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Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

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Larger portrait of Remedios Lopez Cuenco by Cecilia Brainard

August 11, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

I made a larg­er por­trait of my great-grand­moth­er Reme­dios Lopez Cuen­co as ref­er­ence.  I had made a small­er study a few days ago.  https://ceciliabrainard.com/portrait-of-remedios-lopez-cuenco-by-cecilia-brainard/

Here is an excerpt from my grand-uncle’s biog­ra­phy that touch­es on the life and back­ground of Reme­dios, who inspired me to write my third nov­el, The News­pa­per Widow:

 

“From Arch­bish­op Cuen­co Auto­bi­og­ra­phy, pages 1–3:

I was born in the lit­tle town of Car­men, Cebu province on May 19, 1885. I received Bap­tism in the same Church on May 27, 1887, and was con­firmed by the Span­ish Bish­op, Most Rev. Mar­tin Alcoser of the Fran­cis­can Order. My par­ents were Mar­i­ano A. Cuen­co and Reme­dios Dio­somi­to. They did not enjoy a long and thor­ough edu­ca­tion in the school as we under­stand it today. My father attend­ed class­es at the Nor­mal School for teach­ers in Mani­la just for one year. This school was direct­ed by the Jesuit fathers. My moth­er was no more for­tu­nate than my father. While a young girl, she stud­ied in Cebu at the old Inmac­u­la­da Col­lege run by the Sis­ters of Char­i­ty. There she learned the three R’s. For one rea­son or anoth­er she quit school­ing. Hence she just stayed at school for one year. But both of them were gift­ed by nature with nat­ur­al tal­ent and abil­i­ty. They spe­cial­ly pos­sessed a tac­ti­cal and com­mon sense.

My father moved with dogged deter­mi­na­tion to become an intel­lec­tu­al and he acquired unusu­al cul­ture, read­ing all the books and peri­od­i­cals he could pos­sess. He was fond of read­ing the works of Balmes, the Span­ish philoso­pher, the speech­es of the late Span­ish Par­lia­men­tar­i­an, Ramon Nocedal. He was a reg­u­lar sub­scriber to “El Siglo Futuro” and “Lec­tura Domini­cal”, papers edit­ed in Spain. His con­stant read­ing and study of Span­ish books and authors made him one of the best Span­ish writ­ers of his time. He wrote and pub­lished “Ejer­ci­cios Prac­ti­cos de Gram­mat­i­ca Castel­lana”, in Span­ish and Visayan, and he could pre­pare wills (tes­ta­men­tos),  and as a Clerk of Court he was the advis­er to Amer­i­can judges the first years of the Amer­i­can regime. As a Catholic he was proud of his faith and did much to defend the Catholic Church. When the fol­low­ers of the Agli­payan sect tried to intro­duce in the province of Cebu the new schis­mat­ic church, he was their most bit­ter oppo­nent. By deed, espe­cial­ly by wield­ing his pow­er­ful pen, he unmasked them. On her part, my moth­er besides shar­ing with my father the cares of the home, was try­ing to improve her edu­ca­tion by read­ing Span­ish books, espe­cial­ly the Lives of the Saints. She could talk Span­ish cor­rect­ly. She used to teach us in Span­ish the prayers, “El Padre Nue­stro” and “Ave Maria” (Our Father and Hail Mary). She was very indus­tri­ous and busi­ness-mind­ed. As a mat­ter of fact, after the death of my beloved father on July 9, 1909, we were left not only orphans but also prac­ti­cal­ly in dire pover­ty. My father died at the age of 48. Due to her hard-work­ing habits and sense of econ­o­my, my moth­er was able to reha­bil­i­tate the fam­i­ly, and sup­port her chil­dren. My moth­er died on July 29, 1945, dur­ing the Japan­ese occu­pa­tion in Cebu City, at the age of 75.

In the fam­i­ly we were 16. I was the old­est. Sen­a­tor Cuen­co was the sec­ond. The third was Dolores. The fourth, Jaime. Oth­ers died when they were infants. Reme­dios died at the age of 62. She was a sto­ry-teller. Miguel has been a con­gress­man for many years, has been chair­man of the Com­mit­tee on For­eign Affairs dur­ing the time of Pres­i­dent Magsaysay, has rep­re­sent­ed the Philip­pine Repub­lic abroad in par­lia­men­tary con­gress­es. An expert in world affairs, he has been advis­er to some of our polit­i­cal lead­ers. He is mar­ried to Remia Ledes­ma, daugh­ter of Don Juan Ledes­ma, a dis­tin­guished busi­ness­man of Iloi­lo. They have two chil­dren: one died, anoth­er, Mari­et­ta, a tal­ent­ed girl, has always topped her school­mates at the Col­lege of the Assump­tion in Manila.

