In reference to the commentary titled “John XXIII’s impossible miracle” (Opinion, 4/28/14) by Eleanor Dionisio, I wish to add that good Pope John was likewise dear to my heart because he had been credited by my good friend, Dr. Carmen Enverga-Santos, for the miracle of her healing from a particularly deadly type of leukemia. I wrote an article about it in the July 28, 2013 issue of the Inquirer (Lifestyle, “Blessed John XXIII canonization: Why didn’t the Vatican consider this miracle?”).
Carmen’s family—in particular, her husband Dr. Florentino Santos, and son Andrew—were witness to my friend’s miraculous and sudden healing after she prayed hard in a small chapel in Taytay, Rizal to Pope John, even challenging him to heal her that very instant or else take her from this earthly life because she was suffering much and wanted to give up. Carmen had just returned from Houston where she had been undergoing chemotherapy and had been in a coma for two weeks. She was coughing, had a fever, with sores in her mouth caused by the chemo agent, when she asked her husband and son to take her to a chapel in Taytay in the early evening of that day.
She felt a breeze, though the night was still, and stood up to go. In the car, she told her husband she was hungry and wanted to eat, which astonished him because he knew her mouth sores caused her great discomfort whenever she ate. With a flashlight, he examined her mouth and saw that the sores had vanished. Her fever and cough were gone, too.
She was jubilant on her return to Houston to be examined by her doctor. Announcing to him that she had been healed, thanks to Pope John XXIII, the doctor merely laughed and said, “It was I who healed you.” Understandably, when she submitted her testimonial to the Vatican recounting her healing by the good pope, they must have asked her doctor for confirmation. Being an atheist, the doctor would not confirm Carmen’s healing except by his own hand.
Carmen passed away at the age of 83 from kidney failure, 28 years after her last visit to Houston, where she was pronounced completely cured of her leukemia.
—ERLINDA ENRIQUEZ PANLILIO,
Inquirer contributor,
epanlil@gmail.com