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Pangasinan Philippines  2026: Seven Days. 4,479 Lives Touched.

For seven clinic days in Pangasinan Philippines, the Third World Eye Care Society (TWECS) had the privilege of serving communities with compassion, skill, and a shared belief that clear vision changes lives.

Together, 33 volunteers worked side by side to care for those who had waited years, sometimes a lifetime for help.

Project Impact
• 4,479 patients examined
• 3,478 prescription eyeglasses dispensed
• 4 low vision aids provided

Based on conservative Philippine private-sector values, this mission delivered approximately:

₱22 million pesos (≈ $550,000 CAD)
in direct vision care provided freely and with dignity.

That represents nearly ₱3.2 million pesos of care each clinic day, and approximately ₱5,000 worth of care for every patient served.

But the true value of this work cannot be measured in numbers alone.

It is the child seeing clearly for the first time.
The mother wiping away tears as the world comes back into focus.
The elder whose wide, joyful smile says more than words ever could.

A Year in the Making

This week of service was built upon a year of preparation.

Evenings in our Vancouver warehouse were filled with volunteers carefully sorting, measuring, neutralizing, and packaging more than 10,000 donated eyeglasses. Students, families, Lions members, Rotary members, and other service clubs, along with community partners, gave their time quietly, faithfully, and generously.

We are especially grateful to the Burnaby Lougheed Lions Club, whose continued generosity in providing and supporting our warehouse space allows this work to carry on year after year. Their steady partnership gives us a place to gather, prepare, and ready thousands of glasses for communities around the world.

Each pair dispensed in Pangasinan carried with it the hands and hearts of those who prepared it.

With Deep Gratitude

Our heartfelt thanks go to:

Ambassador Zenaida Tacorda-Rabago, our in-country host for TWECS, whose guidance and support helped bring this mission to life.

Congresswoman Rachel Arenas and her office, and the local government officials and health partners of Pangasinan, for welcoming us and working alongside us in service of their communities.

To our 33 team members, who traveled far, gave of themselves fully, and served with humility and excellence.

To the hundreds of warehouse volunteers in Vancouver, whose unseen hours made visible transformation possible.

And to all our generous donors,  those who contributed eyeglasses and those who gave financial support , thank you. Your generosity helped bring clear vision to thousands.

Thirty one years ago, TWECS began with a simple promise: that access to vision care should not depend on geography or wealth.

In Pangasinan, that promise was not just spoken, it was lived.

And we carry it forward, one patient at a time.

– Dr. Marina Roma-March

MA LU SOG, ANG MATA MO

I must have said that a couple thousand times over the last days, and it still trips me up, though it has a nice ring to it. That’s the phonetic version my translator taught me, and it basically means “your eyes are healthy” and then in English I add, but you need a pair of glasses.

I taped a cheat sheet up behind the patient’s head, because after 6 hours of examining people in 30 heat, your brain gets a bit foggy and it becomes a tongue-twister (several patients caught me cheating):

This little girl stands out to me, her name is Mikaella and she is in grade one. We call her distance vision “count fingers at 5 feet” for pretty obvious reasons. Beyond her 5 foot bubble she can’t distinguish between different images, can’t see expressions on faces and certainly can’t follow what a teacher is doing in front the class room. This is her first pair of -6.00 myopic glasses, and catching someone young like this feels particularly rewarding.

She looks like a superstar.  Often, we have found over years, that people wear their very best clothing to come to see us, and she certainly did.

Of course the individual stories like Mikaella are very rewarding, and they keep us pushing on in the heat. But, in a larger sense we hope what we are doing will contribute to breaking this type of poverty cycle:

poverty limits access to all health care—-poor vision reduces the ability for adults to work, and children like Mikaella to learn—-and reduced earning ability leads back to more poverty.

We just finished our last clinic day, and the very last patient of the day was a vivid reminder of being open to the power of the God-box (a small box of random, unusual low vision optical devices that follows us on these trips, I have described it’s remarkable powers on other trips and how it earned the title of God-box). It never disappoints.

My new friend Paul, an optometrist from Michigan was struggling with a very complicated case and he asked if I might have anything to help. This woman had bilateral retinal detachments about 10 years ago, and in an unusual attempt to help her she had both lenses of her eyes removed (essentially cataract surgery but the surgeon chose to not put a new implant lens in her eye, making her aphakic) rendering her functionally blind for the last decade. She has been living in complete blur and essential darkness.

She needed a +16 diopter aphakic lens, which is really unusual nowadays, but the God-box had 2 pairs. With the correction on the right eye which is exactly what she needed. Seriously.

This is essentially an impossible coincidence. Like, one in a million does not do this justice. It restores her vision, not back to perfection but to function. She said herself, “I think today was meant to be”. Yes.

So not only do I believe that in the flow of giving and receiving, the giver benefits as much as the receiver, but I also believe that if you allow it, and you are in the right place- God (or spirit, or universe) can move through you.  This maybe feels a little too deep, dramatic, whatever….but this is where my head is at at this moment.

