Cebu, Philippines: Felicidad Climaco, Filipina Suffragette and Nationalist #womensrights

I blogged about the accomplished Cebuana, Ines Villa Gonzalez. Here is another suffragette from Cebu, Felicidad Climaco.

From the Heritage Cards, "Cebuana Trailblazers Sugboanang Tag-Una",  a 2008 Cebu Provincial Government's project. I quote:

Dona Felicidad Climaco, whom some considered "the Tandang Sora of the Revolution in Cebu," continued supporting the cause of nationalism during the American period.

Did Philippine Muslim Women Cover Their Heads in the 1900s?

Group of upper class Muslim women, Sulu, 1900-1910 (heads not covered)

My current novel-in-progress has Muslim women characters in the Philippines in the early 1900s. I am not sure how they would have dressed. In particular, did they cover their heads?

ARTICLE RE BEHIND THE WALLS, Edited by Brainard & Orosa

THE COLEGIALA EXPERIENCEby Maria Clarissa Estuar (The Philippine Star), Dec. 5, 2010

THIS WEEK’S WINNER
MANILA, Philippines - Maria Clarissa Estuar, 34, is a scriptwriter for ABS-CBN. She is part of the creative teams behind the primetime soap opera Kristine and a soon-to-be-launched teen drama. She has seven Palanca awards to her name.

In a couple of weeks, a wedding will bring my high school barkada together for the first time in 13 years. We were sophomores when we gravitated towards each other at the exclusive school for girls where we were enrolled. E-mails and Facebook helped keep the friendship alive even though half of our group has settled in North America, and the other half has remained in the Philippines. I’ve been feeling understandably sentimental, so when I chanced upon the book Behind the Walls: Life of Convent Girls, I got myself a copy and started skimming it.

Behind the Walls is a collection of essays from women who went to convent schools from before World War II to the 1990s. I immediately skipped to the essay by Eunice Noelle Lucero after figuring out that she went to the same school on Leon Guinto just a few years after my friends and I graduated from there. The soundtrack to my barkada’s high school experience was New Kids on the Block while hers was Pearl Jam, but I discovered that not much had changed during her time. Our ancient Filipino teacher still terrorized girls on a daily basis. The typing teacher still made her students wear brown paper bags on their heads during touch-typing exercises. She wielded a small triangle that she hit to signal the class to start pounding on their typewriters’ keys. To help keep the pace, she played music from a portable cassette recorder and stomped her foot to the beat. I suddenly remembered somebody telling me that once, the typing teacher’s heel got stuck in a hole on the teacher’s platform. Apparently, she timed her efforts to pull herself free to the beat of the music.

Reading that piece was a nice start because it brought me down memory lane, but I wondered if I would enjoy the essays written by women who went to other schools. As students, we held biases against girls from our rival schools and old prejudices die hard, I suppose, but I promised myself I’d keep an open mind as I plowed through the other essays.

I was amused by what appeared to be a universal difficulty in following our schools’ dress codes. Several essayists mentioned how they waged battles on skirt lengths, the resentment they felt for being forbidden to wear colored (and not just neutral) hair accessories, and how they managed to experiment with makeup even though the nuns who ran their schools frowned upon the use of mere pressed powder. Our own blue and white uniforms caused us a fair amount of grief whenever our teachers caught us walking around with one jumper strap artfully dangling off one shoulder or when we were basically using our skirts as mops whenever we sat down on the floor and slid to our friends to gossip with them.

As Holy Ghost alumna Milagros Delgado Enage pointed out, colegialas have always been expected to live out the virtues of order, simplicity and modesty, but honestly, the indoctrination process wasn’t exactly painless.

For the record, I did not go to school with a bunch of well-behaved girls. For the most part, we behaved like high-spirited teens who refused to be caged in. “Boisterious” was how fellow Scholastican Neni Sta. Romana-Cruz described us.

Through the years, colegialas have tried to stretch the boundaries in different ways. Rosemarie Montañano related that back in the 1960s, she was on her way back to school with her fellow internas when they made an unplanned detour to pick guavas by the roadside even though they knew they’d be severely reprimanded. Maria Concepcion Abeleda-Beltran confessed to procuring a contraband copy of Lady Chatterly’s Lover, only to be disappointed by how badly written it was.

