In September 1978, a then 59-year old Dr. Mita Pardo de Tavera delivered a paper at the 24th Conference of the International Union Against Tuberculosis held in Brussels. A self confessed rebel, she argued against the traditional cure-oriented, urban-centered healthcare delivery system in the Philippines, which failed to provide effective healthcare to the teeming numbers of the poor. She proposed an alternative: community-based health programs, which would focus on the promotion of health, the prevention of disease, and the training of local residents to provide simple medical care to their communities. With the education and the empowerment of local communities, she felt, the poor would stand a better chance of fighting off preventable diseases like TB.

Today, twenty-six years later, the former Secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development looks back on the Brussels presentation as a pivotal point in her career, indicating the direction she was to take in the coming years.

In this light, it becomes possible to understand why, when asked in 2004 (her diamond jubilee year as a physician) which of her many impressive memorabilia items she thought best represented her legacy, she chose the healthcare booklets she had produced and popularized. The target readership of these booklets were the urban and rural poor. Therefore, she had made sure that the instructions were clear, the language simple, the drawings graphic, the booklet itself of a handy size. That a woman of such distinguished accomplishments would prefer to be remembered by such homely booklets is a choice that reveals her enduring belief in the potency of educating and empowering the poor for preventive healthcare.

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