NBS founder fulfills‘impossible dream’

Socorro "Nanay" Ramos founded National Book Store with her late husband, Jose, in 1942. Although gifted with an insatiable appetite for learning, the young Socorro was born to a poor family in Sta. Cruz, Laguna, and only completed high school.

Unable to attend college, it was the young Socorro’s lifelong dream to eventually get her degree. Unfortunately however, poverty and the birth of her twin sons made that goal what she has always called an "impossible dream."

Instead of attempting to pursue her education, the necessity to survive during the difficult years of war found Socorro doing what she has been doing since the age of five — working. In spite of the hardship, she vowed to give her children what she was unfortunately denied — the best education she could afford.

The first thing she bought with her then meager savings were educational plans for all her children. Socorro felt that this would at least guarantee her children’s education, regardless of what might happen to her, her husband or their business.

Her twin sons eventually finished their education at the Ateneo and her only daughter at Maryknoll. And even if her own dream remained unfulfilled, she fondly points out the pride with which she watched all her children graduate from college.

At 82 years of age and her dream of receiving a degree almost forgotten, the Board of Trustees and president of the Ateneo de Manila University Fr. Bienvenido Nebres S.J. have voted to confer upon "Nanay" the degree of Doctor of Humanities in recognition of her "outstanding contribution to the country through the provision of cut-down priced textbooks nationwide these past 65 years."

Ironically, it was Socorro Ramos’ contribution to education — exactly what fate had denied her — that also gave rise to the fulfillment of her lifelong "impossible dream."