Today the Maltese nation paid its last respects to President Emeritus Dr Ċensu Tabone, who passed away peacefully at home in St Julians, Malta last Wednesday at about 10.30 am (local time), while having his daily nap in his favourite armchair. He would have turned 99 years in two weeks.
The Maltese community in Australia had the pleasure and good fortune to welcome Dr Tabone and his wife when they visitied the southern continent during his Presidency. The Maltese Community Council of Victoria and its affiliated Maltese associations extend their sincere condolences and deepest sympathies to Mrs Tabone, her son H.E. Mr Francis Tabone, who is the High Commissioner for Malta in Australia, and their families.
The state funeral was held in Valletta this morning local time. Six army pall bearers in ceremonial dress carried the coffin, draped in the Maltese flag, out of the Presidential Palace and mounted it on a gun carriage for the cortège to St John’s Co-Cathedral, where the funeral Mass was held. Many people gathered along the route to farewell their deceased former President.
Dr Tabone’s wife Maria led the mourners who included members of their family, their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. The police band played funeral marches along the route while the public who gathered clapped as a sign of respect.
On arrival at St John’s, the family members were greeted by the Cathedral Chapter greeted the Tabone family and the coffin was carried inside the church.
President George Abela led the congregation, which also included Prime Minister Dr Lawrence Gonzi, Opposition leader Dr Joseph Muscat, Speaker Dr Michael Frendo, President Emeritus Dr Eddie Fenech Adami, President Emeritus Dr Guido de Marco’s widow Violet and Deputy Prime Minister Dr Tonio Borg.
In his homily, Archbishop Paul Cremona, who led the Mass and was assisted by, among others, Gozo Bishop Mgr Mario Grech and Archbishop Emeritus Mgr Joseph Mercieca, said that the people’s consolation for their loss was that Dr Tabone lived surrounded by Christian values. His faith was strong and made him who he was. He attended Mass daily, prayed and was devoted to Our Lady and did his utmost to live close to her. He loved the people and managed to be guided by the values of honesty, respect, love and justice throughout his distinguished political career. He combined his marriage to love, which remained strong to this very day. Dr Tabone, the Archbishop said, lived a long life and left behind pleasant memories giving relations a new life.
The Secretary of the Apostolic Nunciature in Malta, Rev Fr Filippo Colnago, read out the Pope’s blessing and condolences at the end of the Mass.
After Mass, the cortège proceeded out of the Co-Cathedral and along Merchants’ Street, escorted by a detachment of soldiers in ceremonial dress and the army band. Many people lined the route and applauded occasionally as the coffin mounted on the gun carriage passed by.
Walking behind the family were the President and Mrs Abela, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Chief Justice and the Speaker. A couple of soldiers carried President Tabone’s decorations which were presented to Mrs Tabone in front of the War Monument in Floriana, where the first leg of the funeral terminated.
The cortège then proceeded to Gozo, where Dr Tabone’s body lay in state at the Banca Giuratale in Rabat for an hour to enable the locals to pay their last respects. The funeral proceedings ended at Xewkija cemetery where President Censu Tabone was laid to rest.
A True Gentleman and Family Man
Upon the annoucement of Dr Tabone’s passing away was made by his family last Wednesday, tributes started pouring in from several sources in Malta and overseas. The common thread of these tributes, regardless of their origin, was that Ċensu Tabone was “a true gentleman” and “a family man” who always remained down to earth.
As reported on timesofmalta.com, a neighbour of the Tabone family, Ms Silvia Schembri, who lived in Carmel Street all her life, remarked that Dr Tabone “had a big heart. All his neighbours loved him… He was a politician of a different era, there to serve the people. Not like today’s politicians, many of whom are there for their personal gain.” Another neighbour, Emmie Rapinet, said that “he was always smiling… He was a man of great faith and loved his family.”