In a way, the good nuns who ran these schools contributed to the cultivation of this daring side of many colegialas. In keeping with their goal to provide a well-rounded education to their girls, many of these institutions had outreach programs that required students to go to depressed areas to teach catechism, distribute food and clothing, and be exposed to certain social realities for the first time in their lives.

Karina Africa Bolaso pointed out how ironic this was, for she was sent to a “harmless convent school” because her parents believed no harm could come to her there because it was a place where “fine, well-bred young gentlemen went to look for their future wives.” Little did her parents know that within a year, their precious daughter would be joining protest rallies and going to evacuation centers with the blessings of her school’s administration.

Many colegialas do look back and remember how their schools gave them the chance to get out of their gated communities sans parents and amahs for the first time in their lives, forcing them to be a little more independent. Bettina Rodriguez Olmedo asserted though that in her own experience, these outreach activities “were not sufficiently involving to be capable of bursting life’s lovely bubble for the average Theresian who was usually equipped with a pair of ‘blinders’… For her, life’s problems were magnified a hundredfold. Papa’s refusal to raise her allowance was a disaster. Having to wear the same dress at another party attended by the same circle of friends was a catastrophe. Failing to catch the eye of a heartthrob was a major tragedy.”

Lolita Delgado Fansler seemed to support this view, for she wrote, “Ours was a sheltered childhood. Separated or divorced parents didn’t inhabit our tiny world because parents never gossiped about troubled marriages in front of us. Going to non-Catholic schools in the United States — or even the University of the Philippines — for college was not something colegialas were supposed to do, lest we become atheists, communists, rebels, or fallen women.”

For the most part, my own colegiala experience was peppered with trivial concerns. At times, my barkada’s discussions revolved around the stone tables, and how they became our school’s most prestigious tambayan even though it meant eating lunch on top of bathroom tiles and constantly worrying about the very real threat of higad falling from the tree that provided shade to those tables.

Other times, we tried balancing chemical equations while I nagged my friends into helping me decide if I should risk asking my crush who had spiked hair to go to the prom with me, or if I should just settle for my best friend’s cousin. I think being in the school pergola with a panicky friend when the big earthquake struck in mid-1990 was the most traumatic event in my stint as a Kulasa.

A Theresian and a Maryknoller contributed essays to the book, which spoke about a particular aspect of colegiala life that doesn’t come up often. Despite the high tuition fees, some middle class girls do manage to enroll in these schools, and I was one of them. Even though we got to wear the same uniform and learned the same lessons, we didn’t experience convent school life in the same, exact way as our more affluent peers.

Alma Clutario-Patist related how a swimming party turned sour when her friend’s mother came home to find her there: “Casually, she asked me a few questions — what’s your name, where do you live? From her look of disinterest, I knew that that would be the last time I would be swimming in their pool. My family background did not come up to her family’s standards.”

In her own essay, Sonia Carreon admitted to being subjected to “verbal bullying” from one of her classmates. She wrote, “I never pretended to be rich nor even acted rich, but I guess my effort at trying to blend in was not working. Someone actually did not like me because I was poor and from the province. What had I done to make this girl hate me?”

Luckily, I didn’t go through anything as dramatic. It helped that I was surrounded by friends who also had parents who worked hard and pinched centavos just to pay our tuition. It made things a little easier, but I still remember feeling bad — no, ashamed — because I couldn’t afford those Marks and Spencers crocheted socks that almost everybody else was wearing. Actually, I probably could have extorted enough money from my parents to buy one pair, but it didn’t feel right to indulge myself when they sacrificed so much just so that I could continue studying in that rich girls’ school.

Years after this, I got my first paycheck and was tempted to use part of it to buy myself a pair of those socks even though I had no idea where I’d wear them because my days of wearing shiny Mary Janes were long gone. I was able to fend off the impulse though because by then, I had learned that it is possible not to define one’s self through designer labels. I’d like to think that because of this, I’ve made our school’s Benedictine nuns proud.

The preface of Behind the Walls posed this question: “Is being a colegiala today of as great significance as it was then?” Almost all of the essayists in this book asserted that they developed a taste for higher learning that probably wouldn’t have germinated in another environment. We learned to push ourselves, we became comfortable competing with others, partly because we didn’t have to worry about male peers watching us and thinking, “That’s not ladylike behavior at all.” Without realizing it, being driven to succeed was seared into our system little by little.

