By Ruben M. Cruz Jr. / Online Editor
BEFORE she became the martyr’s wife who toppled the Marcos dictatorship, served as the country’s first woman President, and was hailed by the world as an icon of democracy, Corazon Cojuangco Aquino was just one of the girls to a group of childhood friends she met in St. Scholastica’s College, a Benedictine school founded in Manila in 1906 by five young German nuns.
St. Scholastica’s, commonly called St. Scho by its alumnae, is well-known for infusing a healthy dose of social activism along with its academics. Scholasticans follow the traditional Benedictine ethic, Ora et Labora (Latin for prayer and work), but its nuns and graduates often argue a less conservative theological imperative for social change, whether in the classrooms or on the streets.
Among its prominent alumnae are Sr. Mary John Mananzan, the school’s prioress, who cofounded the women’s group Gabriela; the late Sr. Christine Tan, one of the most vocal critics of Martial Law when there were but a few among the Catholic clergy, who put the Association of the Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines at the forefront of the defense of human rights; Sr. Soledad Perpiñan, who started the independent databank IBON Facts and Figures (now IBON Databank); and the late Cecilia Muñoz Palma, the first woman Justice of the Supreme Court and president of the Constitutional Commission which drafted the 1987 Constitution.
The friends of Cory in St. Scho then had no inkling their classmate would one day become its most famous student, and a recipient of the PAX Award, the highest honor the school can give to its alumnae.
“She was really just one of the girls, even if she was one of the richest. She was very quiet, very down-to-earth. She wasn’t snobbish at all, but she was kind of shy,” said Aleli Bautista, describing Cory who was her classmate from Kindergarten up until Grade 6.
“Definitely she was on the timid side,” another Cory classmate since Kindergarten, Carina Tancinco Mañalac, says. “Sometimes we called her Core, because her older sister was called Tere. She was very humble. We all knew that her dad was a Cojuangco and her mom a Sumulong (two of the richest families in the country even then), but you would never have guessed that from the way she carried herself. Mana (hand-me-downs) nga lang yung uniforms niya from her Ate Tere.”
Aleli, who wore a yellow, long-sleeved shirt over white pants on the morning of her interview with BusinessMirror at her home in a suburb south of Manila, shows us their faded black and white class picture with Sister Imelda, their homeroom teacher in 4th Grade, dated 1939. She asks us to identify her and Cory.
Nonie Reyes, BusinessMirror’s photojournalist, gets it on the first try. Aleli’s hair may be shorter in a bob now, and, of course, its whiter, but she still has the same unmistakeable pixie-like face and petite, five-foot-nothing figure. Cory looked somewhat like an undernourished Kris sporting shorter, curly hair.
Carina would often wonder how she ever struck a friendship with Cory’s quiet group. “I asked her once when she was already President, ‘Maingay ba talaga ko noon?’ And she replied without hesitating, ‘Sobra!’”
She adds, “The nuns were very happy with them. I was with the noisy and tomboyish group. We’d give the nuns headaches. While they were mahinhin.”
“They” included Aleli and Dr. Angelita Trinidad Reyes, one of Cory’s closest friends until the former president’s death in August last year.
Angelita’s father, Anselmo Trinidad, founded the Bank of Commerce together with Cory’s father Jose, who more often went by the name Don Pepe.
“Kaya despite the strictness of both our parents, we were allowed to play together. I got to play in their house, and she got to play in ours.”
Angelita agrees with her former classmates’ assessment of the young Cory. “Pareho kami. We were not gregarious. Ok na kami kung maglaro kami ng jackstone o monopoly sa isang tabi. Or we went to the library to read and borrow books. We were ordinary children.”
The sharp, dry wit, assertiveness, and even the loquaciousness, she said, Cory would show much later.
Back then their world revolved around school, family and church. Most of St. Scho’s students lived in the school’s periphery.
