Copyright Quisumbing Family 2008. All rights reserved.
The Manila and Quezon City Years
Mom was offered several posts in Manila which would advance her career in education. She decided to take this opportunity for our youngest sibling, Agnes, to study in Manila. By 1977, Pop Mom and Agnes had already left the Beverly Hills home in Cebu City for Manila. The house was later sold to a prominent family of Mandaue City. For Pop and Mom, it was painful and nostalgic to leave Cebu City, having lived there for more than thirty years of their married life. For Mom in particular, it was sad leaving St. Theresa’s College and the University of San Carlos.
Mom had accepted de la Salle University’s offer to be the first woman Dean of the Graduate School of Education. In the following year, she assumed the presidency of Maryknoll College (now Miriam College) after having refused the same position in 1975. Pop, Mom, and Agnes were then housed in St. Joseph’s Villa, a former residence for students and which served as the President’s home before they were able to build their own residence. I recall talking with Pop in the corridor of this temporary residence on his way to the library where Pop spent some time to read daily newspapers and borrow books.
Pop was a great lover of books, reading books on all subjects, including popular pocket books of detective and suspense stories. (He also loved watching Bewitched and the Avengers on television). With such knowledge acquired from reading, he could converse on various topics for several hours. According to Mom, he would visit some of his friends in the faculty and administration and would tell them about Mom’s latest activities while she was abroad. When she returned from her trips, he related to her all the happenings in the school. Pop was Mom’s number one fan. He was always her defender against her critics when she was in public service, as the education secretary of the Aquino Cabinet.
As in many other families, the Quisumbing family gathered together during special occasions, especially Christmas. This was true not only when all the children were still unmarried but also when they eventually got married, their presence in these occasions varying in number from time to time. The Christmas gathering was in Cebu, where the greatest number of family members was located. The occasion was highlighted by a heavy lunch and gift-giving to sons and daughters, wives and husbands, grandchildren, grandsons-in-law and great grandchildren. Four other children (a son and two daughters in the United States and a daughter in Quezon City) were usually absent during this special occasion except in few instances since they had their own celebrations in their respective homes. Pop continued to visit his grandaunts in Camiguin, taking the boat to Cebu and then to the island. By this time, his sister Tita Pat had also chosen to live in Camiguin.
I had some official business in Luzon during the summer months and Christmas seasons of 1986 to 1990. When this was completed, I proceeded to Quezon City where my parents and sister lived in a bungalow built from the sale of the Beverly Hills home in Cebu City, in 1980. Here I had the opportunity to stay with my parents before leaving for several Luzon provinces, Palawan and Aklan. I would head back to my parents’ home a day before departing from Manila to my official station in Musuan, Bukidnon.
I was an AEOP (Agricultural Educational Outreach Project) consultant whose primary tasks were to evaluate the different components and projects in AEOP-supported state colleges and a university in different locations and to submit reports of their evaluations to the Project Management Office (PMO) in Remedios Street. While connected with the AEOP, I was hired as consultant-author of Pampanga Agricultural College in Magalang, Pampanga commissioned to write the college history which I completed in twenty-five months (April 1987-May l989).
I was able to stay in touch with my parents through these visits. In another instance, I wrote a letter to my father requesting him to buy a history book for my class at the National Bookstore in Manila or Quezon City. Pop bought the book and mailed it to me where I received it in Musuan on July 27, 1988.
Mom served in the Cabinet of President Corazon Aquino as the Education Department Secretary after the EDSA Revolt of February 1986, serving in that capacity until 1990. A few years later, she was named the Secretary-General of UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines with the rank of ambassador, the first Secretary general to hold that rank. She declined the offer to be Ambassador of France and Portugal since Pop was not keen on living abroad at this stage in his life. In view of this new appointment, Mom as head of the Philippine delegation, attended UNESCO conferences in Paris, France, several times a year. In one of these conferences, she was elected a member of UNESCO Executive Board to serve a four year term (1991- 1995).
On one occasion, Pop joined Mom in Paris, accompanied by Blue Boy. Cora (with Walt and Katrina) joined Mom in Paris twice, the first time with Agnes who was with Marilou at a separate occasion. Vising, who accompanied Mom in her many local visits to schools in the Philippines, also went to Paris (and Rome). Pop also traveled to the United States in the late 1980s. His most memorable visit may have been to Cornell University where Lolo Emilio graduated in 1908, being sent to the United States as part of the first group of 103 pensionados.
One of the most significant and important events in Pop and Mom’s lifetime was their golden wedding anniversary (1941-1991) on April 19, 1991. As they celebrated their fiftieth year, they could also count fifty family members—themselves as parents (two), nine children, two sons-in-law, five daughters-in-law, twenty five grandchildren, two grandsons-in-law, and five great grandchildren. A rendition of a family tree jointly prepared by their nine children was framed and presented to them. Forty family members were able to attend this affair.
This event was highlighted by a concelebrated mass officiated by three Jesuit friends, Fathers Arsenio Nunez, Ernesto Carretero, and John King who came from the United States. The mass and the reception were held at Sacred Heart School, the former site of the family home, along Gen. A. Maxilom Avenue (formerly Mango Avenue). The
best wedding gift: an oil painting of their original wedding portrait which was inspired by the wedding portrait of Lolo and Lola, also in the said medium. I had requested my academic colleague and close friend. Dr. Wenceslao Tianero, to do this painting without a professional fee to him by supplying the latter with the wooden frame, canvas, and different oil paints.
Back
in Quezon City, Mom continued to be in and out of the country to represent the
Philippines in UNESCO General Conferences and to attend, as an elected member of
the UNESCO Executive Board, several meetings in Paris. This meant personal
sacrifices for both our parents.
Epilogue: The Last Two Years
In October 1993, Mom left for Paris to participate in a three week UNESCO Executive Board meetings and another three week 27th UNESCO General Conference, an absence of six weeks from Pop who would wait for her at home. Towards the end of these meetings, Mom made a long distance call to the house in Quezon City and found out that Marilou had flown him to Cebu because he had gotten seriously ill. Pop chose to be in Cebu where he could be taken care of by three daughter-in-law medical practitioners. Mom immediately telephoned Pop at their son Ely’s residence. Ely assured her not to worry about Pop’s physical condition without telling her that he was on his way to Perpetual Succor Hospital in Gorordo Avenue.
Between 1994 and 1995 an emergency family council was held to discuss the seriousness of Pop’s illness. In view of his serious illness resulting in frequent hospitalizations due to his weekly dialysis, Mom requested their nine children and families to contribute whatever they could whether in personal care or financial contribution. While attending the 28th UNESCO General Conference and chairing the last session of Commission V, Mom received word that Pop was seriously ill. She returned to the Philippines a few days earlier than scheduled. He was so happy to see her that he recovered to live for three more months.
On New Year 1996, the family celebrated Holy Mass and had a family lunch together with Carling. This would be their last time together. On Monday, January 15, 1996, between 3 and 3:30 p.m. Pop breathed his last moments, dying peacefully after receiving the last sacraments. All the children were immediately informed of his death including three children in the United States, one in Quezon City, and myself in Musuan, Bukidon. The family took turns during the wake at Cebu Rolling Hills Memorial Chapels in A. S. Fortuna Street, Banilad, Mandaue City. Pop was buried on Saturday, January 20 at Cebu Memorial Park, Banilad, Cebu City, with all his children and close relatives present. Aside from him, his parents, Maria and Emilio, had their final rest in this cemetery since 1969 and 1976, respectively.
It is several years after my father’s death, but he will always be remembered. We remember, we celebrate, we believe.