Antoine Saliba, 80, who had lived in Australia for over 40 years, got to know Dr Tabone before he married Maria, his wife and soul mate for 70 years, when he used to go to St Julians to visit her. Last November Dr Tabone and his wife celebrated the 70th anniversary of their marriage, with their eight children, 19 grandchildren and 24 great grandchildren. Mr Saliba and remembered a time when Dr Tabone, then President, visited the Maltese community there. “It was so nice to see a childhood, familiar face. He was the President then but so happy to see us and we him. He didn’t change when he became President,” he said.
Ms Maria Muscat, 82, travelled from Mqabba to Valletta to bid farewell to a friend “who worked so hard for Malta”. With teary eyes, she said that “He was such a good man. I had to see him one last time.”
Warm Tributes
President George Abela expressed the country’s condolences in a phone call to Mrs Tabone, praising Dr Tabone for his values, his service to the country and the way he brought people together.
From London while on a two-day visit, Prime Minister Dr Lawrence Gonzi recalled in a statement how Dr Tabone as a person was always close to the people and always practised what he believed in. He praised him as a family man, a medical doctor and a politician. “He was always sensitive to the needs of those most in need,” he said. As Minister of Labour and Social Services in the 1960s, he had introduced new concepts to make it easier for people with a disability to find employment.
Dr Tabone had also strongly contributed to the two most important developments in the past 50 years – the country’s independence and its membership in the European Union. As Foreign Minister between 1987 and 1988, he worked tirelessly for Malta to acquire international credibility to be able to apply for EU membership. His personality in public life climaxed when he became President, attracting the people’s admiration.
Labour leader Dr Joseph Muscat also expressed condolences on behalf of his wife and the Labour Party and praised Dr Tabone for having served “with humanity and humility”.
Speaking in Parliament, which adjourned for a week last Wednesday as a sign of respect, Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Dr Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici said the House will have a longer commemoration ceremony following the funeral. He paid tribute to the late President who, he said, gave a lot to the people. President Tabone always had a clear mind and vision and was open to new ideas. He kept himself up to date with what was happening. Dr Tabone was a respected and loved politician who believed in the policy of persuasion. He was a family man and an exemplary President. He always acted properly, was affable, and never lost his temper. PL MP Joseph Sammut said the Opposition shared the government’s sentiments.
In comments to MaltaToday, former President, Prime Minister and PN leader Dr Eddie Fenech Adami paid tribute to Dr Tabone, describing him as a “political and social icon” and saying that the country has lost a true gentleman, who was truly dedicated to his country and family. “He was an icon in every sense, starting from his family values: He always put his family first, and then came his duty towards his country, the people and his patients,” Dr Fenech Adami said. What struck him most about Ċensu Tabone was his “undying mental and physical energy” in carrying out his duties.” Ċensu Tabone enjoyed worldwide respect,” and as Foreign Affairs Minister in the late 1980s he led the nation to rebuild its international image.
Dr Fenech Adami recalled the moment which impressed him most about Censu Tabone in 1978, when the two had travelled to China on an official visit. “I remember that we had visited a hospital, and I was surprised to see that the Chinese had known about Censu’s great contribution to cure trachoma in Taiwan, and the staff there had organised a reception for him in gratitude,” Dr Fenech Adami recalled.
International Stature
Dr Tabone’s international stature in the field of ophthalmology is now documented in a paper titled “An Ophthalmologist Afield: Vincent (Censu) Tabone, A President of Malta” just published in the latest edition of the American Medical Association’s Archives of Ophthalmology (Vol. 130 No. 3, March 2012) by Dr Robert M. Feibel.
The purpose of this paper documents the life and work of Vincent (Censu) Tabone who had a dual career both as an innovative and successful ophthalmologist and as a politician and statesman in his native Republic of Malta, his career culminating as the President of Malta. While most of the published and available sources on Tabone concentrate on his service in politics and government, the author concentrated on his work in ophthalmology and obtained unpublished material from his family about his career in ophthalmology.