Aleli’s family lived in Dominga Street, a stone’s throw away from St. Scho’s gates. The school sits on a block straddling two streets, Singalong, where the Trinidads stayed, and Pennsylvania, now known as Leon Guinto, where the Tancinco’s house is located. The Cojuangcos had a house in Agno Street next to De La Salle in Taft Avenue, and another in Roberts Street in Pasay, where President Manuel Quezon also had a house.
The neighbourhood was much different then, they all recall. Malate was the kind of comfortable, self-contained, urban oasis that attracted well-to-do families. Streets were tree-lined and leafy, and kids could freely play on the street. It wasn’t crowded, and smoke-belching jeepneys and buses were not around yet.
“We had the tranvia then which ran through Vito Cruz, and also along our street in Pennsylvania,” Carina recalls. “It was really a good place to raise a family. We all knew our neighbors. Most of them were our classmates or schoolmates. Most of our moms were also Scholasticans.”
St. Scho was different too. Decades before the social turmoil of the 70s, when the streets would ripple with protest against the Marcos dictatorship, St. Scho then wasn’t yet known as an ‘activist’ school.
“It was a simpler time. We were taught to be women of character. There were none of the social issues like what we have now. Besides, we were very young, very carefree,” says Aleli.
“There was a different focus. The education wasn’t so much about social awareness. It was about saving our souls. Going to mass, going to confession, saying the rosary, aside from reading, writing, math, that’s what we did,” says Carina.
And the nuns were very strict, she added. “It was like a German boot camp.”
“Oh we were never late for anything. Germans are sticklers for punctuality. The nuns will never tolerate excuses. And when they say do this or do that, we did them,” said Angelita.
Most of their teachers were German nuns.
They would ape the German accents and have a laugh, recalls Aleli. “They used to say, for example, ‘Tomorrow is first Friday, bring your whales for the mass.’ That’s what we heard. Of course, they meant bring your veils.”
Aleli remembers Sr. Remigia, their homeroom teacher in Grade 6, to be the “terror” of the school. “She didn’t spank us or anything. She was just very strict.” Sr. Imelda, their 4th Grade teacher, was one of the kindest, she said.
Despite having had two strokes which she said had affected her memory, Angelita managed to name her homeroom teachers, including Sr. Gratia in Kindergarten, Sr. Diethilde in Grade 1, Sr. Placida in Grade 2 and Sr. Imelda in Grade 4. The only Filipino nun she could recall was Sr. Caridad Barrion, because she taught Filipino, and the subject was still called Tagalog at the time.
“St. Scho was the top school,” Angelita said. “Mama was very eager to have a colegiala so she sent me there. Papa used his PR skills on the nuns to accept me even if I was underage, a saling pusa.”
She started when she was just 2 ½ years old and spent three years in Kindergarten before she was promoted to Grade One.
“It was a very well-rounded education. We were taught cooking and sewing, aside from the academics. During the Japanese occupation we learned Nippongo and Katakana (a Japanese writing system), which were mandatory. I was able to use them much later with my husband’s Japanese associates.” (Angelita’s late husband was shipping owner Peping Lim of Reyes and Lim Co.)
What were Cory’s favourite subjects then?
“Well, she probably excelled in everything. She was our grade school valedictorian after all. But I think her favourites were Math and Reading,” Carina said.
Her friends are quick to point out though that Cory wasn’t a geek, or the kind of annoying overachiever who would spend her weekends studying for an exam that was two weeks away.
“If you ask me,” Angelita says, “our favourite subject was recess. Because that’s when we got to play piko, patintero and Warball. We just ate our baon of pan de sal and bear brand pag hindi ka taya.”
Warball, Aleli explains, is St. Scholastica’s version of Dodgeball, which they used to play officially in Sr. Asunta’s P.E. class. Assumption College in Herran Street (now Pedro Gil) played a similar game, which they called Battleball.
