Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, my mother

By

THIS was my eulogy to my mother after the funeral Mass last 2 August. Imperceptibly and without pain, she passed away at 1: 30 a.m. on 30 July, eleven days after her 96th birthday. She is irreplaceable and will be sorely missed by her family, friends, and peers.

My mother rose from the ashes of war like the mythical Phoenix. During the Battle for Manila in February 1945, she lost everything: the love of her life, Ismael Cruz, my father, the Guerrero and Cruz homes where she had lived, her childhood friends, beloved relatives, all her material possessions. Thank God she did not lose her parents -- Dr. Alfredo Guerrero and Filomena Francisco, the first lady pharmacist, and her older brothers Leon and Mario. But they were all destitute; she was a widow at 22 with two children, my brother Ismael, Jr. (Toto) who was born posthumously in April and myself; I was 18 months old.

However, with cyclonic energy, my mother rebuilt her life and at the same time faced the challenges of the country’s “Reconstruction Period.” Since she had two babies to nurture, she began working for a newspaper, the “Evening News”; writing was the only thing she knew how to do, she told me later. She started as a humble proofreader. We were then living in Sampaloc after the war, in a small two-story house owned by her maternal grandfather, Gabriel Beato Francisco. Later, her father Dr. Guerrero, built a house on Donada street in Pasay.

One fine day, a photographer from the newspaper came to take pictures of Toto and me (he was a toddler then so he doesn’t remember this) playing with colored blocks, constructing towers and structures. We appeared on the cover of a magazine as symbols of the young Philippines in the throes of reconstructing a devastated country after World War II. I think that set the tone, the standard of how Mommy brought us up.

During the Reconstruction Period, my mother and her friends dredged up the spirit of nationalism from the depths of national memory. Eminent nationalists like Claro M. Recto, Lorenzo Tañada, I. P. Soliongco and J.V. Cruz were household words; they were all against the Parity Amendment, the US military bases, and were staunch supporters of industrialization, the Non-Aligned Movement, an independent foreign policy, land reform, retail trade nationalization, and the polemical Rizal Law. We patronized local products and whenever we went to the grocery (that was how supermarkets were called then), Mommy bought only local products. We never had Spam and Santa Claus was not welcome in our house. Our Nakpil siblings (Ramon, Lizza, and Luls) who are younger than Toto and I by some 14 years grew up under very different circumstances; they reached the age of majority during the Marcos “New Society.”

In my last year of college, Mommy told me that she had raised me to marry a poor intellectual. That was why she taught me to be frugal, self-reliant; she made me scrub the bathrooms, clean the kitchen, sent me to cooking lessons, loaded me with household responsibilities. She said I had to learn how to earn a living and be the best of whatever it is I would choose to become. “I am raising you to marry a poor intellectual,” she often said.

Shortly after graduation, at a chic cocktail party, she introduced me to Tonypet Araneta. Could this be the poor intellectual? —I asked myself. On our first date, Tonypet invited me to dinner at the elegant Sulo restaurant in Makati. I ordered a steak and when it was time to pay, Tonypet took out his wallet, a type of billfold, and when he opened it, there was nothing inside. He had no money! Aha, he must indeed be Mommy’s poor intellectual, I concluded. So, when he proposed a couple of years later, I married him without hesitation. My poor intellectual was supposed to come today, but I guess he could not make it for lack of money to pay a taxi.

In behalf of our family (the Guerreros, Cruzes and Nakpils), I would like to thank you for being here this morning. Your prayers, the warmth of your friendship, the love and respect you have showered on my mother during her lifetime and in death have consoled us immeasurably and alleviated our grief. (ggc1898@gmail.com)