the only UST graduate then who chose to do my internship in the province because I wanted to be a barrio doctor,” Golez said.

Every weekend he went to Barangay Handumanan in Bacolod as a volunteer DYA Recoletes, an ambulance group that helps the poor.

During his stay in Negros he trained 200 volunteers for DYA Recoletes.

From Negros , Golez joined the Department of Health and rose in the ranks, and his work was recognized by the President who decided to transfer him to the NDCC.

“Since I came from the public health profession that practices preventive health, I focused on disaster preparedness instead of just response,” Golez said.

“We changed the culture of disaster response to disaster preparedness and mitigation that has saved thousand of lives,” he said.

Among the programs he has started nationwide are the simultaneous earthquake drills, he said.

During the earthquake that hit Luzon in late November all the schools enforced the drills they had practiced, he said.

Building Emergency Evacuation Plans has also been put in place in malls and high rise buildings to prepare personnel for bomb and other threats, he said.

And preemptive evacuation measures are also enforced when typhoons approach the country to prevent deaths, he said.

In October 2006, Golez had delivered a Filipino baby on board a KLM plane over Europe .

Betchel Banal, a 22-year-old Filipina working student on the way home from Amsterdam , delivered the baby boy, premature but healthy, on board Flight No. KL 0803.

The plane had to land in Kazakhstan on the way to Manila when the mother broke her water bag and began experiencing labor.

Golez, a passenger on the same flight, and flight stewardess AC Van't Waut, assisted Banal's otherwise normal delivery in the plane's first class cabin.

Golez was on his way back to the Philippines with then Presidential Adviser for Western Visayas Rafael Coscolluela from London where they had concluded a mission in connection with the Solar 1 oil spill incident off the island of Guimaras .

Golez is also the Bicol Rehabilitation Commission executive director in charge of the P10 billion rehabilitation fund for the area.

He was also recently appointed deputy presidential spokesperson of the president.*CPG

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