Aleli would be the first to admit she wasn’t one of Cory’s closest friends. She remembers attending only a couple of Cory’s birthdays in the Cojuangco mansion in Agno Street. “It was really the only time I got to play with her outside of school. I remember we played until dark.”
She says her older sister, Amelia, now 84, was a lot closer to Cory the President, because she served as the assistant director of the Benigno S. Aquino Jr. Foundation for many years prior to her retirement.
Ironically, the closest Aleli got to Cory was when they were thousands of miles away from each other.
The American liberation’s carpet-bombing of Manila in 1945 left St. Scho and most of the city in ruins. St. Scho had to be closed for reconstruction, and its students were farmed out to the other schools that were still operational.
Cory and Angelita spent their first year of high school in Assumption College in Herran. Carina studied in Marinduque where there was another Benedictine school, and Aleli went to St. Mary’s Academy in Pasay.
When St. Scho reopened, Aleli, Angelita, Carina and most of their batch went back to their alma mater to finish high school, which they did in 1949. Cory, however, went to Ravenhill Academy in Philadelphia. She would go on to finish college in the US, earning a degree in French and Mathematics from the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York City.
It was while Cory was in the US for her studies that she and Aleli frequently wrote to each other. “She wrote very eloquently and I got to know her more through her letters. Probably, a lot more than when we were in school together.”
After Cory’s death, she gave most of her letters to Balsy Aquino-Cruz, Cory’s eldest child. But Aleli kept a couple of them, her only remembrances from the friendship she once had with the woman who Time Magazine (in an article after her death) would call The Saint of Democracy.
She allows me to read one, a letter dated July 13, 1951, which Cory wrote from London. In a graceful and fluid cursive, Cory wrote about how she went shopping for a whole month, looking for the “pabilins” of Josephine and her other sisters.
She recalled sailing on the Queen Elizabeth for London, a five-day trip during which she watched movies, played ping pong and Canasta, a card game that is similar to Rummy.
In London, she saw the play “Who is Sylvia” starring Robert Fleming, and called it “a good comedy.” She wanted to see “Henry the V” with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, but tickets were sold out, she rued.
Cory gushed about seeing the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet. “They’re the most graceful and talented I’ve seen so far. I’m afraid American ballet dancers are not as good.”
She also talked about seeing London’s other attractions like the Windsor Castle, Westminster Abbey, The Tower of London, London Bridge and Buckingham Palace.
Signing off, she sent her best regards to her friends and former classmates in St. Scho—Lita (Angelita Reyes), Norma (Labrador) and Celine (Olaguer). “I hope you are not having too much homework or anything of the sort which would mar your life in college,” Cory said.
Aleli finished her degree in Piano Pedagogy in St. Scho and went to the US in 1966 to work for the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. as its music cataloguer.
Cory at the time was already married with kids. Her husband Ninoy Aquino would win a Senate seat a year after in 1967. He was already being groomed by the opposition as the next president as it was Marcos’ last term in office, or so they thought.
Life, as they say, got in the way, and Cory and Aleli’s letters to each other became less frequent until they stopped altogether.
Even when Ninoy, Cory and their brood were in exile in Boston for three years from 1980 to 1983, Aleli, who was working for Howard University by that time, never got to see her old friend, until many years later when they met in the Philippines during their St. Scho batch’s golden anniversary celebration, when Cory was Citizen Cory again.
She remembers Cory coming up to her, saying, “Oh ano Aleli, kumusta?” recognizing her instantly as if they haven’t been apart at all. They kicked back and chatted like the schoolgirls they once were.
Carina lost touch with Cory when she went to the US. She remembers Cory going back to say goodbye to them in St. Scho before leaving for Ravenhill. Cory was surprised to find Carina one year ahead of their batch. She was accelerated because of her credits at the Benedictine school in Marinduque where she studied during the bombing. Cory didn’t know this.