But most of all, the essayists and I appreciate our colegiala experience because this was when we established lifelong friendships. I met Pia, Hannah and Joy when we were silly school girls who spent an inordinate amount of time teasing our bangs into a tsunami shape while trying to breathe under a cloud of Aqua Net. We drank from one Coleman during breaks and suffered through trigonometry, arnis and carpentry classes together.

Our lives now are infinitely more complex, but I have a feeling when we see each other again, it would be as if we hadn’t been apart. It would be just like old times.
~~~~

BEHIND THE WALLS: LIFE OF CONVENT GIRLS
Edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard & Marily Y. Orosa
Anvil Publishing, softcover, 222 pages
(www.anvilpublishing.com)
email: anvilpublishing@yahoo.com

Pictures of my Women Ancestors ... and Me

Here are some of my women ancestors: GREAT-GREAT-GRANDMOTHER - Juana Diosomito Lopez from Naic, Cavite; born circa 1850, businesswoman; married a second time to a Veloso from Leyte; children were Remedios, Concepcion, Feodor and Domingo Veloso; an aunt said she "loved to dance." I have a legal document that says that in 1896, "Dona Juana Lopez Diosomito of Baybay, Leyte, purchased (for 3,000 pesos, pacto de retro) two houses in Cebu City, one in mamposteria and solar on calle de Prim, facing the Plaza de General Lono, and the other of calle de Prim, in the barrio of Maloco, from Don Prudencio Sanson Camara, negociante, married, natural and vecino of Cebu City (Cebu Protocolos, Doc 11, 1/27/1896/1411:74-77) GREAT-GRANDMOTHER - Remedios Diosomito Lopez Cuenco; born 1870; married Mariano Albao Cuenco when she was 13; bore him over a dozen children although only 4 survived to adulthood (Dolores and Jaime died young); widowed at 39; took over her husband's Imprenta Rosario making her the first woman publisher of Cebu; also invested in real estate; mother of: Archbishop Jose Maria Cuenco of Jaro, Iloilo, Senator Mariano Jesus Cuenco, Representative Miguel Cuenco, and writer Remedios Cuenco Borromeo; died in 1945 at the age of 75. GRANDMOTHER - Filomena Alesna Cuenco from Carcar; born May 1, 1882, parents: Evaristo Barcenilla Alesna and Cresencia Ynosencia Sanchez Villarosa; parents died when she was young and she and her 2 sisters were raised by 2 old maid aunts(; her older sister Placida married Mateo Noel; her younger sister Josefa married Isabelo Montesclaros; Filomena married Mariano Jesus Cuenco; they had 8 children (6 survived to adulthood: Manuel, Lourdes, Concepcion, Carmen, Consuelo, Teresita; the 2 who died were Maria and Corazon); had a stroke and died during wartime (WWII). MOTHER - Concepcion Cuenco Manguerra; born Feb.18, 1912; Carnival Petit Queen of Cebu in 1931; married Engr. Mariano Flores Manguerra from Sta. Rosa, Laguna; mother of 5 children (4 survived to adulthood: Victoria, Mariano, Ana Maria, and Cecilia Catalina; a boy was born prematurely and died during WWII); a business woman, she also invested in real estate; died in November 7, 2002 at the age of 90. She has a memorial website at www.palhbooks.com/iton.html. AND ME - please visit my official website for more information, http://www.ceciliabrainard.com

Cebuana Trailblazers "Sugboanang Tag-una"

I've been in touch with Professor Linda Alburo, Director of the Cebuano Studies Center in the University of San Carlos. While I was in Cebu last month, the University of San Carlos arranged to have me interviewed and videotaped for a book project. I also learned that the Cebu Provincial Government through the Provincial Women's Commission included me in their Cebuana Trailblazers (Sugnoanang Tag-Una). The 60 chosen women are featured in Heritage Cards, available from the Cebuano Studies Center in Cebu. The women include educators, politicians, scientists, sports stars, international artists, activists, and others, but I feel particularly honored to be in the company of two Cebuano writers, Concepcion Briones and my mentor Lina Espina Moore.

Quote in the back of Heritage cards follows:
"As a leading arbiter of culture and development... the Cebu Provincial Government, through the Provincial Women's Commission, honors these women who have made their indelible mark in their respective fields of endeavor...
This compendium hopes to regain the women's rightful place in Cebu's Heritage to inspire present and future Cebuanos."

Thanks to the Search Committee for honoring me - Linda Alburo, Dolores Alino, Matrilena dela Cerna, Sofia Logarta, Fe Reyes, Marietta de Egurrola, Liza D. Corro, Miraflore Diongzon, and Lorry D. Fernandez.

IMAGES OF THE FILIPINA IN LITERATURE

