HEALING A SISTER CITY'S KIDS DOCTORS HEADING TO FILIPINO TOWN.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- City Manager Ken Pulskamp plans to trade charcoal suits for khakis when he joins a group of volunteers headed for a rural Philippines town on a sister city medical mission.

During the nine-day trip, doctors will operate on children who have cleft lip and palate deformities and cataracts. Pulskamp, an experienced world traveler, is representing Santa Clarita in the first trip to the farming town, adopted as one of Santa Clarita's two sister cities.

``He's knowledgable about giving information and he is willing to help out with the distribution of medicine to the children,'' said Cezar Obnial, past president of the Filipino-American Association, which is partnering with the Sariaya Association of California and the city group for the trip. ``As city manager, he has been very helpful to children and people who are old.''

Obnial, who was born in Sariaya, has lived in Santa Clarita since the 1980s. He estimates Santa Clarita is home to 400 Filipino families.

The Santa Clarita Valley International Program is Santa Clarita's nonprofit sister city group. Its members forge economic ties and cultural bonds with the sister towns.

Farmers in Sariaya harvest vegetables and pick coconuts. In May, residents of the quaint town of 160,000, a three-hour drive from Manila, celebrate the Agawan Festival by adorning their homes with vegetables.

Pulskamp will attend a groundbreaking for a medical clinic that the two civic groups plan to raise $50,000 to build.

Surgeries are scheduled at a hospital near Sariaya for about 100 children, whose facial disfigurements may be more than cosmetic. An untreated cleft lip can result in speech problems, and if the teeth are affected the child may have trouble chewing and digesting food. A cleft palate blocks the tongue and could cause a child's words to sound unintelligible.

The volunteers will disperse to five barrios on the outskirts of town to provide medical care, said city analyst Elena Galvez.

Several local nurses will make the trip and two of the eight doctors hail from Los Angeles, but most are from the Filipino-American Association of Tennessee.

About four years ago Pulskamp, 50, traveled with others to Tena, Ecuador, to lay the groundwork for Santa Clarita's sister city relationship there. Since then, a contingent that included former Santa Clarita Mayor Carl Boyer, who founded the local sister city program, returned for a medical mission.

Pulskamp's wanderlust blossomed at 20, during a yearlong solo trip to Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal, where he traveled on elephants, camels, cars and trains. Midway through college he ventured out to explore Europe and Africa, then migrated to Asia.

``I wanted to see the world and explore other cultures,'' he said. Since then he has visited more than 70 countries on trips geared to helping others and having fun.

Pulskamp will pay his own way on the Philippines trip, which departs June 19.

judy.orourke(at)dailynews.com

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