“Bakit ka nandyan (one batch ahead)?” she remembers Cory asking, to which she replied, “Brains! Brains!”
“Yabang!” Cory retorted.
“Kaw nga yung Valedictorian eh,” Carina teased further. And Carina recalled, the typical Cory, ever humble, said, “only because Celine (Olaguer who was also one of the top students of their batch) went back to Legaspi (in Bicol).”
Many years later, during the 40th day novena mass held in St. Scho after Ninoy’s assassination, she approached Cory to offer her condolences, after which she whispered, “O pano yan? Kaw na mag Presidente?”
“Hoy Carina! Wag ka nga loka loka!” Cory loudly replied.
Because of her husband Gabby Mañalac’s work as a journalist, Carina would often run into Cory in official functions during her term as President. There were times, she forgot she was talking to Cory the President, not her classmate and friend.
She laughs recalling an incident when Cory had to gently admonish her in a public function. “Hoy Carina, Presidente nako. Wag mo nako tulak-tulakin.”
Cory was one of the most thoughtful friends anyone could ever have, Carina said. She would mention things in passing and Cory would remember, like when she asked where Cory got her yellow textiles for her dresses and she had her modista send Carina free samples; or when, during a visit to the Aquino museum in Tarlac, she mentioned how nice the note cards bearing Cory’s flower paintings were, and the next day, Cory’s driver delivered a set of the note cards to her house.
When we interviewed Dr. Angelita Trinidad-Reyes at her tastefully designed high rise condominium right in the heart of Makati, she showed us her “Cory corner” where there were also various Cory mementos, including an acrylic painting of Cory’s titled “Roses everywhere” which she said was a Christmas gift, one of Cory’s first paintings done on wood, throw pillows with more Cory paintings imprinted on them, a Cory doll similar to the one worn by then US Secretary of State George Schultz on his lapel when Cory addressed the US Congress in 1986, and an official photo from Malacañang with a personal note saying “Many, many thanks for our friendship.”
Angelita and Cory were very good at keeping in touch.
Every time Cory came home for a vacation from her studies in the US, Angelita would host a bienvenida (welcome home party) for her, usually at the Aristocrat Restaurant along Dewey Boulevard (now Roxas Boulevard).
They would watch movies in Ideal, State and Avenue, the go-to theatres in downtown Manila (Rizal Avenue) at the time. One movie she remembers watching with Cory was the tearjerker “An Affair To Remember” starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.
Her husband, Peping, an Ocean Engineering graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studied in the US the same time Cory did. “They knew each other. We were all friends.”
During the Aquino family’s three-year exile in Boston, Angelita and Peping were frequent visitors as three of their sons were studying in Harvard University (the fourth was in Duke).
“My birthday’s November 29, and Noy’s (Ninoy), November 27. And so when we we’re in Boston, Cory would ask us to have a joint birthday celebration in their house. Cory would cook, of course, because she’s an excellent cook,” Angelita relates. “Who would have thought though that our cook would become President!”
Angelita went to the University of the Philippines for her pre-med and medical degrees, with another St. Scho classmate, Norma Labrador. At that time, UP imposed a 20% quota for female medical students, so it was a big deal for the two Scholasticans that they both qualified. Later, Angelita would go to the University of Pennsylvania to specialize in Dermatology.
In an era when facials and other aesthetic procedures have become commonplace, it’s hard to imagine that when Dr. Angelita Reyes Trinidad began practicing Dermatology she was only the 11th Dermatologist in the Philippines, male or female.
She established her clinic in Ayala Avenue in Makati. Back then, she said, Ayala was so desolate her husband wondered whether anyone would dare go there for a consultation. “He drove me to and from the clinic because he was afraid I would get mugged.”
But her practice grew and eventually became the widely recognized ATReyes Center for Dermatology and Laser Surgery, which is still in Makati. Cory was one of her patrons, Angelita said, “before, during and after she was President.”