By the time I was a teenager, the Philippines had been a colony of Spain and the United States for a combined time of some four centuries. The dominating concept of beauty was Western; “white” was beautiful, “brown” ugly. When Gemma Cruz came around and won the Miss Universe contest of 1967, she changed the idea of beauty in the Philippines. Before her, all other Filipina beauty queens sent to international contests were mestizas, very European-looking. Her victory marked the decline of the colonial idea that fair was beautiful, and dark evil. Even Disney images showed blonde Snow Whites and Cinderellas, and dark-haired wicked stepmothers and witches.

Unknown to many, there were several foreign visitors to the Philippines who wrote about the beauty of the Filipina. I’ve put together here some excerpts of those writings.

As early as 1521, Antonio Pigafetta, Italian chronicler of Magellan’s voyage around the world, made some interesting observations about the women of Cebu. He wrote: “The prince led them (Spaniards) to his house, where he had four very beautiful girls, and almost white like ours, and he had them dance to metal cymbals, with them all naked, and he gave them refreshments, then they returned to the ship.”

Of the queen, Pigafetta reported, “The queen was very young and beautiful, covered with a white cloth, her mouth very red, a hat on her head with a crown on top of it like that of the Pope. And the hat and crown were made of palm leaves, and she goes nowhere without this crown.”
“One day,” he said, “the queen came with great pomp to hear mass, three young girls went before her with three of her men, hats in hand. She was dressed in black and white with a large gold-bordered silk veil on her head, which covered her shoulders. And on top of it she wore her hat. And many women followed her, who were barefoot and naked, except around the shameful parts, and a small kerchief around their heads, their hair loose.”
*
Antonio de Morga, a Spanish official in Manila from 1595 to 1603, wrote the history of the Philippines during the sixteenth century (Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas). He has interesting descriptions about the inhabitants of Luzon:
“They are of average height, are the colour of cooked quinces, and both men and women have fine features. Their hair is very black...they are very clever at anything to which they put their hands, they are sharp, hot-spirited, and determined.”

Even though he was not appreciative of the native custom of blackening their teeth, De Morga continued his respectful description:
“The women in the whole of this island wear jackets, with sleeves of the same stuffs, and of different colours: these they call varos (baros), they do not wear a chemise but have a white cotton wrap around the wasit, falling down to the feet. They also wear other coloured garments around the body, like mantles, which are very graceful. The principal women wear crimson ones, some made of silk, and other of cloths woven with gold, trimmed with fringes and other ornaments. They wear many gold necklaces, and have bracelets on their wrists and wear huge wrought-gold ear-rings, besides rings of gold with stones upon their fingers. Their hair, which is black, is gracefully tied up in a bowknot at the back of the head... The chieftains wear braids of beaten gold of varied design and many of them wear shoes, and their womenfolk also have dainty footwear, many using gold-trimmed velvet shoes, and white petticoats.
“Both men and women, especially the chief people, are very clean and tidy about their person and garments, and of goodly and graceful carriage. They are very particular about their hair and take a pride in having it very black; they wash it with the boiled bark of a tree called gogo and anoint it with oil of sesame mixed with musk and other perfumes.”

The Frenchman, Guillame Joseph Hyacinthe Jean Baptiste Le Gentil de las Galasiere, published in 1769 A Voyage to the Indian Seas, a record made shortly after the British troops pulled out of Manila. Le Gentil preferred native and mestiza women to the Spanish women in Manila whom he dismissed as deformed.

“For my part,” he said of the Filipino, “their color seems to me even more strange, and I find it difficult to compare it with anything. To me, it seems to approach more closely a light dead leaf color. The color of the women is lighter. They have beautiful black hair, of which they take great care, washing it with perfumed oil. They say that they do this to keep if free from dandruff, which, without the oil, would be quite considerable; but it is possible that a little vanity enters into this. However, the fact is that I have never seen among any other people with such beautiful hair as that of the native women of Manila. They wear it very long. It is by no means unusual to see women with very thick hair, so long that it touches the ground when they stand upright. They take pride in having long hair, and it would be impossible to inflict upon them a greater misfortune than cut it off. They do not use any ribbons or bands to die up their long hair. The men as well as the women braid their hair and tie it in a knot on top of the head. They have beautiful eyes, well shaped and black. Some of them have gray eyes...”

