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Philippine Dub Veteran Jefferson Utanes Launches GoFundMe Crowdfunding Campaign to Cover Cost of Lifesaving Surgery

Filipino voice actor Jefferson Utanes' sister-in-law Elizabeth Feliciano-Teodoro launched a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign on July 12 to help pay for a coronary artery bypass surgery that Utanes requires to combat heart blockage. The campaign seeks to raise CA$15,000 to cover the cost for the surgery. Utanes is also accepting donations via GCash and BDO, whose respective phone numbers and account numbers can be found in the third Facebook link in the source line at the bottom of this article.

The GoFundMe campaign has raised CA$1,319 as of press time.

Utanes explained in his original July 12 post on Facebook that he has been suffering from stage 5 chronic kidney disease, and has been undergoing dialysis for the disease for more than a year, but a doctor only noticed the heart blockage recently. A second opinion confirmed the need for a bypass surgery.

Utanes worked as a Tagalog dubbing director for ABS-CBN, formerly the largest free terrestrial television network in the Philippines. There, he directed and voiced a number of dubs for the channel's foreign content, including anime. Within Tagalog anime dubs, he is best known as the voice of Dragon Ball Z's Goku, Doraemon's titular character, Kogoro Mori in Detective Conan, Hisoka in Hunter × Hunter, Sukuna in Jujutsu Kaisen, Kyon in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Usopp in One Piece, Professor Oak in Pokémon, Artemis in Sailor Moon, and Kōsei Arima in Your Lie in April, among many other roles.

Sources: GoFundMe, Jefferson Utanes' Facebook page (link 2, link 3)