The way we are… after 50 years

(Part 2 of as series on SSC Class ’53)

Fifteen St. Scholastica’s High School Class of 1953 alumnae came home from America, Canada and Flores Island, Indonesia to join our Golden Jubilee 50th anniversary at St. Cecilia’s Hall in Vito Cruz, Manila. One of them a Cebuana, Didi Capistrano, said that she just had to make it even by herself to recall her joyful high school days as a Visayan interna (school boarder) in our castle-like school building complex bounded by Singalong, Vito Cruz, Estrada and Pennsylvania (now Leon Guinto) Streets. Her husband Engineer Chris Dovas and she raised three children in Deerfield, Illinois. Ever active Didi would produce 600 Christmas craft items yearly upon retirement from her accounting job.

A palabas (show) was put together featuring a total of 54 classmates. The theme You Make Me Feel So Young truly re-energized us – grandmothers. Choreographed and directed by Gus Aldeguer, rehearsals were combined with outings in Sta. Elena Country Club, Ernest Santiago’s Pagsanjan restaurant, the 40th anniversary dinner of classmate Cenacle nun Sr. Tess Soriano, a reminiscing get-together lunch at Mila Puyat’s WackWack residence and a Bacolod outing to visit Governor Joseph Marañon who classmate Aida Lopez married, as well as enjoyed the Cojuangco farm.

We were reared in a generation of ideals and romance

Gus directed our 40th as well as the 45th reunion presentation. In contrast to the latter where we did a musical dressed up as street and market vendors, this time we wore elegant black beaded evening gowns (and as advised by Gus) with lots and lots of rhinestone and dangling earrings, otherwise the black gowns will absorb the stage lights.

We tried to dance gracefully to this old fashioned music, recalling our high school parties in brightly lit dance halls – in contrast to the darkened dance halls of today, where young people dress casually in black and crumpled fashion wear, while dancing to rowdy disco music. Today, the word "chaperone" does not exist in their vocabulary. Gone, too, are the days where "school boarders" are not allowed to go out with anyone except with callers or relatives specified by their parents. Due to continuous population explosion, the old dormitories have been converted to classrooms. Scholasticans and neighboring La Salle students rent apartments in the new high-rise condominium squeezed tight along Taft Avenue.

Reared in a generation of ideals and romance, we dressed and had our hair done like our role models Audrey Hepburn, Jane Powell and Jean Simmons. Our dream boys were Gregory Peck, Bob Mitchum and Peter Lawford. We prayed for good husbands and dreamt of rearing good families as suggested by the popular film at that time: Cheaper by the Dozen, Seven Brides, Seven Brothers, Three Darling Daughters, and Pillow Talk, including Rebel Without A Cause with James Dean and Natalie Wood, which was considered daring.

Sr. Odiliana always exhorted us to become nuns

Sister Odiliana, the blue-eyed teacher-in-charge of the SSC graduating class ’53, never wasted time exhorting everyone to become a nun. To make sure we would have enough graces to back up our vocation, she would make us check a "Daily Mass Attendance" chart as often as we could. The conditioning for entering the nunnery was perfect. Reminders to make sacrifices were made during Lent and Advent.That meant voluntarily giving up of ice cream, chocolates or movies. Early in the morning before class, we were encouraged to "keep Our Lord company" at the Blessed Sacrament. Our beautiful chapel beckoned to us during recess and even after class.

Regular annual two-day retreats were held in complete silence. Charming and pious Jesuit, Redemptorist or Oblate retreat masters further convinced us that we should follow the religious path. We were deluged with books on the lives of the saints such as Thomas Mann and Fulton Sheen. They were a joy to read.

Sister Odiliana was successful – 13 out of 94 graduates became nuns. The most charming and witty A.B. college graduate, Rubia Chuidian became a Good Shepherd nun (Sr. Consuelo) right after college. So did our Visayan glamour girl Sonia Aldeguer. Two-some pals Guillermina Mananzan and Fe Collantes became Benedictine nuns. Paradoxically, Guillermina, known today as Sr. Mary John, right after a lengthy doctoral study in Germany, came home and injected a radical left-wing spirit to Scholastican education shocking relatives and friends.

More faithful to the nuns’ credo include classmates Sr. Rosalinda Vijandre, Sr. Josephine Valdez, and Sr. Conchita de la Cruz. We are specially proud of Sr. Consuelo who gave her life in the Davao seas when she tried to save the lives of the passengers of an overloaded inter-island ship with two other Good Shepherd nuns. I can still see Rubia who delighted not only ladies but also gentlemen with her spontaneous comic remarks.

The Sound of Music

Liturgy was the forte of the Benedictines. Our European-style chapel had pews, communion rail and an altar enclosure made of finely carved red mahogany. St. Cecilia’s music school across the campus always reverberated with the sound of several pianos playing classical pieces, just like in Salzburg, Austria where music schools are popular. The Junior and Senior Music students, mostly Visayans, performed their grand piano recitals accompanied by half or full symphony orchestras which are barely affordable today.

All Scholasticans knew how to sing Mass in Latin, learned the Gregorian chant, and other classic church music. Years later, when I studied and traveled all over Europe, I realized what the nuns bequeathed to all the Filipino colegialas – the culture fare of France, Belgium and Germany.