“They wear a kerchief, with a red border, around the neck. These kerchiefs are a great luxury in Manila...Wealthy women wear one over the hair, another around the neck, and carry another in the hand...
“The women’s chemises do not come down as far as the men’s shirts, and they are also worn very loose. They are made open at the throat and very low cut, so that they barely cover half of the breast. They are not made with cuffs like the men’s shirts, and are not fastened with buttons.
“For the rest of the body the women use a length of cloth which they wrap around themselves, tucking one of the ends in at the waist. This covering is called a tapis. The tapis is worn by all the native women of this archipelago. It is ordinarily made of silk and only comes down to the middle of the calf of the leg.
“...One sees women who have skirts of Indian cloth, made with tucks almost like those of our women, but they never go out without putting a tapis over the skirt. The foundation color of the tapis is chestnut brown, sometimes solid, sometimes with thin red stripes, and sometimes traversed by large red bands, occasionally embroidered. Over all this the women wear a sort of cape made in the Spanish style, with which they cover the whole body from head to foot. Around their necks, on their breasts, on their wrists and on their fingers they wear gold jewelry. A woman must be poor indeed not to have any. When they go out they wear very clean slippers embroidered with gold or silver. I do not understand how they can keep them on, for these slippers are as narrow and short as can be. They are in fact made in such a way that only the four big toes can be put inside, the little tow being left outside; and they are so short that these women have more than half of the heel projecting beyond the slipper. They wear a very large pin of gold or silver, very cleverly worked, which they use as an ornament for the coil they make of their hair.”

He contradicted a Franciscan friar’s statement that the native women wore modest clothes. “For my part, I take the liberty of not being entirely of this opinion. These garments are perhaps the most immodest which one could imagine...In order to get an idea of this clothing, outside the church, one must imagine a very pretty mestiza girl with a fine figure (as almost all of them have), whose beautiful black hair is piled up in a coil on her head, and the coil fastened with a gold pin. She wears a magnificent kerchief, embroidered and fastened so that it stands upright and goes around the head in such a way as to leave almost all the hair visible. The chemise, over which they put nothing, is loose fitting and made of a fabric so fine that it conceals nothing. Furthermore, this chemise is cut so low - that is to say, so open at the top - that it leaves uncovered the upper part of the shoulders and half of the breast. It is true that almost all these women wear an embroidered kerchief over the chemise; but this kerchief, to my mind, is nothing but a refinement of coquetery - indeed, it is not fastened in front, as our women wear it; the two sides and two bands hang carelessly under the arms.

“The skirt comes under the chemise and does not prevent it from floating loosely. A clean tapis is put over this skirt; but as it does not come more than half way down the leg, it exposes all the lower part of the skirt; and the tapis is wrapped so closely that from behind one can see the shape of the body. Add to this the tiny slippers the native women wear and which, with the tight-fitting tapis, perhaps require them to adopt their peculiar style of walking, and you will get an idea of the modest garments of the native women of the Philippines!”
*
Another Frenchman, Paul P. De La Gironiere, who lived in the Philippines from 1820 to 1840, wrote Twenty Years in the Philippines, in which he described his adventures in the archipelago and the estate he created, Jalajala. He too admired the women of the Philippines:
