If there is a particular cause that touch my life deeply, it is the promotion of women's self-worth and dignity. Everything goes back to where I came from and how women in my family contibuted to a long-lasting involvement in the rights of women, as they are called these days. On my mother side, I have several aunts and an uncle. My aunts were teachers, but one of them became the first scholar to study in Manila. In those days, most universities in Manila were run by the Spanish religious orders and American missionaries. The day the United States decided to take the Philippines as a colony, education was made compulsory for all.
My grandmother on my mother side was a strong-willed woman. She wanted her children, especially her daughters to have an education. The only choice for women then was teaching. Other careers were open only to men, or to children of the rich who could send their children abroad for education. My mother would have been a teacher but she had a frail health. One aunt who was teaching in another town died young of pneumonia, while another teacher-aunt died from childbirth. So, only my Aunt Felicidad-the scholar, succeeded in the teaching profession. She was highly respected by all, students and parents as well. She mediated in family problems, gave counsel on children's future education, marriages and sent many of her nieces and nephews to school. She was childless, so I was her favorite and she treated me as her own daugther.
Of all the nieces and nephews that my aunt took under her care, it was me who gave back what she invested in love and expectation. No bragging! The elders who used to gather on Sundays at our house - for homemade chocolate and special bread called ensaimada, talked only about their children, how they were doing in school. My aunt was not one to be ignored in the arena of who's done best in school. There's where I came in, her source of pride. And because I was to maintain my honor position in school, I was not allowed the fun things that was part of being young. No going to schooldances, no neighborhood partying, and no excursions with friends to the sea.
My aunt was not only strict, but religiously strict. Sunday masses at eight in the morning with her, not at six in the evening to avoid "those boys walking you home", she said. No courtship visits on Sundays, especially by local boys "with wrong socks". Once, she allowed a boy from next town to come for an hour visit and saw his red socks. She was aghast and for one hour, she walked in and out of the living room with a sulk in her face. There were unavoidable school dances like the Junior and Senior Prom. On these occasions, she lavished on me. New gown, shoes and matching accessories. But she came along, in the company of her husband, a major in the army. In those days, dances got started late, like eleven in the evening. But at ten, my aunt would start warning me it was time to go home.
She was extremely protective, at times mean. But she meant well. There was no shortage of gemmicks she used to deter any blossoming romance. She bribed the postman to hand her my letters. She ask her student-teachers to spy on me in the college campus. She lectured on so and so, who studied in Manila and came home pregnant.
But one Manila-based suitor won her heart. He woed her, not me.
What I learned from a strong aunt as role model were many. Education for women was important because they should not be left at home to do household work, to wait until the right man comes along and get married, raise children and mind the family. I have seen some women relatives abused by their drunk husbands. In a patriarchal society, the sons and husbands of the family got away with many sins, including philandering and women abuse. My aunt had her own share of marital unhappiness. Her army major-husband never told her that he was a widower with four children. She found out later. I knew she didn't have a happy marriage but she endured her unhappiness for the sake of family honor and respect.
For me it was important that I had a role model as a young girl. My mother was second to the youngest, herself pampered as a girl. But my aunt was the strong voice of authority in the family. No one questioned her decisions andto this day, neither would I question her wisdom of setting a good example for growing up with a strong sense of purpose.
