Bato should make it his personal mission to find the killers of Dr. Dreyfuss Perlas, the barrio doctor who was shot death March 1 in Lanao Norte.

As a government scholar himself (MSU and PMA), Bato should find it not hard to empathize with the familiar story of a Iskolar ng Bayan foregoing private practice for the happy but hardship post of serving the people.

As one who had spent most of his career in the hinterlands, Bato should be the first to know that rural deployment, while challenging, should not be paid with one’s life.

Doctors take the famous oath to do no harm. But for them to carry out their duty, government should see to it that the rule – Do not harm doctors – is followed as well.

We therefore owe, it not only to Dr. Perlas, but to his colleagues who form the rural health corps, the thousands of underpaid, overworked government doctors, nurses, midwives who are in the frontline of the war against diseases, that justice be served.

Whoever saves a life, saves mankind, which Dr. Perlas did everyday to that part of the world he had made a better place.

When a doctor is killed, the whole world gets sick. The only way to cure this sickness is to bring the perpetrators to justice.