It has been thirty-five years since my father passed away at age 66. It was a great loss for us, more so for my mother (Josefa Arejola Alvarez ). Belonging to one of the oldest families of Naga, my mother (at 101) has a photographic memory of the past, and she lives the present on a day to day basis. Her future? It is all in God’s hands!
She has given me a first-hand account of my late father’s humble beginnings, his private life as a husband and father (to us, his children) and his public life as a political figure.
‘Well done my good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your Master’s happiness!’ Matthew 25:21
August 18, 1913. Birth, Early Childhood and College Years
My father, Floro (third in the family of five) was born in Lubao, Pampanga to Catalino Dabu and Gertrudes Vitug. Although they were poor; they were honest, hard-working couple.
My grandmother was widowed early and left to raise her five kids. But she had smart kids and all went to the prestigious (famous alumnus Pres. Diosdado Macapagal, Rogelio del la Rosa, supreme court justices, lawyers, journalists, etc.) Pampanga High School.
My father and Macapagal were neighbors, close friends, ambitious young writers for the school paper. Getting a college degree was a goal they knew was attainable if they worked hard.
After high-school, they decided to attend the University of Santo Tomas and go to law school together.
Somehow, at the university, Macapagal had to talk to his benefactors and told my father to go ahead and line up to enroll and not to wait for him. A lot of students were already in line.
The line was very long and so he had to start from the back of the line. After a very long wait, his turn came up and he was told he was signing up for Pre-Med classes not Pre-Law. When he turned around, the line was even longer than when he started! He was about to leave but he was getting hungry. He looked the forms over and signed it. The course of destiny was set for him!
On his way out, he saw Macapagal and told him what
happened. Anyway, to make the story short, my father liked his classes and continued on to Med School.
God intervened in a such a powerful way that it was for the better that the two friends had gone their separate ways re career choices.
Marriage and World War II
My father met my mother on a train full of college kids (who were going to Lubao for the fiesta). My aunt (who was also enrolled at U.S.T.) asked my mother to come along.
For my father and mother - it was love at first sight!
Even though my father was into his internship and my mother, a student (studying at Philippine Dental College), they decided to wed. Better to face the future together than be apart from each other!
At the University of Santo Tomas, he got his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1938.
After passing the board exams, he was offered a job in Mindanao by a huge logging company. When it was time for them to leave, my maternal grandpa (Dr. Jose Alvarez, also a physician; one of the first graduates of U.P. Med School) was against the move. He wanted my father to practice in Naga.
The War broke-out and so my parents evacuated back to Camarines Sur. My father got a job as a physician with the Health Dept. in Naga.
After the War, the old families of Naga came back. Other families from neighboring towns also decided to settle here.
1950 – 1953 To the U.S.A. for Diplomate in Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology
By this time, my paternal grandmother was getting blind because of cataracts. So, my father decided to go to the U.S. to advance his studies (EENT) in Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology. He obtained his Diplomate at New York Polyclinic and the Newark Eye and Ear Infirmary.
When he left, there were five of us (Tita, Elenita, me, Floro, Jr. and Susan).
After three years , he came home. My grandmother came to visit us, and soon after, had her eye surgery done. She was in her 80’s then and visited us one more time.
For us kids, we were happy to have my father back and our family was whole (intact) again.
1954 – 1963
Naga was a thriving young city with many professionals – doctors, lawyers, dentists, engineers, architects, teachers, pharmacists, small business owners (now we call them entrepreneurs to be politically correct!), etc.
Naga then didn’t look to politics to shape its future. It’s future hinged on the citizens – who were the young professionals raising their young families here, the students, the religious, the clergy, etc. It was the community working together for the common good of everyone.
The Catholic Church was the center of their lives. They wore their best clothes when they attended Holy Mass on Sundays. Love of God, family and neighbor and devotion to Our Lady of Penafrancia were instilled in their hearts and minds. Life was good!
Our old house was reconstructed to make way to what will be known as the Dabu Hospital.
My father has established his reputation as EENT Specialist for he had patients coming from all parts of the Bicol Region. By this time, I had two more siblings (Francis and Cecile).
I remember we would go with him to Sorsogon, Legaspi and Daraga. It was fun for us kids because he bought each of us - Magnolia ice cream (brick-size which was huge!) for treat.
He had an active social life. He was President of the Camarines Sur Medical Society, Lions Club, Liberal Party Coordinator for the Bicol Region.
“Rigodon de Honor” was always a part of their Ball (as they were known then). The affair was always formal – women wearing ternos and men in formal attire. An Orchestra provided the music. Guest speakers were from Manila and it gave Naga the national exposure it needed.
In 1957, he was approached by Msgr. Benjamin Ravanera (Newly-appointed Parish Priest of the San Francisco Church) to Chair the Renovation Committee to restore the building back to the church it was once before. It was converted into a moviehouse in the early 1950’s.
Through fundraising activities and direct solicitation to donors, the church was completed and opened it’s doors to grateful parishioners.
His generation shaped Naga’s future in the 1950’s and 1960’s, Early 1970’s.
He would crossed paths again with his close friend Diosdado Macapagal, who was running for Senator, Vice-Pres. and eventually President.
Upon President Macapagal’s election, he appointed my father as Chairman of all the Boards of Examiners and Chairman of the Board of Medical Examiners. The dual position made the press take notice of his honesty, integrity, hard-work, executive ability and charisma. He had that quality -charisma – even before that word became popular.
A year later he was appointed Secretary of Health. He was a hands-on executive inspecting all the Regional Hospitals in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
Having received Reparation Funds from the Japanese gov’t, he distributed medical equipment to gov’t hospitals around the country.
When a contagious disease (El Tor) plagued some areas of our country, he visited the sites.
