Volume 3, Issue No. 2
OPINION/COMMENTARY
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /
. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail. com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . . . . .
Our latest as of Monday, July 26, 2021
~ Perhaps no other Filipino of stature had made such a big impact in the military and in the White House as this daughter of a Navy steward whose humility is unparalleled even as she rose to positions of trust and prominence. Dr. Connie Mariano moved with her parents and siblings to the US when she was a toddler, settled in San Diego, California, and from there, leapt to her fate as the guardian of health of three presidents of the United States.
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DR. CONNIE MARIANO, REAR ADMIRAL (Ret.)
The Guardian of Health of Three US Presidents
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
“To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own.”―
TORONTO - Call it serendipity, and it was exactly that, as I whizzed past yellowed and wrinkled copies of newspapers, magazines, and steno notebooks from the mid-90s and brought to Toronto in boxes since relocating from a 16-year sojourn in California eleven years ago.
They are my personal files, mostly transcript and collections representing some of my work as a community journalist in the United States approximating the beginning of my transition from being a foreign correspondent for two news agencies, one Japanese and the other German, a few years into Ferdinand Marcos' martial law rule.
Reporting as a member of the foreign press corps had somewhat unloosened journalists from the dreaded clutches of the Philippine strongman. The locals, however, were subjected to strict censorship, and worse, to jail time.
The venerable Teddy Benigno, bureau chief of Agence France-Presse (later press secretary of President Cory Aquino), had proposed an organization to protect Manila-based foreign journalists from intimidation and harassment by the Marcos dictatorship. That resulted in the establishment of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP).
But the nature of the job was not much distinct. The fundamentals are the same, except that news presentation for global consumption is decidedly straightforward and comprehensive than for a domestic audience - that's where foreign reporting veers away from community journalism.
Writing about, and for, the community was my means to declutter my mind from world affairs and Philippine national news that had impacted the world at large. Reporting for a variety of readers in foreign lands was an exhausting job, but it's the kind that occupied a foreign correspondent like myself every day for over a decade.
And so it was on to San Diego where I instantly landed a job as associate editor and then editor-in-chief, respectively, of two competing newspapers. My tenure in the latter capacity did not last very long as professional differences with my principals led me to found my own newspaper, Diario Veritas, which pioneered in local investigative reporting. Now on my own, I also did freelance writing.
While opening one of the brown boxes, a pleasant surprise greeted me: a pristine copy of the San Francisco-based Filipinas magazine dated November 2000 buried midway in the files of manuscripts and newspaper clippings.
On the cover was a large colored picture of Dr. Connie Mariano (born Eleanor Concepcion Mariano), looking elegant and authoritative in the full dress uniform of a United States Navy admiral, dignified, well-coiffed, and smiling a toothsome that radiated self-confidence.
The official photo complemented the cover story I wrote for that issue. Among others, it highlighted the many firsts this Sangley Point, Cavite-born, San Diego-raised Navy steward's daughter had historically achieved in the years following her parents' resettlement from a small town in Pampanga to the US.
Based in Washington, DC as the White House physician, I felt so honored when she agreed to be interviewed during her scheduled visit to Los Angeles, which was a two-and-a-half-hour drive from my home office in San Diego.
Unlike her formal portrait in the magazine, now at this first personal meeting she was wearing a fashionable pantsuit that evoked the prestige and influence of her eminent position. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Mariano).
After that interview, we ran across each other again during the convention of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) in Las Vegas, Nevada where I believed she was the guest speaker. I covered that event for my newspaper and for other news outlets in California, Arizona, and Chicago. (See collage).
Dr. Mariano's narrative - her rise in military rank and, inevitably, to fame - has elevated Filipinos in general. She always looked back notwithstanding the dizzying heights of success she has accomplished when all she had wanted was to be a good servant doctor.
My eyes became moist every time she acknowledged her roots, her parents and the family's humble beginnings, and the many Filipinos aboard ships and on land serving as stewards like her father to high Navy officials. Even now, I can feel the respect she bestowed on her compatriots, on the rank-and-file in the military, and on the masses generally.
Having been the physician to three US presidents - George H. W. Bush (final year of his term), Bill Clinton (entire eight years), and George W. Bush (first year of term) - she was literally their guardian of health. In reality, she was taking care of a bigger official family that included their spouses and their children, and more. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physician_to_the_President).
Dr. Mariano was appointed in 1992 as White House Physician, the first military woman in American history to be designated as such. President Bill Clinton raised her profile even more, naming her Director of the White House Medical Unit, which made her as its first woman director, and choosing her as his personal physician. She's also the first Filipino American in US history to become a rear admiral in the US Navy.
A good twenty years have passed since that cover story in Filipinas magazine. It came to light again once I learned that she has written a memoir in 2010 titled The White House Doctor - My Patients Were Presidents.
I have been out of touch. In fact, I didn't know about that book until I was browsing Amazon and Indigo online and found a book with a familiar face on the cover and a name I knew I had interacted with before: Dr. Connie Mariano.
Now on a virtual face-to-face with her, the information triggered my search for the Filipinas magazine I knew I kept somewhere for posterity.
The year (2010) Dr. Mariano wrote her book was the same year I moved to Toronto from San Diego. When the first prints came out in June 2011, I was already fully engrossed with the good and bad news in Toronto, and almost forgetting contacts with friends and news sources in California.
So, ten years hence, but still current, I bought a copy online of Dr. Mariano's memoir. It's never too late to keep abreast of her through her book and be touched by her experience. She's done ourselves proud! (Copyright 2021. All Rights Reserved).
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