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Dr. Mita Pardo de Tavera - “Mamita” to most of us who worked with her in her many involvements with the sick and the poor for over sixty years, passed away a few weeks ago.
I first met Mamita when I joined the breastfeeding promotion movement in our country. She generously offered a space for our headquarters in her building at Project 4, Quezon City. We called the organization “BUNSO” and she was one of our Board Members. It was also at that time that she started the Alay Kapwa Pangkalusugan, an organization promoting community-based primary health care. This organization exists until now, holding office right inside her residence in Dasmarinas Village. The group is composed of doctors, nurses and health educators. They have trained hundreds of community-based health workers, many have not even finished high school, living in the rural and urban poor areas, but skilled in taking blood pressure, sputum exams, acupuncture and home deliveries. They have produced pamphlets with illustrations and translated into the four major dialects for non-health professionals to learn the basics in caring for the sick in their community. (Right now, they are conducting trainings in a parish in Paranaque partly funded by Pondo ng Pinoy).
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I guess Mamita, who comes from the illustrious Pardo de Tavera clan, developed such love for the poor when she became the Executive Secretary of the Philippine Tuberculosis Society. It was an eye-opener to her. In a 1986 interview with Woman Today, she said, “That’s where I saw the imbalances, the wide disparity between the poor and the better-to-do”.
To quote from a news article written by Cyril Bonabente of Phil Daily Inquirer the day after her death, “Even when she was past retirement age, Pardo de Tavera participated actively in street protests against Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship. After arcos’ ouster, she served as Social Welfare Secretary in the Aquino Administration.
She also became Chair of the Philippines Charity Sweepstakes and President of the Philippine Cancer Society. “
It must have been in year 2000, she had just turned 80 years old then, when Pope John Paul II gave her the Papal Award as Dame of St. Sylvester for her exemplary works for the sick and the poor. Hundreds of us, her friends and relatives, gathered in Manila Cathedral where His Eminence Cardinal Sin conferred the medal on her.
I am proud to claim that she was one of our first Board Members of Pro-life Philippines in the early nineties. Because of her staunch commitment to the Church position against abortion and contraception, she was able to stop the implementation of many population control programs, being the Chairperson of the Population Commission while she was DSWD Secretary.
It was also because of her position in PCSO that Pro-life became a beneficiary, receiving allocation for our Pregnancy Counseling Services through the years.
After having served in the Board of Trustees of Pro-life, she became one of our Board of Advisers. She tries her best to attend our meetings, conventions and conferences, inspiring us that one can still be involved even when 87 years old!
I will miss my yearly visit to her during Christmas time – bringing her favorite ube and strawberry jam from the Good Shepherd Convent, Baguio. But my memories of her inspire me to continue to serve the sick and the poor the way she was an example to us all.
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