When the Japanese gov’t banned our bananas for export because of EL Tor, my father assured the Ministry of Health that our bananas were safe for consumption. The ban was lifted!
He was also invited to visit Japan, Malaysia, the U.S.; and led the appeal to public and private hospitals in different states in the U.S. to open their doors to young graduates in the medical profession to intern abroad under the Exchange Visitors Program. They did!
I was a recipient of the said program and so with a lot of new graduates. U.S.A., here we come!
He was a popular member of the President’s cabinet so much so that he was already tapped by other Health Ministry officials in the world to head the World Health Organization (WHO).
His election was almost certain but the President said ‘No.’ Never giving any reason, my fathers’ backers were disappointed. It would have been the first time, a Filipino was going to head the agency. He was a political appointee and he served at the discretion of the President. So be it!
1964 -1965
President Macapagal was running for re-election and his opponent was a former Liberal Party member, Senator Ferdinand Marcos. The President’s poll numbers (even in the 60’s, we had pollsters then) were plummeting and he needed to win votes in the Visayas and Mindanao. Also he was criticized for appointing Kabalens in his cabinet, among them the two of his closest allies (my father and Lingad).
So, before long the infamous cabinet reshuffle began.
My father was in the Visayas (with some Asian visitors) and he got a telegram from the President relieving him of his duties. One of the aides noticed he became unusually quiet so much so that he abruptly ended his trip and went back to Manila.
Upon arriving in Manila, the news were all over the radio and newspapers. He came home and he didn’t have to say anything to my mother. They just looked at each other and went inside their room. My father had ‘amor propio’ and he was never really a politician. He was just drawn to it by his friendship with the President and by his desire to help his administration.
Everything was politically-motivated. ‘Et tu, Brute?’
The presidents’ poll numbers didn’t improve. The “Poor boy from Lubao” and his wife Eva was no match to “Apo Ferdinand” and his wife Imelda’s star power. The word “celebrity” wasn’t in vogue then but “star power” was the term used to describe the Marcos’es.
In the midst of the campaign, Marcos met with my father to ask him to join his party and if he won – the post he left, was his. He was impressed by my father’s performance at the Dept. of Health. Also, they knew each other well (after all, Marcos belonged to the Liberal Party for a long time). My father declined the offer and said his loyalty was for the President and he would not betray his close boyhood friend.
Honesty and integrity was one of his better qualities.
And history was on Marcos side and he won!
1966 – 1979
My parents decided to leave Manila for good and go back to Naga. My younger siblings were already in Naga. Still in Manila to finish college, my sisters and I stayed at different dormitories close to the university we attended.
My father resumed his successful medical practice, got involved with the Archdiocese of Caceres through the Daughters of Mary Mother of the Church whose foundress Mother Therese was also a Kabalen . It also turns out she was a classmate of my aunt at U.S.T.
He was a benefactor, friend, adviser, physician to the new order of nuns.
He got involved with fundraising activities that included a “Pilita Corales Concert,” Passion Play at the Cultural Center in Manila.
They also opened a Nursery school for pre-schoolers, adoption centers for the poor abandoned orphans - feeding them and sometimes housing them. They visited prisons and brought meals for them every so often and esp. at Christmas and Easter. Their charism was aid for the poor and less fortunate. A combination of Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy.
Whatever my father did (he was a born leader), he attracted new members to join the organizations he chaired like the Kiwanis Club and Holy Name Society.
In between these, he suffered a stroke but quickly recovered; returning to his faith in full force (he had a conversion!). That came at the right time and the right place.
God had shown him the way back into the fold, into His loving, forgiving embrace.
He became a daily Holy Mass goer and a daily communicant at the San Francisco Church (which he chaired/renovated together with Msgr. Ravanera in 1957).
At age 60, my parents were participants in the presentation of The Passion Play at the newly-opened Cultural Center in Manila.
My mother was one of the three Maria’s (in the Passion Play) and she told me that their director (Ragrario) was desperate and literally pulling his hair in exasperation because they couldn’t remember their lines (although it was a one-liner!). It must have been very funny watching them rehearse.
Anyway, In Manila (finally!) they memorized their one-liner. The play was well-received; the performers were my parents, their close friends, newly-found friends and strangers (the man who played Jesus).
Mother Therese’s small community became bigger – expanding to all parts of the Bicol
Region, Manila, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac , some parts of the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean.
All of the original nuns have long since passed on to our Maker except for Sister Lourdes who is now residing at the Basilica Motherhouse. She is a ahijada of my mother and they remain close.
One good turn deserves another…..Now, after writing my children’s storybook “Catalino the littlest Angel Ever,” the nuns are my biggest supporters.
Feb. 5, 1979 Rest in Peace, our beloved Father….
At 64, still active, my father decided to convert our building (fronting Plaza Rizal) to a moviehouse (Dabu Cinema). He said it was his retirement income. In the middle of the construction, my parents decided to leave for Manila for a check-up at St. Luke’s Medical Center. He specifically wanted to see a cardiologist from Malaysia. My mother said he was praying that he could still be around to see his grandchildren. It was hoping against hope!
God had other plans and he suffered the final heart attack that took his life. My mother was with him until the end.
His – was a life fully and truly well-lived in the service of his God and of his Country!
My siblings: Tita (Doctor of Optometry) married to Arch. Panks Calleja
Elenita (M.S. Psychology) married to Albert Roffey
Carmelita (B.S. Pharmecy and Scientist)
Floro, Jr. (MBA, B.S. Economics) married to Emma Zaens
Susan (B.S.RN and B.S. Nutrition) married to Truman Manipon
Francis (M.D. ENT) married to Magda Patalinghug
Cecile (B.S. Nutrition) married to George Cawthorn