“In the evening, Spaniards, English, and French, go to the promenades to ogle the beautiful and facile half-breed women, whose transparent robes reveal their splendid figures. That which distinguishes the females half-breeds (Spanish-Tagalogs, or Chinese-Tagalogs) is a singularly intelligent and expressive physiognomy. Their hair, drawn back from the face, and sustained by long golden pins, is of marvellous luxuriance. They wear upon the head a kerchief, transparent like a veil, made of the pina fibre, finer than our finest cambric; the neck is ornamented by a string of large beads fastened by a gold medallion. A transparent chemisette, of the same stuff as the headdress, descends as far as the waist, covering, but not concealing, a bosom that has never been imprisoned in stays. Below, and two or three inches from the edge of the chemisette, is attached a variously coloured petticoat of very bright hues. Over this garment, a large and costly silk sash closely encircles the figure, and shows its outline from the waist to the knee. The small and white feet, always naked, are thrust into embroidered slippers, which cover but the extremities. Nothing can be more charming, coquettish, and fascinating, than this costume, which excites in the highest degree the admiration of strangers. The half-breed and Chinese-Tagalogs know so well the effect it produces on the Europeans, that nothing would induce them to alter it.”
*
Robert MacMicking, a Scot who lived in Manila and wrote Recollections of Manila and the Philippines (during 1848, 1849, and 1850) had his own opinion:
“A number of the women are very beautiful, for although their skin is dusky, the ruddiness of their blood shows through it on the cheek, producing a very beautiful colour, and their dark, lustrous eyes in general lit up with intelligence and vivacity of expression, than those of any Indians I have seen elsewhere.
“A very pleasant trait, to my taste, is the nearly universal frankness and candid look that nature has stamped upon their features which, when accompanied by the softness of manner common to all Asiatics, is particularly gratifying in the fairer part of creation.
“Their figures are well shaped, being perfectly straight and graceful, and nearly all of them have the small foot and hand, which may be regarded as a symbol of unmixed blood when very small and well shaped, as although the mestizas gain from their European progenitor a great fairness of skin, they generally retain the marks of it in their larger bones, and their hands and feet are seldom so well shaped as those of the pure-bred Indian, even though the Spaniards are noted for possessing these points in equal of greater perfection than the people of other European countries.

He too made note of their hair, “as one of the most remarkable beauties in the native and mestiza women, being very much longer and of a finer gloss, than that of any Europeans.”
*
The reader should not be misled into thinking that all foreigners’ accounts recorded Filipinas as beautiful because there were critical ones, curiously by Americans who visited the Philippines at the turn-of-the century. But for now let us glory in these early reports of admiration for our Filipino women
________
SOURCES
Recollections of Manila and the Philippines, by Robert MacMicking, originally published in 1851 by Richard Bentley of London; reprinted by the Filipiniana Book Guild, Manila, 1967;
A Voyage to the Indian Seas, by Guillaume Joseph Hyacinthe Jean Baptiste Le Gentil de la Galasiere, originally published in France in 1779-81 under the title Voyage dans les Mers de l’Inde; reprinted by the Filipiniana Book Guild, Manila, 1964;
Twenty Year in the Philippines, by Paul P. de la Gironiere, English translation published by Harper & Bros., New York, 1854; reprinted by the Filipiniana Book Guild, Manila, 1962;
The Voyage of Magellan, by Antonio Pigafetta, originally published in 1525; this edition translated by Paula Spurlin Paige, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1969;
Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, by Antonio de Morga, originally published in 1609, Mexico; this edition translated and edited by J. S. Cummins, Hakluyt Society, London, 1971
(Article was written in 1998)

DEATH OF A CARNIVAL QUEEN: 1912-2002

(Concepcion Cuenco Manguerra collapsed on November 7, 2002, and was on life support until her heart gave way on December 1, 2002, in Makati, Manila)*

BY the time I was aware of things, my mother, Concepcion Cuenco Manguerra, had shed her Carnival-Queen ways, mostly because of circumstances – marriage, children, World War II, and my father’s death – one could not be frivolous under those conditions. But at nineteen, she had been a beauty queen – Cebu’s Carnival Petit Queen of 1931 - a title that conjures glamour, power, and the romantic notion of a bygone era.

In our ancestral house in Cebu, the picture of her as Carnival Queen sat on top of our piano. It was encased in an elaborate antique brass frame, and although the picture had faded so the colors were dominated by sepia and brown, I could still discern my mother’s face – round, youthful, with a fresh smile, with some coyness in her expression. She looked alien to me. By the time I paid attention to this picture, my father had died and my mother had surrendered the persona of “Beauty Queen” for “Widow.” For the rest of her life, she referred to herself as the “pobreng viuda” – the poor widow - words that sometimes evoked mirthful giggles from her four children who knew her well. We knew that despite her martyr-expression and sighs, she was quite a tough women and entrepreneur.

