Class of ’71“Where have all the flowers gone?" asks a popular song. Well, the spirited and varied Class of '71 bellows with "everywhere, everyone".
Here and there, as the class went to the U.S., about half and another remained in the Philippines and have scattered all over the world.
Charlene Harn- Graulty married right after college to her bethrothed, Ray and became a senator’s wife in Hawaii. Margot Vargas married Tommy Osmena thrice the Mayor of Cebu. Corinna de Leon married a Swedish Professor Ian Selmer at the University of Hongkong where she also taught economics after her doctorate from the University of Sussex. She has retired and shuttles between Sweden and the Philippines.
Cherry Mercado married Dr. Albert Estrada and lives in the United States while Cristina Ansaldo married Francis Estrada, who was once the President of Asian Institute of Management. Marisa Garcia married Ronnie Romero, General Electric Philippines President from (2000-2004) . Marisa paints and does interior design.
Ma. Luisa Villanueva-Villano wrote a book on the Kumon, taught mathematics at the Brent School, International School and other schools and is now the Dean of the College of Admissions, Miriam.
Nieves Roldan-Confessor was one time Secretary of Labor, is consultant in the International Labor Office in Geneva, Switzerland, and is professor at the Asian Institute of Management.
Milagros Olympia-Bartolome .was one of the first scholars of Montessori in Italy, and founded also one of the first Montessori School located in Esteban Abada. After 30 years, Milyn sold the school and has happily retired with husband Alben.
Another Montessori scholar to Italy is Benjie Cardenas Porta who now lives in the States.
Celia Antonio-Duenas retired as vice president of Bank of America and opened a business with her husband Joji. Nene Chan-Sola works with family business, has opened a personal foundation and recently launched one meal for the indigent of Bacolod children. Website http://www.onemeal.com. Marisa Bernardo Sibal married her graduate school sweetheart Manny Sibal and are now with the family publishing Phoeniz.
Ceciia Vicente -Manion married her graduate school beloved John and settled in Los Angeles in the ‘70’s. Patricia Bonnevie Jarantilla, married to Rene, retired as manager of Pacific Bell, Los Angeles. Nanette Zamora-Sicat, together with husband Arthur founded and own Party Works, a catering, floral and party design company. Nanette with her artistic flair does floral designs for Michael Garfunkel. Aurora Estacio – Cuna, married to Mike, lives in Claremont, California is a public elementary school teacher.
Milagros Lahoz Martain, married to Jean Pierre, a French engineer settled in San Francisco and has retired from marketing research. Nita Arrienda married college sweetheart, Irwin Jazmines, still works and lives in Los Angeles.
Celia Flores-Taruc, is an investment banker and lives in Los Angeles and comes home with Margaret McIlvaine-Ramirez to play golf annually.
Eugenia Villanueva-Pimentel has sold her business, sold her house and down sized into a condominium, Leni Medina-Manuel, married to Vic, closed her garment business and takes care of husband, children and grandchildren.
Marilyn Golangco-del Bianco is married to an American Diploma and is into construction.
Lita Abad, malu Celestial, Mel Honrado- Garcia and Lolit Gopez-Escano do real estate work. Lolit and her husband Ben specialize in memorial plots.
Celeste Legaspi-Gallardo, married Nonoy and became a celebrity singer with her signature song”Saranggola ni Pepe” She was also voted as one of the Amazing Maryknollers Aurora Pijua, who only spent a year with the class became Miss International..
Kitty Ablaza, an English major, took her MBA in the United States and has retired as an accountant. She plans to shutllle back in the U.S. and Philippines.
Valerie Iriarte -Rosenthal, lives in New York and together with her husband Robert, a hairdresser manage a professional hair saloon.Barbs Carmelo still works for TCBrown, an investment firm in Manhattan. Bing Velasquez-Reid is a realtor while husband Dan is an investment banker. They live in Trump Tower in Manhattan.
Unretirable is Christine Eleazar, who does translation in French Spanish, and English. Christine only spent two years at Maryknoll, after which she packed her bags went to Switzerland and the U.S., studied at Sorbonne, University of Paris whrere she perfected her French. Maria Luisa Eleazar-Miranda married to Luis, works with Angping Securities.
So, too is Lourdes “Luddie” Tiu-Marasigan, the driving force behind Lettered L canteen, who caters independently and holds concesssionaires like Toshiba, Miriam, SSS, BIR. She is married to Genaro Sr. with whom she has four (4) children
Unsinkable, too, is Marie Mossessgeld-Chua married to Dr. Noel,an opthalmologist who practises at St. Luke's Hospital. Marie has retired as vice-president of Coke for Human Resources and Corporate Communications. She is now vice-president of Zuellig.
Corito Llamas, sold all her shares as founding publisher of Food Magazine to ABS-CBN Publishing, Inc. retired as President of Pagsanjan Academy, and now concentrates on free-lance writing and investments.
Nona Javier has retired from various positions: first from Corporate World as President of Benguet Exploration and the Civic work as Executive Director of Ramon Magsaysay Foundation. She divides her time between Manila and Antique where she does farming her second love.
Teresita Alvarez-Coscolluela, took her MA in the U.S. and the worked at Bank of Philippine Islands and retired as Vice-President. Wilda Roque has likewise twice retired from the Bank of America and then a third time from RCBC Savings.
Emy Banzon does breathing and aerobic exercises and with her younger group was voted as the “strongest and the oldest” having climbed many mountains and caves.
