Feedback to Honorable Mike Rama, Mayor of Cebu

MORE ON PARIAN DEVELOPMENTS
(Feedback to Honorable Mike Rama, Mayor of Cebu)
by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

I have been tempted to write a letter to the Mayor, Mike Rama, but I didn’t want to get entangled with the technicalities of how one should address the Mayor – should that be Honorable Mike Rama, or Mayor Mike Rama, or Mr. Mike Rama? Everyone calls him Mike Rama, and I’ve met him a couple of times, and he’s a very personable guy who’ll sing at the first request. So I decided to blog my feedback to him.

What I want to say to him is this: Thank you for your beautification program that’s going on in Historic Cebu. I live in Old Cebu and I see street cleaners cleaning twice a day – note that’s twice a day. Many of the roads have been re-asphalted. If I’m not mistaken, the river with the historic bridge with a plaque is being dredged. At least it looked that way. And here I note that while a heavy rain was going on, this river flowed, meaning the water is moving and not adding to the flooded streets.

Those of us involved in heritage work in Cebu have always known Mike Rama supported the development of Historic Cebu. Now that he’s mayor, he’s “walking his talk.”

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, or Honorable Mayor, or Mike!

Now I’d like to suggest a few things related to the cleanup beautification program:

1. How about putting out garbage cans so the public can stop throwing trash on the roads and sidewalk? I realize real cans may get stolen, but how about using those gigantic containers made of recycled tire rubber? I believe I saw something like this in the Metro Manila area.

2. How about having some clean public bathrooms, where people can pay a few pesos to use the facilities, and put some of our own people to work by minding those toilets. I saw this in Eastern Europe where they had public bathrooms minded by old women, who kept the bathrooms scrupulously clean, and one had to pay a bit to use the facilities.

3. To encourage building owners in the historic district to participate in this beautification program, how about the local government offer some tax breaks for those who paint their homes or fix up their places?

4. How about we educate some of these building owners in the historic district of Cebu that the days of warehouses and boarders are at a wane and that it’s time to look at improving their buildings with the idea that the area is historic and that tourists visit it?

5. How about the government implement laws against illegal unlicensed structures, hanging over or right next to or even over rivers and creeks? As you know, Mr. Mayor, for the first time, our Fuente Osmena has experienced flooding. Cebu needs clear channels for water to flow to the sea, otherwise the very people living on the banks of these rivers and creeks will be seriously jeopardized when there is flooding, as what happened recently in Davao. They should be relocated and the waterways dredged and cleaned. It is a necessity for the good of all. I’m also speaking about waterways that have been completely built over, in the Tinago area. I also understand some big department stores in the Colon area have built over waterways, using these as part of their properties. Flood water now simply does not have a channel to flow through and thus flows throughout the city. Disaster and tragedy wait ready to happen if these are unattended to. (I’m not even talking about aesthetics and the health hazards of having human waste dumped straight into our rivers.)

6. The irregular sidewalks will kill tourists; so the City should probably do something about these. Maybe I’m asking too much, but how about looking at a section and focusing on that, as they did in Vigan, where they developed just a few streets until the idea caught on? How about the part where tourists do a walking tour – let’s fix up the sidewalks there!


Mr. Mayor, Honorable Mayor, Mike, am I dreaming, or is it a real possibility that the historic district can be beautiful, and that Cebuanos can one day soon be genuinely proud to show off this place to the numerous tourists that come see it anyway?

How many tourists do we get during the sinulog – millions, am I right? And those tourists will spend money in Cebu, and hotels, restaurants, taxis, stores, everyone is going to benefit from the visitors.

Truly, from the bottom of heart, thank you for your beautification

Lola Remedios and Her Sayas, published Zee Lifestyle August-September 2009

LOLA REMEDIOS AND HER SAYAS
Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
Published in Zee Lifestyle, Aug-Sept 2009

When I was small I used to listen to my mother (Concepcion Cuenco Manguerra) talk about her lola or grandmother, and there was another lola she spoke of, only this one was referred to as “lola sa tuhod.” It took me a long while to figure out that she was talking about her grandmother and great grandmother. The great grandmother she referred to was Juana Lopez who originally came from Naic, Cavite and who did business in Cebu and Leyte. Year ago, when I was gathering genealogical information about my family, an aunt sent me a brief description of Juana Lopez as someone “who loved to dance. “

This surprised me because pictures of her show an oval-faced serious woman with hair severely swept back. In the photos, Juana wears a saya and a camisa, and the black and white photos increase the severity of her looks. She may have been more flirtatious than her pictures suggest because she married a second time, to a Veloso in Leyte. She had children with that second marriage, but I’m guessing that her first child, Remedios, gave her headaches as only firstborns are capable of doing. Consider this: Remedios married my great grandfather when she was only 13. Even though women married early in the olden days, I’m almost certain that Juana was shocked when her daughter announced she’d be quitting her schooling at the Inmaculada to marry the school teacher and poet, Mariano Albao Cuenco. It seemed the marriage was a good one; Remedios bore over a dozen children, although only four survived to adulthood.

