Carmen "Mita" Manzano Pardo de Tavera (November 19, 1919[1] – October 23, 2007[2]) was a Filipino pulmonologist, writer, socio-civic leader, and community health worker.
Pardo de Tavera is also known to develop a program that educated the illiterate and the poor about natural healing remedies and as a staunch opposition to the Marcos administration and the martial law era.
[4] She translated into English the cookbooks of her great-grandmother, Doña Juliana Pardo de Tavera y Gorricho, who loved to cook and throw parties in the 19th century in their family home in Paris.
[4] After graduation, she joined the Philippine Tuberculosis Society (PTS)[4][6] and the Quezon Institute (QI), a former military hospital used by the Americans and then the Japanese.
[2][6] In September 1978, Pardo de Tavera presented her research published as "A Model of Supervised Community Participation in the Prevention and Short-term Therapy of TB Among the Poor in Asia" at the 24th Conference of the International Union Against Tuberculosis, held in Brussels, Belgium.
Pardo de Tavera claims that her research has caused international doctors to get excited in the activities of AKAP, which then led to an organization from The Netherlands to donate an amount equivalent between four and five million pesos.
[4] She would then be a militant activist during the martial law era and actively participated in the street protests against the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos.
[4] Pardo de Tavera was appointed by President Corazon Aquino as secretary of social welfare after the ouster of the Marcos dictatorship.
[2][6] Under her leadership in the social welfare department, she created the Inspection and Acceptance Committee (IAC) as an internal control system under the principle of check and balance.