The tiny community of archaeologists in the Philippines lost one of its professional members last Saturday with the untimely passing of Amalia de la Torre. Amy, as we call her, was one of my first teachers at the old anthropology department of the University of San Carlos (USC) when I first stepped on campus in the 1980s.
A year after she handled our cultural anthropology and archaeology classes, she promptly left to join the newly formed Archaeology Division of the National Museum of the Philippines in Manila.
Amy had been active in countless excavations starting with the mid-1970s projects of Elizabeth Bacus and Laura Junker in Negros Oriental while still a students at USC. She had also joined excavations conducted jointly by the National Museum (NM) and the SPAFA Regional Center for Archaeology and Fine Arts held in Dimiao, Bohol as well as various training programs related to the Balangay boats in the 1980s in Butuan. At NM, Amy headed the archaeological records section, which made her the first person to go to when researchers needed to know about archaeological projects, sites and significant finds.
She was so trustworthy that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas asked her to carry out an inventory and accessioning of its entire collection of excavated gold that one can see today at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila.
The closest that I got to Amy, despite her stature in the small archaeological community in the country, was when she sat as an observer in my dissertation proposal hearing held in Cebu in 2004. She was on her way to a project with Dr. John Peterson, a Fulbright professor from the University of Texas at the time, who was excavating Bacsihi, Carcar.
Little did I know that she would be assigned by NM to work with me in Calcalan, Ginatilan town in 2006 and then in Boljoon between 2007 and 2008 to fulfill the terms I set in my proposed doctoral dissertation. It was during our work together that the gold jewelry now on display at the Boljoon Parish Museum was recovered some time in 2008 during the third round of excavations there.
Another excavation conducted in Argao in 2009 was apparently the last time we would work together. After that, Amy was hospitalized for a pulmonary ailment. Oftentimes in our excavations with another archaeologist, Ame Garong, in San Remigio, I would ask how she was doing. If there is one person that links both Amy and Ame together in the excavations in Cebu, it would be Joe Santiago, who has been the technical staffer assigned in Cebu in all the excavations conducted by USC since 2006. It was he who would tell me news about how Amy was doing and how her health condition was.
Still in her mid-50s, Amy should have stayed longer in this world and written more about archaeology and her experience doing it. Unfortunately, Divine Providence had other plans for her. The other week she was rushed to the hospital, feeling numb, her kidneys failing. She fought hard and stayed in the hospital for a week until she breathed her last on March 8.
Her mortal remains arrived from Manila yesterday and a wake has been prepared at the family residence in P. Burgos Street, Talisay City. Interment is scheduled on the 20th of this month.
Please say a prayer for the repose of Amy’s soul. She has found her rest at last.
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Cebudailynews. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.