My mother was born February 18, 1912, in Cebu and she grew up in the Parian District. She told me stories, especially in her later years, and she used to say that the family home in Colon Street was chaotic and noisy. The men were always arguing; and the printing press shook the entire house. The men she referred to were: Mariano Jesus (her father who later became Senate President), Jose Maria (her uncle who later became Archbishop of Jaro), and Miguel (who became a Reprentative). And the printing press was the Imprenta Rosario, started by my great-grandfather Mariano Albao Cuenco and later managed by his young wife Remedios upon his death.

Aside from having a passion for the written word, my mother’s family also had political aspirations. Right around the time of my mother’s birth, my grandfather (Mariano Jesus Cuenco) embarked on a political career, first as an assemblyman, then governor, senator, cabinet member, and at the highest point of his career senate president.

My grandfather was governor of Cebu when my mother became Carnival Queen in 1931. The karnabal, or carnival, which had its roots during the American rule in the Philippines, started as a series of trade fairs, and part of the festival activities included selecting a queen and her court, a tradition that captured the imagination of the public and which quickly dominated the annual trade fairs. Cebu, like Manila, had its own carnivals. Cebu hired the company of Churchill and Tait, which provided a circus, animal shows, and thrill rides. Festivities went on for fifteen days, during which time the candidates for queen participated in various public events. Coronation night was the culminating point of the entire carnival.

I have no doubt that being a Carnival Queen was one of the happiest moments of my mother’s life. Surprisingly she didn’t talk much about it. She was too busy being a wife and mother, and after my father died, was overwhelmed at being responsible for four children. The only reminder in our household that she had been Carnival Queen was that solitary picture on the piano. I learned about her “beauty queen status” from other people who even in the 1960s still marveled over her coronation. They talked about my mother’s fabulous gowns, in particular a mermaid outfit decorated with large coins, and made by a Spanish couturier. There too was Mama’s handsome coronation consort; and people always clucked over their thwarted romance. People regretted that most pictures of my mother as Carnival Queen had been destroyed during the war.

It was not until I was a grown woman that my mother talked to me about those carnival days. Sometimes, she mentioned her handsome consort. Apparently he kept a huge picture of himself and my mother hanging in his living room until his daughter took the picture down. “I saw him at the dentist, and he begged me for a copy of that picture,” my mother related. “I told him, ‘Don’t be silly, that was so long ago.’” But in her face I saw a glimmer of that nineteen-year-old, and I could imagine again her headiness at being young, the beautiful daughter of the governor, and being Carnival Queen.

In her ninety years of life, my mother did many things and accomplished much. She became a real estate tycoon; she loved her children and grandchildren; she loved to travel; she loved home-cooked Cebuano meals; she liked movies (“Pretty Woman” was a favorite); and she had many friends from all walks of life.

When she was no longer young, my mother enjoyed being the queen of various service groups, and we have numerous pictures of her wearing ternos and with a crown on her head. Music and dancing was something of a passion. Before dance instructors became fashionable, she already had dance instructors. Even when she was deep in her eighties, she moved and twirled so gracefully. No matter how chaotic her life was, there was always some serenity in her when she was on the dance floor.

Reflecting on it, perhaps while dancing my mother imagined herself as the nineteen-year-old Carnival Queen once again, when things seemed perfect, when Life had not yet touched her. For indeed Life had much to offer my mother, with its ups and downs, and pains and joys, but while she was Carnival Queen, even for just a short while, Life was good.

Go in peace and rest now, dearest Mother!

(This article by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard appeared in Sunstar Weekend, Cebu, December 15, 2002 and Filipinas Magazine, USA, April 2003. Above pictures show Concepcion Cuenco as Cebu's Carnival Petit Queen of 1931)

