Going the Extra Mile

The City Hospitalization Assistance and Medicines Program (CHAMP) is a Cebu City Government health assistance program that provides accessible hospitalization support and essential medicines to qualified residents, helping reduce the financial burden of medical care. Raychie Lomongo heads this unit.

For me, loving others through my work means seeing the person behind every document, request, and medical assistance application. In CHAMP, I meet people during some of the most difficult moments of their lives. They are not simply patients or beneficiaries. They are parents worried about their children, children trying to save their parents, and families hoping for one more chance.

This reminds me to approach my work with empathy, patience, and genuine concern. I try to listen before I respond, understand before I judge, and find solutions instead of simply pointing out problems.

Sometimes, seeking the good of others means going the extra mile, making an extra call, following up on a pending request, or staying a little longer because I know that, for someone, that assistance could mean the difference between hope and despair. I have also learned that loving others does not always mean doing everything for them.

Sometimes, it means empowering them, treating them with dignity, and helping them navigate a system that can feel overwhelming.

My work has taught me that service is not measured only by the amount of assistance we provide, but by how we make people feel while receiving it. I want every person I encounter to feel that they were heard, respected, and valued. For me, this is how I seek the good of others: by turning my position into an opportunity to serve, my responsibilities into a commitment, and every encounter into a chance to make someone’s burden a little lighter.