Honoria Acosta-Sison
1887-1970
First Filipina Physician and Mother of Philippine Obstetrics
Dra. Honoria Acosta-Sison As A Person
At the very base of all her achievement, was Honoria the person. And at the core of her personality was a definite idea about what human being should be, making her life a moral commitment at the very outset. A basic concept to her was "purity". In her childhood, she was told by her aunt that "purity is a treasure girls must possess." Like a glass, it could never be put together again when broken. "Being only a small girl of five or six years," she confides in her short autobiographical sketch, "I was not conscious of the full implication of the instruction but the forcefulness of the simile never left me through the years."
This was the reason for the simplicity of her ways. Relating her mother’s fondness for beautiful dresses, she took care to add that it was "a trait something I had not inherited." And it was truth. She was not very much concerned with the outer trappings of feminity, although a portrait of her in 1913 and a family picture of 1933 showed her to be quite femmine, demurely feminine, hiding the inner forces and determination that were at the wellsprings of her life. In 1958, Garchitorena-Goloy observed that her cubicle in the P.G.H. looked cramped and unostentatious with varied but remarkably utilitarian furnitures. One found it in "none of the pointless decorative items a woman likely to display in the place she works in."
There was a certain practicality about her that was not lost even in the expression of deep sentiment. In the twenties, when her husband was going on a trip to Europe and America, she wrote him a beautiful note, which reads thus:
My dearest and ever dearest Antonio,
Think not with sadness of us whom you leave behind but rather rejoice in that now your chance of glory has come. Make the most of it, for remember every gain you make will make us happier and better. Make the Holy Virgin your constant guide. She will surely help you as she has helped us. Our spirit of true and understanding love will always follow and cheer you were ever you go.
Your Honoria and Children
It was a poignant expression of marital love. But, at the back of the same sheet of paper, Honoria wrote some practical instructions to her beloved husband:
Go to Royal Society of Medicine at 1 Wimpole St. W.E. for gral. Information as to hospitals and men. Secretary is on the 4th floor. On 1st floor is a list of operations performed daily in different hospitals. The library is on the 2nd floor. You must show you are a bonafide physician to read there. —See Brompton Hosp. For diseases of chest. Other big gral. Hosp. are St. Thomas, St. Bartholomew and London. Do not fail to see Hunterian Museum, Parliamentary Bldg. and the Tower of London.
There are 2 reasonable chopsuey houses on Creek St. (Small st.) near Oxford St. They are called Shanghai and Canton Restaurant. There is another more stylish and more expensive but the cooking is not so good at Wardour St. near Picadily Circus — Hotels around Russel Square are many hotels. White Hall (three are many of the same car) is fairly clean and decent.
And she continued with a "suggestion as part of subject of investigation", concluding with the inevitable, "buy me" in Paris, but the items were not perfume or lingerie; they included: 1 Demelon forceps, with the instruction that "Gynecological and obst. Instruments may be bought in 41 Rue de Rivoli Paris – Find out also the cost of 1 obstet. Maniquin.
She had an inner life to which she could retire from the cross of practical existence. This was what she probably wanted to complete or extend when she took up courses in philosophy and psychology in the thirties. We have a portrait of her then by that anonymous Philippine Free Press writer:
Outwardly, Dr. Acosta-Sison may appear like other women-physicians, like other members of her sex. But there is another Honoraria Acosta-Sison who reveals herself only when you touch the door that leads to the higher realms of life – to poetry and philosophy and the great men and women who have lived and dwelt in such an atmosphere. It is only then, she confesses, that she actually lives and senses the beauty of life and the wonders of God’s handwork. Alone with her books and her thoughts she exists in a world by herself where the somberness of operating rooms, the agony of suffering women, yes, even the vociferous chatter of children at play or of students in the school-room, have completely vanished. But seldom can she indulge herself, float in the land of dreams and thinking soon comes the call of the world and its round of pressing duties…
So you will find her most of the time, the plain, practical, ready-for-any emergency Dr. Honoraria Acosta-Sison.
Her son Antonio believes that "throughout her life, she never gave up reading, doing this "during her spare time", the time when she could commune with her inner self, extract new strength from her inner resources. It was also then that she could write what later would appear to her as the naïve outpouring of an anguished soul eagerly seeking to follow the gleam.
In her more popular writings, purity would remain a constant theme. In her article on "Sex Education", for instance she observed that in an age " where sensual pleasure and gratification are placed above character building through self-sacrifice, conditions are not favorable for purity." For her sex education was the [proper understanding of ourselves of which sex is but a part to be harnessed and directed by a higher integrating principle – a goal, an ideal – who will enable us as a personal whole to rise we should be." The wholeness of he person in relation to a guiding "gleam" was the object of purity.
This awareness was the main source of her strength in life, she felt that the Filipinos were losing "our ideals, which make life worth living… the principles of respect for others, honesty, truth, honor, virtue which were our heritage," It was the nineteenth century which the modern American-trained medical doctor was carrying deeply in her, "the strong bulwark of our daily lives" buffeted by the winds of change, "replaced by indifferences, wantonness and arrogant cynicism. Yet, for her, our country "must live and live in decency and righteousness, " a responsibility which no one else can take save the "Filipinos themselves."
This many sound like preaching to the modern ear; but the high moral sense that infused her life was the very motive power of her achievement. It was her striving for the wholeness of life, the purity of the human being, that was at the base of her creativity. It was also what made her think of life as principally a service to other. For, in the words of Dr. Villanueva, "to her , life was a mission to serve, not to enjoy.
Dra. Acosta-Sison’s life was more than just a mission to serve. It was the fulfillment of an inner certainty, the constancy to a "gleam". Viewed from this perspective it was, from within and from without, a "gem" of purest ray.
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