Irma Julian-Cristostomo, married to Joey is busy with her insurance job , church and house work. Corazon de Jesus-Cusio, married to Boy, has retired from Metro Bank as manager and is an Elder in her church, the Born Again branch in Marikina. Victoria Lim-Constantino also does insurance work at Philamlife.
Bettina Manalang was the able administation assistant of the celebrated Willi Fernandez . Upon Wili’s death, Doreen helped Bettina launch the successful Misis Edz Food Products making Bettina a successful entrepreneur.
Melinda Melicor and Bernadette Oloroso, mga dakilang anak, take care of their mothers while holding jobs. Melinda with the Board of Investments and Leverage and Bernie with La Salle as a professor. Manuela Urbano has stopped giving seminars Reach for the Inner Self and takes care of her mother and brother.
The Visayan group or the Villans are in Bacolod, Manila and Spain. Cynthia Capay- Flores, Annie Kilayko-Javelona, Marlene Azcona-Monfort,Isabel Valles-Lovina, Amy Lopez- Lizares, Maribel Yulo-Torre
,Miriam Montinola-Zayco are in Bacolod.
Easter Ann Galang -Rojo and Ana Kilayko-Gonzales are in the United States and Canada. Maritoni Rivilla, who is married lives in the States.Marillou Villarosa- Sta Maria, is still teaching math in La Salle Greehills.; while FrancesTeves-Pascual, married to Ting who was Allied Bank President. Ever the busybody Frances manages fish ponds.
Gone to the Great After Life and Beyond are Elena Wijangco, Barbara Loanzon-Flores, Ena Madlangbayan-Raj, and Josefina Valdez.
They are to meet the rest of the class when the right time comes.
MAKIBAKA HUWAG MATAKOT
We’ve got it all. To Makibaka huwag matakot from our older sister debut
‘s of innocent, frilly, demure cotillions, soft dances, waltzes and long white gowns.
From the old fashioned tradition to modernity; from docility of accepting woman’s fate to pushing for one’s right.
From comformity to individualism;, from going to church meekly to questioning dogmas and seeking other doctrines and religion while marching to the streets withi slogans like “Make Love Not War.
We saw how protests and activisims made way for our voices and stands to be heard. . How Cassiius Clay/Muhammed Ali’s refusal to be drafted to Vietnam with his poem “Why will I , a black brother kill my brown brother kill for the greed of my white brother” to Jane Fonda’s peace protests end a Vietnam War.
From positions of wealth power, privilege it became a sharing of talent, treasures to the poor and underpriviledged ---that if we had to shirts we would give one to another and that even if we were rich, we had no right flaunt it. It was the exact opposite of “designer” items today.
Inside of us, we were changing from the traditional housewife to the working woman; from the accepting obedient, dependent woman to the liberated and independent feminist.
Come graduation time, only two sported
engagement rings; the rest were raring to conquer the world by our solo and lonesome selves.
From the safety of our comfortable homes, we were into “rural immersions “in the farms and streets.
We rejected The Mother Mary Joseph Award reasoning that no one was above the other and that we were all heroines in our ownindividual way.
Ever the feisty and gritty group, we had a class newsletter called BRAINSTRAIN because it will”take a drain and strain in the brain to attain what the BRAINSTRAIN contains”
We all had our excess energy raising funds for our activities. We had so much money we paid for own .graduation rings, cheering squad, sports activities, junior prom.
By senior year, we had renounced the prom and went on the “bliind dates” called Whispering Hope.
We had traded the heavy make-up, Twiggy Look, miniskirt for the more cmfortable pants because it was more for streetwear.
We had situational ethics’, liberation theology, marriage classes rather than the dogmatic religion
By then the liberal American and Filipino nuns were teaching us to make choices basd on the “freedom with responsibility”: whether we wanted a smoking loung, using pants as official wear, drugs issue, and reading “Humane Vitae” and “Progressio Populorum” as a basis for rejecting or accepting the pill, which 40 years later surfaces as the RH bill.
We also became the most unique class because our student council president resigned from the presidency because of health reasons and the there was difficulty of choosing her successor since our constitution stipulates the vce president should be a junior5 student while the president should be asenior.
A legal discussion ensued and a constitutionsl convention was convened. A junior student became the president.
Amidst all these chaos, we survived, prevailed, lived, truimphed with our sanity and humor intact.
All these we did under the glare and advent of a new mass media, the tevlevision. The assasination of President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy (who had come to Mayknoll in a helicopter), the rise of Martin Luther King and civil rights.
We embraced the personalities of the free spirited and those who had suffered the prejudices and racial barriers.Both arrived in helicopters landing on our schoolgrounds, and Ms. Han in pantsuit while Gemma was in short pantu. Han Sun Yin, author of “Love is a Many splendored thing”, suffered as a Eurasian, and a woman professional. And Gemma Cruz, first Filipina Miss International who was the first brown skinned “kayumanggi” entry to an international contest.
She was and is a Maryknoller who rose to the challenges by simply being a beauty and brains.
FORTY YEARS AFTER
Here we are educated, empowered,, empassioned, tolerant, pro-active, creative, energetic
Blending all we had: traditionalism, vs. modernity, old and new, sacred and the profane, rich and poor, white or brown, dreans and realities.
We smile when we think of people power, toppling the dictator and presidents.
We started it all.
MARYKNOLLER CLASS RUBY `71 at 8:25 AM
Post a Comment