Remedios was the grandmother my mother spoke of with great awe. In fact, I believe that Remedios had been her role model, especially when my mother became a young widow. Listen to what my granduncle Archbishop Jose Ma. Cuenco of Jaro, Iloilo said about Remedios as a widow: “My good mother was a woman of strong determination, ready to overcome all obstacles. Besides she was business-minded. With these qualities she was able to relieve our poor condition. Little by little, she bought land on which she built several houses. The high rents of these houses were a great source of income to us.”

Following Remedios’ footsteps, my mother, after my father died, bought properties, built houses on them, and rented them out. She sent all four of us children to college and to graduate schools abroad.

Remedios was widowed at 39, with three sons, a daughter, and the family of her second son staying in her house. She not only invested in real estate, she also ran her husband’s publishing business, Imprenta Rosario, making her the first woman publisher of Cebu. She continued raising her children in the intellectual and religious atmosphere that she and her husband had created. She must have been proud of her children’s accomplishments: the oldest son became an archbishop; the second son became a senator; the third son, a representative; and the daughter a writer.
What astonishes me, is that not only was she excellent at juggling the publishing business, real estate business, and her family, Remedios took meticulous care of her looks. All her pictures show a slender woman, dressed in elaborate and elegant saya, camisa and panuelo.

In a photo taken in 1895, she is wearing an elaborately embroidered panuelo, and a chic black ribbon with a cameo or pendant; she is wearing large earrings. Her hair is pulled back in a bun, and no doubt she had a peineta in her hair, as was the custom of the days.

A photo taken a few years later shows her wearing a printed long skirt and a light colored filmy camisa and panuelo with lace edges. She wears interesting jewelry – necklace, earrings, ring.

In a picture taken around 1909, after she was widowed, we see her wearing an attractive skirt with stripes and the camisa and panuelo pick up the lively pattern.
And in a photo taken when she is an old woman surrounded by her children and one grandson, she is finely dressed in a saya that is richly embroidered. She wears rings, a bracelet and a necklace.
The photos are in black and white but the clothes were no doubt richer in color – indigo blue, emerald green, deep red, glowing yellow perhaps.


In her book, Life in Old Parian, Concepcion G. Briones, has fine descriptions of Remedios from the 1920s:

“I still retain in my mind’s eye the picture of Doña Remedios Lopez Cuenco — the Cuenco matriarch hurrying to her front door to welcome Msgr. Giuguilmo Piani, the Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines, who, at that time, was to confer the Vicar-General title on her erudite son, Msgr. Jose Maria Cuenco, at the nearby Cathedral.
“Nyora Medyos wore a satin merino (navy-blue) saya, wide and bouffant, an elegant camisa, and a panuelo which was pinned on her bosom with a magnificent brooch of gold and pearls. Tucked inside the waist of her saya, on the left side, was the golden-chain or porta-abanico which, as the name implies, held her big silk fan. Jewelry? She had the most gorgeous ones, too. Old gold and pearls, rubies and diamonds worn at her throat, on her fingers or on her wrists…”

In another part of her book, Briones writes: “Nyora Medyos used to come very early, mornings, in sayas and kimono to the printing press — her long black curly hair falling down to her waist, freshly shampooed and fragrant with samuyao…”
This is an interesting and vivid description of Remedios with her flowing long hair. The sensual image belies the fact that she would be typesetting and working huge heavy presses that crashed and clanked — a man’s work, really. (My mother told me that the powerful machines shook their residence above.)

It should be understood that Remedios was an unusual woman — she was strong, intelligent, determined, driven, possessed with a devil-may-care attitude about what people thought of her hands smeared with ink from the printing press. She was the matriarch of a family that was demonstrating its leadership in politics as well as in the church, and she and her family displayed the trappings of importance: a home in fashionable Colon Street furnished with fine things; her sons studied abroad; and family members took the time to clothe themselves in fine silks, satins, piña, with embroidery and lace. Shoes matched. There were different sets of jewelry for daytime, nighttime, casual occasions, as well as rock-size diamonds for important events and for investment.

It was a different era then — a time of gentility, of gallantry, of romance, of elegance, a time when people sat on the azotea to catch the breeze, a time when neighbors dropped by for afternoon visits. We, who are used to our current-date city life, who rush about in our jeans and pants and T-shirts, no longer know this life.
Remedios did not remarry. She was an attractive, good-looking, dynamic woman, and there must have been men who were interested in her. But she devoted her life to her family and her businesses. Remedios died in 1945 at the age of 75.

Curiously, my own mother who was also fond of dancing and beautiful dresses never remarried either. She too devoted her life to her children and businesses. Even when she became old, my mother continued to dress elegantly, copying perhaps her role model, Remedios Lopez Cuenco. ~~~ end (copyright 2009 by Cecilia Brainard)
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Read also
Life in Parian Now
Cebu's 1730 Jesuit House 
The Secret Hall of Angels 
A Story of Hope
Finding Jose Rizal in Cebu
Lola Remedios and her Sayas
Lunch with F. Sionil Jose
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tags: Cebu, Sugbo, Philippines, travel, tourism, history, women, politics, Cuenco Family