Dr Feibel wrote that Dr Tabone may be unique in the history of ophthalmology. He practiced ophthalmology for 40 years in his homeland, the Republic of Malta. During that time, he became well known as a pioneer in the international effort to eradicate trachoma worldwide. At age 53, he began a long and successful political career as a member of parliament, then as a cabinet minister, and, finally, as the democratically elected president of the Republic. He was active in European diplomacy and made important contributions at the United Nations. He may be the only ophthalmologist who has made great contributions in the field of medicine and in the democratic development of his country.
A Life of Service
Dr Tabone was born in Victoria on 30 March 30 1913, the son of a Gozitan father and a Maltese mother from Cospicua. The youngest of 10 children, Dr Tabone left his Gozo home as an 11-year-old boy, moving to St Aloysius College as a boarder. From there, he would write his mother weekly letters in Italian.
As a University student, he contested the presidency of the student’s council, losing by a solitary vote to an ambitious young man called George Borg Olivier.
Having graduated as a doctor in 1937, he subsequently served as a surgeon captain during wartime. He narrowly escaped death in June 1940 when bombs hit either side of a room he was taking cover in, leaving six dead.
A devout and tranquil man, he met the love of his life, Maria, in the 1930s. The two were married by Gozo Bishop Michael Gonzi in a November morning ceremony held in 1941. Their 10-day Mġarr honeymoon was cut short due to word of a German invasion.
After the war, he was tasked with analysing and ultimately curing cases of eye-related diseases, especially trachoma, in his native island of Gozo. His findings, published in the prestigious British Medical Journal, catapulted him to international medical attention.
Having played a key role in defending doctors’ rights and establishing their first union in the 1950s, Dr Tabone first appeared on the ballot sheet in 1962. He was foiled by another Borg Olivier, Gaetano.
But his political career soon took off in earnest, first as the Nationalist Party’s general-secretary and, subsequently, as Industrial Relations Minister, deputy leader and then Foreign Affairs Minister in 1987.
Two years later, he was nominated Malta’s fourth President, a role he served with distinction until 1994. He later admitted that a three-year boycott by the opposition “was quite unjust and hurt a lot”, although the Labour’s subsequent proposal to extend his Presidential term healed some of the wounds.
He was the only minister to have served under both Dr George Borg Olivier (as minister of Labour) and under Eddie Fenech Adami, as foreign minister. He was the first Nationalist Party politician to become head of state.
Dr Tabone also served as General Secretary and then Deputy Leader of the PN but came third in the leadership election which saw Dr Fenech Adami appointed to head the party in 1977.
An ophthalmologist by profession, Dr Tabone won international acclaim for his research into trachoma. He was the first ophthalmic surgeon to be engaged by the World Health Organisation and worked in Taiwan, Indonesia and Iraq.
He started his medical career as a military doctor and was very nearly killed in the very first air raid of the war in 1940 when a bomb crashed on Fort St Elmo, where he was serving.
Dr Tabone had given evidence before Church officials in the case of the miraculous cure of Charles Zammit Endrich, one of his patients, who suffered a detached retina. That case eventually to the beatification (and later canonisation) of Dun Ġorġ Preca as the first Maltese saint.
Dr Tabone founded the Medical Officers’ Union, now the MAM and entered politics in the 1960s, contesting his first election in 1962 when he was nearly 50 years old. He was first elected in 1966.
As Minister of Labour he was in the forefront of the Borg Olivier government’s battles with GWU militancy, particularly in the dockyard while as foreign minister, he had the task of restoring Malta’s international standing after some of the most challenging years in its political history. His staff quickly came to know about his boundless energy – he quickly dozed off while travelling, and was alert and ready for work as soon as he landed.
Censu, as he was affectionately known by all, was appointed President in 1989 and amid the political divisions of the time, was boycotted by the Labour Party. But such was his character that he won the hearts and minds of all the people, to the extent that by the time his term ended, Labour had dropped its boycott, and actually asked if he could stay on.