Our class took ourselves seriously as "the army of youth flying the standards of truth. We are fighting for Christ the Lord." Catholic Action was the cry up to the University of the Philippines where the legendary chaplain, Fr. John P. Delaney kept the State University away from the "makibaka" radical activists. The Vatican nuncio Edigio Vagnozzi was so conservative that the colegialas were discouraged from enrolling at the State University

What Class ’53 has become today

Our German upbringing has pushed us to excel in whatever field we chose. Erlinda Reyes-Paez was assistant dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of University of Asia and the Pacific where she worked for nearly a decade, before she became the Dean of Arts and Sciences of St. Scholastica College. Juliet Olivares-Santos is now the Executive Vice President of Our Lady of Fatima University (OLFU) while her husband Dr. Vicente M. Santos is president of both OLFU and Fatima Medical Center. Lourdes Abad-Panlilio, a farm manager of Bacoor, Pampanga has been conducting spiritual outreach programs with their farmers. Carmela Endriga-Kintanar is the secretary of Patron’s Association which provides a two-year scholarship for culinary arts and residential services, her husband is retired BFAD Director Dr. Quintin Kintanar.

Milagros Magsaysay-Valenzuela served as Public Relations Director of the Manila Peninsula Hotel for almost three decades. Another public relations expert turned one-time Tourism Department Secretary is classmate Carmita Francisco-Urra. Eugenia Cuevas-Subong retired as production supervisor from ER Squibb, while her husband Cesario Sr. is a retired sales engineer. Rose Vito never got married, instead she did well as a garment trader of knitwear and she plans to manufacture bed linen for export next year.

Zenaida Floro and Lourdes "Lolly" Serafica became wives of generals. We kept thinking of Zeny when General Tadiar was not responding to radio calls during the EDSA Revolution. Lolly was living in Clark Air Base where General Paiso was base commander in the ’80s. We wonder whether Lolly could have helped her husband prevent the stealing rampage of Clark Field had they still been assigned there during the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption.

SSC Class ’53 as residents of America

Some classmates have established residences in America but visit with us now and then. Dr. Aida Tanyag-Jocson, who retired from practice of rehab medicine and electro-diagnosis, is the first female and Asian Church Trustee in a predominant Italian population in New York. Retired pediatrician Dr. Antonia Ty-Semar, who is married to Dr. Martin Semar, a retired biochemistry doctor of NYU and Johnson & Johnson, now resides in New Jersey. Josefina Balinghasay retired as the secretary to the Vice President of Finance/Treasury of World Bank in Washington D.C.

Corazon Nazareno-Villegas used to work with the Los Angeles Federal Government. Zenaida delos Santos-Curameng is into real estate in Pasadena. Elenita de Jesus-Soriano retired as president of an import-export company. Now semi-retired, she still does some work for Danding Cojuangco. She resides in Sta. Monica and has a second home in Henderson, Nevada. Linda Lagman-Hoops, who has a Ph.D. in Business and Public Administration, is now a consultant of the National Restaurant Association Education Foundation. Her husband, Dr. Ray Hoops is the president of the University of Southern Indiana Minnesota University System.

For a while, Lourdes-Lozano Muñoz lived in Indonesia where her husband worked at IBM. Our valedictorian Araceli Salazar-dela Fuente taught English in Hongkong for nine years while her husband, Antonio dela Fuente headed the Research and Development RF Section of Phillips Semi-Conductor Hongkong. They have come back to live in Manila after 32 years in Hongkong.

Colegialas fiercely competed in their desire ‘to become saints’

From the ‘50s to the ’60s, the colegialas fiercely competed with one another in their desire "to become saints". Whether they married, became nuns or stayed single, their sense of sacrifice and helping others remained.

In the ’70s, broken families were more common. A few marital separations occurred and definitely there were short-lived affairs. Two decades of Martial Law had depressed the national morale. With power in the hands of a selected few, corruption escalated with no control from the government and a censored press. It was an excellent breeding ground for leftist activism in Filipino universities and religious colleges where some priests and nuns encouraged militancy among students.

The generation of the ’80s – that of our own children – saw the height of twisted morals portrayed in films and print, hard rock music and sex, flaunting fashions. Finally, the colegialas became divided when half became "born again", spurning and ridiculing old traditions. All these reflect the extreme global changes as the New Millennium approached.

When we said our goodbyes during the dinner party at Sr. Kuniberta Hall after the show, our balikbayan classmates expressed anxiety to return home in a hurry since President George W. Bush announced the "orange alert" all over the United States of America as he officially pursued war efforts against Iraq.

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord

"‘The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.’ Think, My child, on the word, ‘steps’. I truly order each step. I do not devise a plan and then leave you in your human weakness to work it out alone. No, each moment of the day I direct and guide and order. Always am I by your side, My hand in yours, leading out and on and upward…

"If you will learn this lesson well, you shall never look with fear or uncertainty into future days, you shall fear neither lack of material things nor spiritual guidance, for you will know, oh so surely, that each step of the way is guided and planned, and that you do not walk, even for one moment, life’s highway alone." – from the Quiet Talks With the Master by Eva Bell Weber

(For more information please e-mail at exec@obmontes sori.edu.ph)