“THE LCB-Performing Arts Centre invites you to a “Dance for Kevin,” a special fundraising event,” read the “texted” invitation in my cellular phone from Lu Chin Bon last July 24. Naturally, being a member of the LCB-PAC family, I heeded Chin Bon Lu and Bing Locsin’s urgent call.
It was perhaps the most sober and heart-rending of all the LCB-PAC’s performances I’ve attended to date. The show started with a doxology, I Need Thee, interpreted in dance by the talented company dancers of the LCB-PAC. Next came Bing Locsin’s short speech thanking the audience for coming that evening in support of Josie Carballo-Tejada, LCB-PAC’s scriptwriter and theatre director for the longest time, whose beloved youngest son Kevin is in need of dire help.
LCB-PAC senior member Dr. Judy Ann Gatmin-Yuson then explained to the audience Kevin C. Tejada’s medical condition in simple terms for everyone to understand: “Kevin has brain cancer. It is a slow growing tumor affecting the nervous system. Most of these tumors are inoperable because the procedure often involves the delicate structures of the brain and the surrounding tissues. The prognosis is also guarded as it is often poorly responsive to radio-therapy and chemotherapy.” The good doctora continued, “Right now, Kevin, whose astrocytoma is on its stage 4, is on his third cycle of chemotherapy. There is still hope no matter what the medical books say because we have a great God who looks upon us with love. We, the LCB-PAC family, are here united to show our love for Josie and her son, Kevin.”
I was able to talk to Josie C. Tejada earlier during the wake of another beloved and most talented LCB-PAC senior member, Louella de Borja. One truly wonders how a good and devoted mother deals and manages with a problem of such magnitude. Josie C. Tejada must have nerves of steel to be able to grapple with the range of emotions going through her and her family members these days. It is when you talk to her that she eloquently describes her biggest trial in life that the pain and sorrow of a mother in agony gnaw at your being.

“It was in 1991 when my husband Rolly and I received a gift from God. We named him Kevin Hiram. Kevin, the youngest among our five sons, came as a pre-menopause baby after seven years, so it was like having a baby for the first time again. Everything was new for me. In many ways, it was because this new baby, being the youngest in both the Carballo and Tejada clans, became the apple of the family’s eye. Everyone doted on him; his parents, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins and Lola. Kevin was well-loved right from the womb,” Josie narrates as she adds, “Apart from asthma, Kevin had no other health problem. The only times he was in a hospital were at his birth and when he was circumcised.”
Kevin spent his school days at the Ateneo de Davao from pre-school to High School. At 16, he pursued a trimester culinary course, and graduated with a Certificate in Commercial Cookery from Joji Ilagan-Bian’s TAFE program. He joined Marco Polo Hotel-Davao’s cold kitchen as a trainee to complete 900 hours of OJT. But he only managed to finish 400 hours.
It was last June 27, 2010, when Kevin was admitted at the Brokenshire Hospital for reactive hypertension. A CT scan was ordered which revealed a “probable astrocytoma in the brainstem.” MRI shortly followed which confirmed a brainstem glioma. Glioma is a brain tumor that hits children before the age of 20. No one knows what causes it. “What is worrisome in Kevin’s case is that the tumor is lodged in his brainstem. It is unreachable by biopsy and therefore surgery is out of the question. The only known treatment available in Davao are chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Both treatments are prohibitively expensive. But for the love of Kevin, the family -by faith- is availing of the best possible options available,” reveals Josie.
Kevin turns 19 this August. His family continues to hope and pray for Kevin’s full recovery. Your show of support encourages them to never give up hope that the dreams of this promising young man will find fulfilment.
Let us pray for Kevin Carballo Tejada’s recovery, please.