Jaime Z. Galvez Tan Is Lifetime Distinguished Achievement Award

Jaime Z. Galvez Tan is a private medical practitioner in Integrative Medicine. He finished his Master in Public Health with honors at the Prince Leopold Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium, 1984. He served as the secretary of the Department of Health in 1995.

Always for the most marginalized, Galvez Tan was the national coordinator of the service-oriented Alay Kapwa Pangkalusugan. He founded and chaired Health Futures Foundation, Inc., which built barangay health stations and community-based health and wellness programs in the poorest areas of the country, including a birthing center in Polomolok, South Cotabato, the ancestral land of the B’laan. He also worked among the urban poor in many cities and pioneered the Friendly Care Clinics that offered affordable reproductive health care and basic medical services.

He is part of the Filipino Hilot Accreditation Committee of the Philippine Institute of Traditional and Alternative Health Care of the Department of Health. He further reaches out with his radio program Doctor’s Orders on DWWW 774 AM station.

His publications include The Wellness Book for Filipinos, Letters from the Barrios, and Health in the Hands of the People. Among his research works is “A Descriptive Study of Sacred Healing Places in Mindanao.”

Some of his recognitions are the 100 Outstanding Bedans of the Century 1901-2001, Ateneo de Manila University’s Gawad Sambayanan Parangal, Department of Health’s Bayani ng Kalusugan, and the University of the Philippines Alumni Association’s Gawad sa Serbisyong Pangkomunidad (Community Service Award).

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