My other sisters

I have three living sisters by blood, and three others by virtue of their being hitched to my brothers. I’ve written about the sisters of the first kind, so my piece today is about my in-laws, and how fortunate I am for their joining our family. 

There’s Candy, my youngest brother Greg’s spouse. In the early ’70s my mother brought her to Manila from Gingoog City – a shy, soft-spoken girl to be my “assistant” as I was going through the discomforts of my first (and last) pregnancy. She came reluctantly, the daughter of a retired army man who had gone into farming in Mimbunga (formerly Side 2), and was enrolled as a sophomore in the local Catholic school. In Manila she took up the accountancy course at the Jose Rizal Memorial School in Mandaluyong, but hardly had the semester ended than my brother Greg, popularly called Goyet, who was living with me, swept her off her feet and towards matrimony, and back to Gingoog.

Marriage did not stop Candy’s ambition to finish college, so balancing her household and academic concerns, she earned her BS education degree at Christ the King Academy. She kept prodding Greg to finish a college course, but to no avail as he busied himself with running a small printing press.

Candy proved to be a quintessential housewife/entrepreneur, juggling a meager budget to keep four sons in school, buy a piece of land and build a house. She scrimped and saved, taught English in two schools, and ran a small school supplies store. “I was very frugal, and I worked hard, held two jobs, sold trinkets to my fellow teachers on installment. Goyet would object when I said we should leave his mother’s house and  buy a lot and build our own place. He said we had no resources, but I said, don’t worry, I’ll work hard to raise the money.” And they did get to build their own house and two vehicles – mostly because Candy was her husband’s wind under his wings – or was it the other way around?

The most remarkable of Candy’s accomplishments was her raising her kids to be upright and education-oriented. She was very strict, requiring them to go straight home after school and not play basketball with their classmates. They took turns minding the store, do household work, and, never forget school assignments. She and Greg brought them to church, and they themselves attended Couples for Christ engagements. 

 Her sacrifices paid off. No one of the boys ever did drugs. The eldest, Jori, a physical therapist, has a good-paying job in a hospital in Baltimore, Maryland  and sends his folks money and on trips to Hong Kong and the US. The second, Humphrey, is in Qatar, Patrick is a successful real estate broker, and the fourth, Gogo, finished the nursing course, but is into business. Their fifth child, a girl, named Xyra Kristi, came when the couple was no longer hard up; she is waiting to take the board exams for teachers.

Candy is a good cook, teaching me new recipes, as well as tending a nice garden of ornamental plants, and some fruit trees.

I’m so proud to have a sister-in-law like Candy.

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My next other sister, Vicenta “Vee” Geroso, hails from Bacolod City, and is also the daughter of an army man. She attended St. Scholastica’s College for her bachelor of arts, and her masters at the University of Santo Tomas. She and my brother WarII were instructors at Lyceum University where they fell in love at first sight, and were married at Ellinwood-Malate church. They have two boys – Warren, an energetic call center worker, and Xander, an able executive with an IT company and married to a highly motivated sales rep.

For several years Vee was the student discipline coordinator before she was given the job of associate dean of the Institute of Architecture and Fine Arts at Far Eastern University.

I envy Vee’s being an artist. She made the design for the stained glass windows depicting the mission-vision of the Cosmopolitan Church in Manila, using oil as medium, she paints beautiful landscapes and portraits. Her friends in the US have asked her to make sketches on canvas, which they will sell to acquaintances.

Vee is always smiling, and speaks in a low voice. A painful back has her using a cane, but then, she still cooks, testing recipes from the Internet – cookies, puddings, casseroles – while seated in a chair.

Why is War II so lucky to have a multi-talented partner.

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My third other sister is Rowena Tiempo, a poet, fictionist and essayist, a former Miss Dumaguete. She keeps writing on the Internet that she is lucky to have been welcomed to the Torrevillas family, but I believe it’s the other way around. In fact, she tells me that when she first saw me acting in a Shakespeare play, she wanted to be like me! Ha ha. It’s me who wants to be like her.

She was born to internationally known literary giants Edilberto Tiempo and Edith Tiempo, declared a National Artist in literature. She received a bachelor’s degree in 1971, and a masters in 1978, both in creative writing. She also received a PhD in English Literature, all from Silliman University. She and my brother Lemuel, a multimedia artist, live in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They have a daughter, Lauren Maria Torrevillas Seamans.

Rowena worked for the International Writing Program (IWP) as the associate program coordinator and for the University of Iowa’s English department as an adjunct faculty member. She has also been the director-in-residence of the Silliman National Writer’s Workshop.

She has won several Palanca awards for her essays, the Distinguished Author award from the Writers Union of the Philippines, and the Philippines’ National Book Award.

Rowena’s focus of attention these days is her grandchildren. Her Facebook entries exude with joy over the two’s activities – hugging their Grandpa Lemuel, going to school, playing and dancing, and so forth and so on. When she writes about anything on the Internet, her language is so ethereal, you feel she really loves writing.

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I’m so thrilled about this musical that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, that I have to give it another plug in case my readers missed that particular issue. If fate will allow it, I will be in Dumaguete on Nov. 15 to be at the red carpet gala of the musical “Song of Solomon.” This is the new and original Broadway musical being birthed in a not-so-usual theater location in the Philippines – Silliman’s Claire Luce Auditorium.

The musical is a creative collaboration of New York-based composer Andrew Beall and lyricist Neil van Leeuwen. Beal is investing his creative work in the Filipino artist discovered from across our islands.

The romantic musical is based on the exchange of poems between King Solomon and his secret lover (Almah, a vineyard girl).

The gala showing is on Nov. 15, followed by three gala performances on Nov. 16, 17 and 18. A matinee for students is slated for Nov. 17 at 3 p.m. 

The musical will also be shown at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Little Theater on April 27 and 28, 2019 as part of CCP’s year-long celebration of its 50th year anniversary.

Donations are most welcome to support the whole production. For inquiries and sponsorships, contact Maria Cole--Havranek at 0915-7000206; Marietta Montebon, 0917 7001679, and Luisa Bocanegra, 0917-3143164.

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Email: [email protected]