CPR training to be required for basic education

MANILA, Philippines – The “Samboy Lim” bill mandating basic training on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for all students nationwide is expected to become a law within the week.

The Philippine Heart Association (PHA) expressed confidence yesterday that President Duterte would support the CPR bill and allow it to lapse into law by July 17 if not sign it.

“The law will give more muscle to the CPR-Ready Philippines goal of the PHA,” the association’s president Alex Junia said.

Congress passed the CPR bill last May but former president Benigno Aquino III failed to sign it into law.

Junia said Duterte was unlikely to veto the measure, seen as necessary to save lives.

According to Junia, mandating students to have CPR skills is necessary as shown by the recent death of Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) player Gilbert Bulawan, who suffered a heart attack during a scrimmage.

He said Bulawan could have been saved if only CPR were immediately administered.

The bill was named after Lim, a PBA legend who also suffered a heart attack during an exhibition game two years ago. During the incident, not one among more than 20 people around Lim knew what to do or had proper training to do CPR.

Physicians later said that had CPR been administered during the three-minute window, Lim’s chances of recovery would have been better.

Lim’s case prompted PBA coach and then Pampanga congressman Yeng Guiao to file the CPR bill at the House with Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara following suit in the Senate.

Under the proposed measure, CPR training would become mandatory for all students in primary and secondary schools by making it part of the basic education curriculum.

Guiao had said the concept of CPR training in schools was nothing new, considering that Norway had been doing it since the 1960s. Likewise, he said 27 out of 50 states in the United States have mandated the teaching of CPR skills in their high schools and even made it a requisite for graduation.

“CPR saves lives and you don’t have to be a doctor or a health professional to do CPR. Even children as young as eight years old can be taught age-appropriate CPR. They can already be CPR-savvy to save lives,” he pointed out.

CPR is an emergency procedure used when a person’s heart stops beating and must be performed two to five minutes on the victim who suffered an attack to prevent irreversible brain damage or death.