I’m feeling pretty wrung-out, but I feel this trip brings out the best of what there is in me, and that’s a good feeling.

Love you all. Hope you enjoyed following this along. And to my office: who toasted me off with a wish for no diarrhea ….it worked!!

– Dr. Brad McDougall

And this guy doing an auto refractor measurement on him is an amazing firefighter from Kamloops, David, who has travelled with this group for 20 years. What an amazing picture this is:

I think the memory of this boy, on this day, will stay with me for life.  My gratitude for life just expanded a little bit.

This gives a vibe of how hectic the clinic feels almost all day:

But even within that hectic energy I found so many moments to appreciate, in addition to that little nearsighted boy.

Look at this cool farmer, who basically hasn’t been able to see anything at near for several decades. He is wearing a frame that my partner Walley donated, and this allows him to function so much better at near, I think that is also going to be life changing.

I’m pretty sure is isn’t aware that he is wearing a high-end dutil frame designed in Gastown by our friend Eric…but he is appropriately rocking the look!  I look ridiculously happy, because I was in this moment.

And look at how happy this woman is.

Clear vision is an amazing thing.

It is a human’s primary sense that we all take for granted:

– Dr. Brad McDougall

As we part ways to head back to our lives….I just want to thank you.

For seven days we stood standing shoulder to shoulder.

And in that time, we served 4,479 patients.

Not in a private clinic.

Not in perfect conditions.

But in crowded hallways.

In heat. With noise.

With long lines that never seemed to end.

Serving the poor is never easy.

It requires patience.

It requires sacrifice.

It requires unity.

And this team embodied all of that. You overcame every obstacle not because it was easy but because the project mattered more than the discomfort.

When one station slowed, another stepped up.

When someone looked overwhelmed, a teammate appeared beside them.

When the line grew longer, you moved faster.  When things felt heavy, you chose grace.

No one said, “That’s not my job.”

No one stepped back.

This was teamwork in its purest form. There were moments of exhaustion. Moments when the crowd felt overwhelming.

Moments when the heat, the noise, the logistics tested all of us.

But I watched you.

I watched you lean in instead of step back.

I watched you encourage each other.

I watched students grow in confidence.

I watched seasoned doctors kneel to meet patients at eye level.

I watched this team become a family.

That is what moves me most.

Not just what we did.

But how we did it.

With humility.

With compassion.

With unity.

I am so deeply proud of all of you.

Thank you for your sacrifice.

Thank you for your heart.

Thank you for carrying this project forward.

4,479 people will sleep tonight seeing more clearly.

And because of that, their tomorrows will be different.

This is what transformation looks like.

And it happened because of every single one of you.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.  Please join us again -it would be a privilege to work with all of you.

 

– Marina

Pakikiramdam

For how grueling, sweaty, and intense this experience is- it is surprising to feel so grateful to be here at the end of the day. 

This is an endurance test. It is a mental marathon, and it is also a physical challenge.  I spend most of the day with one one closed peering through a retinoscope like this:

And my hip flexors are screaming from hunching over in this plastic lawn chair all day to examine patients:

Before I left Vancouver for this trip, I went to an interesting play that introduced me to the Filipino word Pakikiramdam, and the concept behind it, and now that I’m here I am almost totally relying on it.

Pakikiramdam doesn’t really have an english word equivalent (which in of itself is interesting), but the essential meaning is:

a shared inner perception between two people without talking. In that way that you can sense another person’s feelings or situation without them saying anything. I think we all have this ability if we listen to it, and interestingly it is also described as listening with your third ear.  A form of non-verbal, and emotional connection between people.

I think trying to use your “third ear” is an important part of healthcare at home as well- but here it takes on a different vibe, particularly because we are not speaking the same language.  Here are some experiences over the last couple days where I am feeling Pakikiramdam:

I saw this man who has uncontrolled glaucoma that had caused his cornea to completely opacify on one eye and mostly cloud on the other causing him pain and legal blindness (sorry for the gross eye pic, but it wouldn’t be a true report of the experience without it!)

Traditional glasses won’t help him, but I have brought a bunch of low vision magnifiers and telescopes donated by company called Eschenbach which can work magic for someone’s life. (Thank you Eschdenbach Canada- your donation has changed several lives here in the Philippines).

Here he is using a simple biconvex magnifier which will open up his life.

Here is another visually impaired mother and son, who quickly learned how to navigate their way using donated magnifiers and a distance telescope. It is an incredible feeling to help someone come out of some of the darkness of a vision problem which is containing their life.

I met this really cute 8 year old girl that literally deep sobbed from having to get drops in her eyes so we could properly measure her prescription. Oddly, the drama she served reminded me of my little dog Josephine who has equal measure of cuteness and drama:

But after getting her first pair of glasses (-4.00-1.00×180 -details for the optometrists in the crowd!), she came back to find me with with her mom to give me a deep hug which made my whole trip here worthwhile.  You can’t buy that kind of warmth.

