Remembering Teresa
TERESA Feria Nieva, colleague, friend, and mentor, passed away last Saturday after a lingering illness. She had a bad fall some eight years ago and she was never the same again. It was really sad for us, friends and admirers, who had walked with her in pursuit of similar goals, to watch her deteriorate. She, who once upon a time was a woman with tremendous energy, a matchless passion, and fortified by an unusal spiritual strength, sallied into varied challenges that many had avoided either because these meant risks and sacrifices, or they were not worth going an extra mile for, or simply because they were faint-hearted. But Teresa did foray, and her resolve, her belief in the cause she had embraced, is what I hope we could pass on to the next generation.
Teresa will always be remembered for advocacies in these areas: Women in nation-building, electoral monitoring, peace and human rights, and strengthening of civil society organizations.
I met Teresa during the late seventies – at the height of the Marcos dictatorship. She had just organized the Concerned Women of the Philippines (CWP) together with some lawyers and women leaders which included Supreme Court Justice Cecilia Muñoz Palma, Nini Quezon Avancena, Maring Feria, and her former classmates at the Sta. Scholastica College. They all shared a common bond – their being bothered by the spate of killings, disappearances, and human rights violations. I was immediately drawn to their cause and for the next few years, we met regularly at Teresa’s home in San Lorenzo Village or some other member’s place. Our activities consisted primarily of advocacy activities – letter-writing campaigns, visits to prisons, forums. The Aurora Aragon Quezon Peace Awards Foundation (AAQPF) which recognized outstanding peace advocates was an offshoot of our peace project.
Another of Teresa’s noteworthy contributions was the monitoring of elections primarily through the Namfrel or National Movement for Free Elections where she served as national treasurer. The Bantay Bayan Award given her in 2014 sums up her pioneering work in electoral monitoring through the Voters’ Voice in 1971, the Citizens’ Committee for Referenda, Plebiscites, and Elections (CINACORPE) in 1978, and Namfrel in 1983.
She and Maring Feria were two of the first people I saw at EDSA when the People Power revolution started. And there were several meetings that brought us together again, including activities convened by the BishopsBusinesmen’s Conference where Teresa actively participated.
Teresa and I were two of the six women appointed to the 48-member Constitutional Commission that drafted our 1987 Constitution. Her primary contributions were in the drafting of the provision on the “equality of men and women” in the task of nation-building, and as chair of the Committee on Social Justice and Human Rights. Under her able leadership, the committee drafted a most innovative and progressive article, comparable only to the South African constitutional provisions.
Farewell, dear friend; you have indeed inspired us with your spirit of self-sacrifice, courage, and fortitude.
*** Congratulations to Art Association of the Philippines President Fidel Sarmiento for a most successful annual exhibit held last November. Fidel, who is our art instructor at the Sunshine Place, curated the three-week-long exhibit, A Gathering in November, together with Monette Alvarez, also an officer of the AAP. Art aficionados will remember the AAP as the oldest art association in the country, having been founded by the late Purita Kalaw Ledesma, known art collector. Most of the early members were alumni of the UP School of Fine Arts, but later included other artists, many of whom were subsequently recognized as National Artists. Among its early active members were Emilio Aguilar Cruz, Virginia Flor Agbayani, Ramon Peralta Jr., Hernando Ocampo, and Cesar Legaspi.
This year’s competition was an “on-the-spot contest” held after the gallery exhibit held at Christine de Joya’s “Got Heart Gallery” where 98 artists participated, including six of us from our Sunshine Club class – Conchitina Bernardo, Melissa Gonzales, Minette de Joya, Tere Buiser, Robert Fernandez, and myself with one of my latest works, “Sinigang sa Palayok.” A portion of the funds generated from sale of the art works will go to the rebuilding of an elementary school in Marawi City.
Finishing a piece always gives me a thrill as I had not touched the canvas since 1958. That was when I took a 2-month course with the late Manuel Rodriguez (who just passed away a few weeks ago at 102). Those were the years when the world of theater and the arts drew me to its fold. I was in stage plays with Rustica Carpio, Fides Santos Cuyugan, Rolando Tinio, Tita Munoz, Winnie and Eleanor Powell with theater director Jean Edades, among others. Friends included curator Eric Torres and Leo Benesa who introduced me to the art circle including poetry readings at A. Mabini. I left that world when my career path brought me to development communication, research, and development consultancy. Now that I am retired, I find myself returning to an old passion and enjoying it, too.