As President, he welcomed Presidents Bush and Gorbachev for their historic superpower summit in Malta which effectively marked the end of the Cold War and also welcomed Pope John Paul II on his first visit to the island as well as Queen Elizabeth, with whom he dedicated the Siege Bell Memorial in Valletta on the fiftieth anniversary of the award of the George Cross.
Dr Tabone had a mania for being punctual and, not surprisingly, he was an avid collector and repairer of clocks. Dr Tabone also mastered the computer in his 80s as he was keen to surf the internet and to catch up on the latest medical advances.
[Sources: timesofmalta.com; MaltaToday.com.mt]
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{vsig_c}0|Tabone-Funeral00.jpg|PM Dr Lawrence Gonzi and Mrs Catherine Gonzi pay their last respects [Image: Reuters]|{/vsig_c}
{vsig_c}0|Tabone-Funeral0.jpg|President Emeritus Dr Eddie Fenech Adami expresses his condolences to Mrs Maria Tabone [Image: Reuters]|{/vsig_c}
{vsig_c}0|Tabone-Funeral1.jpg|A view of the casket at the foot of the altar at St John’s [Image: Reuters]|{/vsig_c}
{vsig_c}0|Tabone-Funeral2.jpg|PM Dr Lawrence Gonzi and President Dr George Abela at the funeral church service [Image: Reuters]|{/vsig_c}
{vsig_c}0|Tabone-Funeral21.jpg|An aerial view of the funeral procession inside St John’s [Image: Reuters]|{/vsig_c}
{vsig_c}0|Tabone-Funeral3.jpg|A policeman salutes as the Dr Tabone’s casket is driven by along the route [Image: Reuters]|{/vsig_c}
{vsig_c}0|Tabone-Funeral4.jpg|Dr Tabone’s casket draped in the Maltese flag [Image: Reuters]|{/vsig_c}
{vsig_c}0|Tabone-Funeral5.jpg|A view from the rear of the funeral procession [Image: pbs.com.mt]|{/vsig_c}
{vsig_c}0|Tabone-Funeral6.jpg|President Dr George Abela, Mrs Margaret Abela, Mrs Maria Tabone and one of her sons walk behind a soldier carrying a wreath [Image: pbs.com.mt]|{/vsig_c}
{vsig_c}0|Tabone-Funeral7.jpg|A view of the funeral procession passing by the Auberge de Castille [Image: Reuters]|{/vsig_c}
{vsig_c}0|Tabone-Funeral8.jpg|The six pall bearers prepare to transfer the casket to a waiting hearse near the War Memorial in Floriana [Image: pbs.com.mt]|{/vsig_c}
{vsig_c}0|the4presidents300.jpg|Four Maltese Presidents: from left Dr Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, Dr Eddie Fenech Adami, Dr Guido de Marco and Dr Ċensu Tabone[Image: timesofmalta.com]|{/vsig_c}
{vsig_c}0|xCensu_Tabone_inAustralia1992_500.jpg|President Dr Ċensu Tabone with Mr Clemente Zammit then Consul General of Malta for Victoria, and his wife Mary, during Dr Tabone’s official visit to Melbourne in 1992 [Image: Clemente Zammit]|{/vsig_c}
OFFICIAL PROFILE
Dr Ċensu Tabone – PRESIDENT OF MALTA (1989 – 1994)
Dr. Ċensu Tabone, M.D., D.O. (Oxon), D.O.M.S. (Lond), D.M.J., F.R.C.S. (Edin), F.I.C.S., K.U.O.M., LL.D. (Hon Causa); was born in Victoria, Gozo on 30th March 1913 and was educated at St. Aloysius College and the University of Malta where he graduated as a Pharmacist in 1933 and as a Doctor of Medicine in 1937. On the 23rd November 1943 he married Maria Wirth and has three sons and five daughters.
