Baj’s Story

How inner work helped a public health expert come back from the brink of despair.


Baj had reached a point when her tired body, mind and heart were saying: Enough is enough! In her 18 years of service in The Philippines’ public health system, Baj had experienced too many times how thankless government service can be. Office politics, crab mentality, and professional jealousy had depleted her energy. 

 
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Over those 18 years, Baj had seen her region, Mimaropa, get stuck in its birthing pains, unable to emerge as co-equal with its sister region, Calabarzon.

Discouraged by stagnant progress despite her best efforts to deliver quality health care, she longed for an innovative way to make health services more responsive to the needs of people in the isolated island communities of her region.

Then came an opportunity for innovation. Baj was designated as a regional program co-ordinator in a Health Leadership program developed by the Zuellig Family Foundation and implemented by the national department of health. 

Through a bridging leadership training for program coordinators, Baj set out on a leadership journey that rekindled her hope and injected the fuel needed to jumpstart and inspire her team. Her enthusiasm and clear sense of purpose inspired every member of her team to engage their co-regional leaders and local government partners to enrol in the program. 

The bridging leadership experience enabled and encouraged Baj and other leaders to reconnect with the core of who they were.

For Baj, the connection to purpose and her core values gave her the hope to accept frustrations and failures without giving up. The whole journey—time provided for reflections, the circle practices, dialogues, reflections on successes and failures from co-creating with others—led her to a deeper understanding of herself and of why she pursues and persists in this work, and for whom, namely, each and every Filipino in the islands of Mimaropa.  

By choosing to embrace the experience whole-heartedly, Baj came to understand the importance of personal mastery for any leader who wanted to drive and sustain change to address the complex challenge of health inequity. The experience opened her mind, heart, and will, and crystallized a deeper sense of being that enabled her to bring more meaning, importance, and impact to her work. It connected Baj to her loób, her inner principles of affection, disposition, attitudes, thought, and responsibility. A sense of sacred obligation motivated her to a higher accountability. 

It made me have a hopeful mindset, to focus on the good in every person.

It served as fire to positively influence others. As I work to make a significant dent in public service, I will do so on the side of boldness. If I err, may it be for too much audacity and not for too little. In knowing what I ought to do, everything else is secondary, I simply know that the place I want to live in is that of service.”

In partnership with local government, Baj and her team were able to trail-blaze a creative management and development approach to the health care delivery systems and co-create more responsive and appropriate health services for the people. 


This story is drawn from the Inner Work for Social Change case study, ‘Bridging Inner and System Governance: Co-creating Responsive Health Systems for Better Health Outcomes among Low-income Families in the Philippines.’

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