For those of you that followed me on these trips before you know that I have been sprinkling my mom’s eyewear wardrobe around the globe, in place of sprinkling her ashes. My mom’s glasses have been living in Africa, India, Asia, and South America, and now with this woman in rural Philippines:

This one feels a little extra special. This was one of my mom’s favorite frames. I can still picture her wearing it. Before I left Vancouver we changed the lenses to a very high magnifying lens that would be beneficial for someone with a visual impairment.

This woman has a retinal dystrophy that makes her legally blind. She came in to see us just wanting to be able to see a little better for things up close. And in what I now call a God-shot on these trips, these frames that my mom loved helped this woman gain some vision back. Her daughter brought her into the clinic, and when I told her that these glasses were from my own mom, we all got a little choked up. It was an amazing little moment to share with my mom, so far away from home.

Appreciating everything I have at home, but happy to be having this experience,

Dr. Brad McDougall

This story is dedicated to my father, whose unwavering belief shaped the path I now walk. As your first death anniversary approaches, I felt you beside me in this moment reminding me why this work matters.

I met a boy whose world had never been clear.

He was sixteen quiet, withdrawn, the kind who seemed to fold into himself to take up less space. His mother spoke at first not because he couldn’t, but because he had grown used to letting the world speak for him.

To survive school, he adapted.

He took screenshots of lessons and magnified them again and again until the letters were barely readable. He held his phone inches from his nose, straining, guessing as much as reading.

During exams, he bent low over the paper, his face hovering just above it. That was how he functioned in a world built for those who could see.

He wasn’t simply nearsighted.

Imagine opening your eyes underwater that was how the world met him each day.

People were outlines without expression. Print became a smudge of ink. Anything past his nose faded into uncertainty.

And yet he endured it quietly.

Once his prescription was determined, Derrick began searching through our eyeglass inventory for the closest possible match to his –25 diopters, while I tested each pair on him assessing, refining, watching for that shift toward clarity.

And then he began to see.

Not perfectly. Not instantly. But enough.

Enough to recognize the top letter

not inches from his face, but ten feet away.

When his posture shifted—when his eyes widened slightly, not from strain but curiosity I saw the change. With each pair of lenses, he answered the tumbling E’s with less hesitation. The pauses shortened. Up. Down. Left. Right. A little more certain each time.

Something in me gave way. Tears came before I could stop them.

I had been carrying frustration about logistics, numbers, unmet expectations. I had questioned whether the months of preparation and sacrifice were landing where they should.

And then he stood before me.

Quiet. Hopeful. Patient in a way only someone long deprived can be.

In that moment, I understood.

Success is not measured in numbers. It is measured in one life changed.

Clarity for him was not convenience. It was dignity.

And restoring even a fraction of that felt like a privilege I hadn’t fully grasped until then.

As your anniversary in heaven approaches, Dad, I felt you beside me. You always believed this work mattered.

– Marina

This is a really beautiful, meaningful project.

It’s a special kind of joy that comes from serving others.

Being able to go with TWECS and help people in need isn’t just about giving—it changes me too.

Serving the poor often brings:
• A deeper sense of gratitude
• Stronger compassion and empathy
• Real perspective on what truly matters
• A kind of happiness that feels meaningful, not temporary

I am not just “lucky” – I am choosing to show up. And that matters.

 – Alec Wong, TWECS Volunteer

Day 3 Reflection

The uncomfortableness of Day 2 at the clinic ultimately led to a smooth and well run Day 3. Everyone worked well together, and we had no difficulties or deficiencies in any of the logistical support we needed. All the translators were present, which made communication seamless and efficient.

What truly made the day exceptional was the teamwork. The collaboration between TWECS and the team of Congresswoman Rachel Arenas was what allowed us to serve those in need so effectively. Their team was constantly present making sure we had everything we needed, ensuring that patients were comfortable, and that our medical team could focus fully on delivering care.

Because of this unified effort, we were able to work with remarkable efficiency and compassion, ultimately serving 640 patients in a single day. That level of impact would not have been possible without the strength of that partnership.

I want to extend my sincere thanks to Congresswoman Rachel Arenas and her entire team for their dedication, organization, and unwavering support.

Together Everyone Achieves Miracles (TEAM)  and we truly witnessed that today.

Day Two – Tested, but Unshaken

Day two began with unexpected challenges. Despite being assured that the clinic space would be ours for the full four days, we were suddenly asked to give up rooms so the local clinic could run their own services. It led to a difficult and uncomfortable conversation, and for a couple of hours our team was left with very little volunteer support. Basic logistics like lunch, snacks, even keeping the washrooms and lunch area clean ,also fell short, and I had to be firm and direct to ensure our team and patients were cared for.

It was not an easy morning.

But humanitarian work is rarely without obstacles.

By the end of the day, everything that truly mattered came into focus.

A young boy who had been living in darkness was able to see.

A woman who had never owned glasses wept with gratitude.

Hundreds of patients left smiling, holding prescriptions and hope in their hands.

We were told to expect 800 patients. We saw 509 and each one was treated with dignity, thorough care, and compassion.

Day two reminded me that even when circumstances test us, the mission remains stronger than the moment.