During World War II he joined the Royal Malta Artillery and served as a regimental Medical Officer, as a general duty officer and later as a trainee ophthalmic specialist at the Military Hospital, Mtarfa. In 1946 he proceeded to the United Kingdom for further training in ophthalmology and in the same year obtained a Diploma in Ophthalmology of the University of Oxford. Later he obtained a Diploma in Ophthalmic Medicine and Surgery of the Conjoint Board of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
He returned to Malta in 1947 and since then has been engaged in ophthalmic practice and has held senior posts in various hospitals. In 1945 he was entrusted with the anti-trachoma campaign in Gozo, with the result that in due course the disease was practically eliminated from the Island. This campaign was in many ways a pioneer project as were those of the World Health Organisation which he helped launch in many countries, notably in Taiwan, Indonesia and Iraq. He was elected Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1949. From 1956 he served as a member of the International Panel of Trachoma Experts of WHO and was a consultant with this Organisation for many years.
In 1954 he founded the Medical Officers Union, now the Medical Association (M.A.M.) and for many years was its president. In 1953 he obtained a Diploma in medical Jurisprudence of the Society of Apothecaries of London. Dr. Tabone has also been a member of the Council of the University of Malta, a member of the Faculty Board of Medicine from 1957 to 1960 and lecturer in Clinical Ophthalmology in the Department of Surgery.
Dr. Tabone has been active in politics since the early sixties and in 1961 became a member of the Nationalist Party’s (NP) Executive Committee. For ten years, from 1962 to 1972, he was Secretary General and from 1972 to 1977 the First Deputy Leader of the NP. In 1978 he was elected President of the Executive Committee. He held this post up to August 1985.
Dr. Tabone contested the General Elections for the first time in the interests of the NP in 1962. In 1966 he was elected a Member of Parliament and became Minister of Labour, Employment and Welfare. He was re-elected in 1971, 1976, 1981 and 1987 and the districts he represented included Msida, St.Julians, Sliema and Gzira. He represented the Nationalist Parliamentary Group in the Council of Europe since 1973 and was Party Spokesman on Foreign Affairs since 1978. He was a member of various Council of Europe Committees for several years and rapporteur of the Political Affairs Committee, of the Committee of Health and Social Affairs, and of the Committee for European non-member countries of which he has also been President. He was the Founder of the ‘Akkademja Ghall-Izvilupp ta’ l-Ambjent Demokratiku’ (AZAD) and was its President from 1976 to 1988.
After the elections of May 1987, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 1968, when he was then Minister of Labour, Employment and Welfare, he made a proposal at the United Nations in New York for the greater attention to the ageing population of the World, which in time led to the Vienna Action Plan on Ageing, and in 1988 the establishment of the U.N. Institute on Ageing in Malta. In September 1988 he made a proposal in the United Nations in New York that climate should be considered as a common heritage of mankind. Within three months this led to the drafting of a U.N. resolution of Climate Change to reduce man-made actions which are at the root of such a change.
On the 16th March, 1989, Dr. Tabone tendered his resignation as Minister of Foreign Affairs and member of the House of Representatives; and on the 4th April of the same year he was elected by Parliament as the fourth President of Malta.
Diplomas, qualifications, decorations, awards, etc.:-
Awarded testimonial by the Secretary General of the United Nations in recognition of his dedicated service in support of the United Nations programme on Aging.
- Degree of Doctor of Laws LL.D. (Hons Causa) by the University of Malta.
- Companion of Honour of the Order of Merit (K.U.O.M.)
- Special Grade of Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
- ‘Pro Merito’ Medal from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
- Awarded Presidential Gold Medal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
- Grand Collar of the Order of Makarios III.
- Cavaliere Di Gran Croce decorato con Gran Cordone al Merito.
- M.D. (Hons. Causa) by the Beijing Medical College, China.