When I was five years old, my par­ents left Car­men for Leyte. We went to the town of Cari­dad, Bay­bay, where my grand­moth­er, Dona Juan Lopez, had a great and lucra­tive busi­ness. She was engaged in buy­ing and sell­ing hemp. Our stay in Cari­dad was short as Don Fer­nan­do Escano, then the rich­est man in Leyte, invit­ed my father to stay in Mal­it­bog. He was to be his accoun­tant, pri­vate sec­re­tary, and coun­selor. Our life in Mal­it­bog was most pleas­ant and peace­ful, I well remem­ber that as a child, our ordi­nary recre­ation was to climb the lit­tle hill, “Cal­vario.” Cal­vario was a famous orchard with all man­ners of fruits espe­cial­ly guavas. The Parish priest of Mal­it­bog was an old man by the name of Fr. Andres Con­son. He was hand­some and intel­li­gent but he was hot-tem­pered. He used to shout in church. Peo­ple were afraid of him. I well remem­ber that at the cer­e­monies of East­er Sun­day at the “Encuen­tro”  — meet­ing of Our Lord and His Moth­er (sug­at) — because the sac­ristan failed to bring the incenser, he slapped him on the face. There was a tumult. All ran away and Fr. Andres had to return to the church alone.

From Mal­it­bog, at the age of nine years, on board the steamship Fer­nan­do Escano my father con­duct­ed me to Mani­la to pur­sue my stud­ies at that cap­i­tal of the Philip­pines. He first placed me as a board­er at the Cole­gio of San Vicente Fer­rer direct­ed by Prof. Alin­da­da Ray­mun­do. I caught typhoid fever. I near­ly died, and I received the Extreme Unc­tion. My stay at this school was short. My father decid­ed to trans­fer me to the Cole­gio Sagra­da Famil­ia owned and direct­ed by Fr. Mar­i­ano Sevil­la, con­tem­po­rary of Fr. Bur­gos. Fr. Sevil­la was relat­ed to us on the side of my moth­er. This school was also a board school. Illus­tri­ous Fil­ipinos like Pal­ma and Marce­lo del Pilar from Luzon, Jakos­alem and Vicente Loza­da from Cebu, were among the board­ers. Fr. Sevil­la, sus­pect­ed of being one of the con­spir­a­tors in the Cavite upris­ing of 1876, which caused the death of Frs. Bur­gos, Gomez, and Zamo­ra, had been exiled to Guam, but par­doned lat­er on by the Span­ish gov­ern­ment. At the Cole­gio Sagra­da Famil­ia, I learned my first year Latin Gram­mar, Span­ish, Cat­e­chism, Arith­metic, and some oth­er sub­jects. It was one of those famous Escue­las de Latin­dad, where many of the Fil­ipino lead­ers had been edu­cat­ed. In the fol­low­ing year 1896, I became a stu­dent and board­er of the Cole­gio de San Juan de Letran of the Domini­can Fathers. At Letran, I pur­sued my sec­ond year Latin, Span­ish, Reli­gion, and oth­er sub­jects. When the Fil­ipino Rev­o­lu­tion broke out in 1896, I was study­ing in Letran. When Rizal was shot, I was in Letran. As since the out­break of the Philip­pine Rev­o­lu­tion, things were from bad to worse in Mani­la, my good father thought it was dan­ger­ous for me to con­tin­ue study­ing in the Cap­i­tal so he decid­ed to trans­fer me in the fol­low­ing year to the Colege Sem­i­nario San Car­los de Cebu. I fin­ished my stud­ies in Cebu, grad­u­at­ing in A. B. in the year 1903. Upon the advice of the Amer­i­can judge, Car­lock, a close friend of my father, I decid­ed to go to the States to study law.

~end of excerpt~

Read also:

Por­trait of Filom­e­na Alesna Cuen­co by Cecil­ia Brainard
Remem­brance of Things Awry, the Fam­i­lies of Old Cebu
How My Great Grand­moth­er Reme­dios Lopez Cuen­co Died
Excerpt from Arch­bish­op Jose Maria Cuenco’s Autobiography
Four Gen­er­a­tions of Fil­ip­ina Women — from Jua­na Lopez to Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard
Roots — Pic­tures of my Moth­er and More
More re Jua­na Lopez and Family

Tags: Cuen­co, Cebu, Philip­pines, pol­i­tics, soci­ety, Jua­na Lopez, Reme­dios Lopez, Mar­i­ano Jesus Cuenco

Filed Under: Nonfiction, Uncategorized Tagged With: Cebu, Cuenco Famiy, Fiipina, Filipino, Filipino Women portraits, Phiippines

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Welcome!

I am a daugh­ter of the Philip­pines and an adopt­ed daugh­ter of Amer­i­ca. I have also trav­eled to many places so I am also a daugh­ter of the Earth. My expe­ri­ences have found their way into my sto­ries, which try to depict char­ac­ters caught in impor­tant moments in their lives, sit­u­a­tions that force them to act, make deci­sions, change. I try to see the world from my own point of view, not the dom­i­nant West­ern one, thus my inter­est in his­to­ry, cul­ture, and set­ting. But my char­ac­ters car­ry my sto­ries; they are the most impor­tant in my sto­ry-telling. I have to dive deep into them to under­stand their human­i­ty – their good­ness as well as their bad­ness, their beau­ty as well as their ugli­ness. Just like us. Just like each of us. I need to know where they came from, where they are now, so I under­stand where they are going. Just like us.

Please read my full biog­ra­phy here

 

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