“She would just show up. Madalas pag labas ko sa reception, andyan na, nakapila,” she recalls. “I would tell her, Presidente ka na. Pwede mo ko patawag. I can go to you for a private consultation wherever, whenever.”
Like ideally married people, the friends were there for each other in health, as well as in sickness and death.
“I already have a Ph.D. in colon cancer. I’m that familiar with it,” Angelita relates. “My husband died of colon cancer, but 21 years after being diagnosed. Then, of course, my friend Cory died of colon cancer, the same disease which killed Doña Demetria, her mother.”
I ask her what she misses most about Cory. “Our crazy talks,” she answers, and tells me a story to illustrate what she meant.
After she survived her first stroke in March 2007, a thanksgiving mass was held at her former residence in Dasmariñas Village, Makati. Invited were Cory, a few nuns, and some friends and family.
“Before the mass, Cory came into my room. I was lying in bed. She tells me, ‘Hoy Angelita, wag ka muna mamatay. Namamatay ka na pala!’”
“Cory, noon, namamatay ako. Ngayon hindi na,” I replied.
“Then, after the mass, as refreshments were being served, she comes up to me again. ‘Angelita wag ka muna mamatay’, she begs me. ‘Nobody will talk good about me anymore.’
‘Mabuti pa sabay tayo mamatay,’ sabi niya. ‘Naku wag,’ sabi ko. Pwede na ata ko lumakad.”
Angelita regrets that her good friend never got to see the Cory corner in her condominium. Last time they ran into each other, Cory told her, “Hoy Angelita baka kung saan lupalop lang ng bahay mo nilagay yung mga paintings na binigay ko sa iyo ha!”
“So I invited her to go here and see for herself. But she, you know, she got sicker, and she never made it,” Angelita said.
One of their last conversations was after her second stroke in 2009. Cory’s cancer had gotten worse, while Angelita was confined in the ICU of Makati Medical Center. They talked only on the phone but still managed to rib each other.
“Angelita, parehas na tayo lo-bat,” Cory told her. And Angelita said, “Hindi Cory, mas lo-bat ka ata.”
Angelita was being transferred out of the ICU into a regular room as Cory was being wheeled in to the ICU, taking Angelita’s former room. It was their last time to cross paths.
“Nagpalit lang kami ng kwarto sa ICU. Sinabi ko pa kay Ruby, my secretary, ‘Sabihin mo wag yung kwartong yun. Mangyari, napakahina ng aircon,” Angelita said.
Cory died a few days later. Her body was initially brought to Heritage Park in Taguig City, where a mass was held exclusively for family members. The Aquino family’s adopted Tita, Angelita, attended in a wheelchair.
“People were worried about me attending because of my (precarious) condition. But I insisted. It was the final visit I can make to my friend,” she said.
I ask her if she cried.
“No I didn’t,” she says. “Cory and I, we don’t cry. When my husband died, I didn’t cry. When Noy was killed, she didn’t cry. When we cry, we cry alone. Wala kami showmanship.”
Dr. Angelita’s doctor comes into the living room for a scheduled visit, our cue that the interview was over. I told her we’ll show ourselves out but she insisted that I help her up.
Wearing a white cotton blouse over white Capri pants, with her hair pinned into a bun, she looks younger than her 70-something years. She calls Nonie Reyes over, and hands him a couple of bottles of cream to deal with some kind of breakout on his face. Apparently, he asked for her advice when I excused myself to go to the visitor’s restroom earlier.
“Put it twice a day, once in the morning and again at night. Shower only with cold water. And don’t go under the sun,” she instructed.
“Buti ka pa me private consultation. Daig mo pa si Cory.” ####
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The writer would like to thank Prof. Louie Agnir-Paraan (SSC High Batch 79) of the Department of Language and Literature, St. Scholastica’s College, for giving him the names and numbers of the interviewees as well as some of the file photos of Cory kept by the school.