~~~

These site have information about Philippine Carnival Queens, updated by Cecilia Brainard in 2022. 

Cebu Carnival Queens Philippines from 1914-1941 including Concepcion Cuenco Manguerra - https://cbrainard.blogspot.com/2022/01/cebu-carnival-queens-philippines-from.html

Cebu Carnival Queens and Other Queens, Philippines - Part 2 - https://cbrainard.blogspot.com/2022/01/cebu-carnival-and-other-queens.html

tags: Cebu, Philippines, history, travel, Cecilia Brainard, Concepcion Cuenco Manguerra, Cuenco Family

 

DIASPORA IN ITALY ~ ONE FILIPINA'S STORY

DURING a visit to Rome I was surprised at the large number of Filipinos in St. Peter’s Basilica. In churches, metros, there were Filipinos; and at night, clusters of Filipinas sat around the Piazza di Navona, chattering away in Tagalog.

Art specialist John Silva, whom we ran into in Rome, also shared his story about being in a bus full of Filipinas on their way to work as domestics in an expensive area of Rome. We wondered where these Filipinos came from in the Philippines, why they migrated to Italy, and how they were adjusting there.

As my husband and I continued our journey through Italy, I observed these Filipinos at a distance. In a park in Florence around 30 Filipinos gathered for a picnic. They were in their thirties. Some men clustered around a table, gambling. I saw some infants and young children. Only one woman among them smiled a greeting at me; the rest ignored me. And so I simply smiled at the woman and did not talk to them. My curiosity about them was left to grow.

In Stressa however, I had the chance to talk to a Filipina. While waiting for a train for Milan, a Filipina approached me and introduced herself. Her name was Yolanda, she said, and she took care of a wealthy Italian woman with cancer. It was Friday, and Yolanda was off for the weekend; she was on her way to Milan to join some relatives and friends.

Petite and wiry, Yolanda looked ten years younger than her 53 years. She was adamant about guiding us from Stressa to Milan, stamping our train tickets for us, and telling us where to sit, and when to get off. She was starting to annoy my husband, but I saw an opportunity to interview a Filipina in Italy. She didn’t mind my questions at all; in fact she thoroughly enjoyed telling me her story.

When she was 33 years old, in Manila, her husband who was 31 died of a heart attack. She tried supporting her four children by selling bananas and other small business ventures. She was so desperate that she considered becoming a singer/performer in Japan – a Japayuki. Her mother and other relatives discouraged her from doing so. An agent suggested that Yolanda work as a domestic in Saudi Arabia. She left Manila for Saudi on December 23. She said she was still nursing her youngest child, and her breasts were full of milk. She wept all the way to Saudi. Her employers met her at the airport and brought her to their house. Her job was to take care of their children. Yolanda said, on Christmas day, she continued to cry, but even then, she added, my hands were full of grapes.

Her employers were kind and even sent her on holidays to the Philippines. She was in Manila when the Persian Gulf War broke out, and she decided not to return to Saudi. The pay was not that good anyway, Yolanda added.

She still had to figure out how to support her children who were being raised by her mother. An agent suggested going to Italy. Apparently the agency could falsify an Italian visa. She was drilled well. She had to know what the airports looked like, where to go, what to do. She had to dress well, to pass for a tourist.

In France, the French immigration officials questioned and delayed her. They finally released her when she insisted they had no right to question her since her final destination was Geneva, Switzerland.

By the time the French released, Yolanda missed her flight to Geneva and had to take the plane to Zurich. She was terrified, she said because the agent’s contact was meeting her in Geneva.

In Zurich, she didn’t know what to do. She approached a teenage boy whose mother was Japanese and whose father was Caucasian, figuring he spoke English. She asked him to call a telephone number for her, which the boy did. After, the boy said, “You look hungry, come eat with us.”

She continued her journey in this way, asking for help from Filipinos or people who spoke English. Finally after a long and frightening journey, she made it to Italy. She reported that her journey was not as bad as others who had to go to Germany (I think she meant Austria) and swim across a river. There was a group of Filipinos, she related, who swam the river, but one had a heart attack, and they had to leave her.

Yolanda considered herself lucky because ten months after her arrival, the Italian government offered amnesty, so now her papers are legal. Her children in Manila have all gone to school. The youngest, she reported is in art school – a useless major, commented Yolanda. And her life seems full in Italy. Aside from taking care of her employer, she has sideline work – selling insurance, and swatch watches, and so on.

In Milan, Yolanda wanted to take us to the Duomo. I understood that she was repaying the kindness that others had given her during her journey to Italy.

We’ll be all right, I said. And so at the train station in Milan, we said goodbye. We headed for the Duomo while she vanished into the mass of people at the station.

I have a scrap of paper with Yolanda’s name and cell phone number; but she and I knew we will never see each other again.

(Picture above shows: Cecilia and Lauren Brainard with John Silva in Rome)

All for now,
Cecilia Brainard

tags: travel, tourism, Italy, Rome, St. Peter's Basilica, Filipina maids, Europe, Cecilia Brainard