It's the 10th anniversary of our AU batch and my friends who will be in Helsinki later this year will see a different smile on my face: Dr. Iris Panlilio, my orthodontist, says that I'm almost ready to have my braces- what I call my teeth's "crutches"- removed. In UPIS, I actually represented some of my sections in Best Smile competitions. Years later, in a beach in Batangas, Sonny Angara (now Rep. Angara of Aurora) told me and Jun Santos that he wanted to get braces to straighten his front teeth. I thought it was a bit unfair, since back then he looked pretty good already. So after college, when I was already working in the Supreme Court, I paid a visit to the neighboring UP College of Dentistry to get braces myself and that was where I met Dr. Panlilio.
Actually, the first intern to handle my case (let's call her "H.") was a Nepalese dentist. She worked pretty fast and seemed well-respected by her peers, but she didn't like it when I asked questions- or read an orthodontic textbook. That year-long clinical relationship was turbulent, to say the least, and after two public "debates" which neither her stunned professors nor classmates couldn't stop, we were both glad to move on.
Dr. Panlilio was the next intern to handle my case. From her, I found out that H. was actually a princess in her country. That probably explains her tantrums- by asking her questions, I may have been breaching royal protocol without knowing it! Despite that surreal experience, I felt sorry for Princess H. when I read last year that the monarchy had been abolished in Nepal.
When Dr. Panlilio became a licensed orthodontist and I began private practice, I followed her to her new clinic in North Greenhills. What I liked about her was the way she coaxed me out of my shell and helped make me feel more confident in my own body. When my lips were dry, she would use a finger to put cherry-flavored lip gloss on them; during long procedures, she made me listen to songs in her iPod. She took me seriously when, before trips abroad- to Malaysia or Hong Kong or Madrid- I would tell her to brighten my smile: she always did. She practices dental medicine, not just as a science, but as an art.
Here I am with Dr. Panlilio (now Dr. Panlilio-Law) before we remove my silver crutches- the photo is by her assistant Jing.
Dr. Iris Panlilio-Law's clinic is in Unit 6B, Club Filipino Ave., 2/F One Kennedy Place, North Greenhills, San Juan with telephone no. 726-6755.
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