Every All Souls’ Day we remember the people who have gone ahead of us, people we worked with, people who influenced us, people we knew very well though not very close to us. Last year, I wrote about my former colleagues at UP Cebu who passed away within the three decades. This time, I remember the people who started something significant during their lifetime and is being continued and even strengthened and being challenged to be continued.
Foremost in our remembrance is the late Atty. Arbet Sta. Ana-Yongco known as the Champion of Alternative Lawyering. Arbet earned her mark as the “first court warrior princess in the Office of the Prosecutors in Cebu” by defending the rights of women and children, and championing the delivery of justice for the disadvantaged in the 1990s. She could have chosen to make money accumulate material rewards. Instead. Arbet jumped headlong into “alternative law.” In 1997 as Legal Services Director of the fledgling Law Center, Inc (Legal Alternatives for Women Center, Inc.) she gave direction, urgency and passion to a movement that made violence against women and children a primordial concern as it should be.
As a shining example of gender sensitive legal advocacy, she challenged lawyers to catch the gauntlet as many have. However, Atty. Arbet was really above the rest in her zeal. She opened her house as refuge to abused women and children who had no place to stay while pursuing their cases in the city. This first human rights lawyer and heroine who lived her passion for “alternative lawyering,” was strengthened by will power to cope with threats on her profession, and which eventually cost her life, leaving us with a legacy of courage and sacrifice. This remembrance comes in the month of the campaign against violence on women and children which starts on November 25 and ends on December 10. Arbet also graced gatherings of women with her beautiful rendition of Visayan songs. Today, what Arbet started has grown, expanded and become enriched.
Atty. Niña Valenzona will always be identified with the Share-a-Child Movement (SACMI) which she efficiently continued after her mother became sick. Many indigent children and street children benefited from the program through scholarships from elementary school to college. Many of their beneficiaries now hold good jobs and are paying it forward to other indigent children and assisting the NGO’s programs. Niña, however, had ovarian cancer which took her life in a very short time.
One person I will never forget from my childhood in Carcar is Atty. Dativa Alfafara. She was everybody’s “Tiya Tibing” the one-armed lady who had so much energy and knew everybody in town. I remember her most for how she mobilized the summer activities in Luanluan (the cultural hub then of Carcar) particularly the Flores de Mayo. The month of May was divided by the five main streets (now barangays) of Carcar which took turns in taking charge of the Flores de Mayo every afternoon for six days each and the grand procession on the last day of May. Luanluan was in charge of the first six days of May which gave us the advantage of the fresh flowers blooming the mountains and hills for the daily offerings in the church. Early morning on these six days, Tiya Tibing would go from house to house to invite the girls in every household to participate in the Flores de Mayo. She also prepared the theme for each day’s offering with a very dramatic touch. She already knew whom to assign to every title of the Blessed Virgin in the procession on the last day of May for she also had a stock of costumes for all. Between the first six days and the final procession, Tiya Tibing was also busy preparing for the Literary-Musical Night during the novena of St. Joseph the Worker, the patron saint of Luanluan. This was scheduled on the night before the “bisperas” of the fiesta. She tapped the young talented people in Luanluan in presenting English and Cebuano literary pieces and local musical compositions. She had a way of persuading the young people to participate. The rest of the year she served as town councilor on top of her practicing the legal profession. When she passed away the Flores de Mayo lost its glow. I will always be grateful to Tiya Tibing for she easily recognized my potentials and developed my interest in arts and culture. She made me understand the different titles of the Blessed Virgin enumerated in the litany. It’s a pity I did not get to talk to her when I became a teacher.
Peary Aleonar Jr., popularly known as Vip, was one of the few Carcaranons who developed a passion for local culture and history though he spent most of his life in the city. He did a lot of research on the history of many families in Carcar. He was very conscientious in studying old documents of parishes and frequented the family history library of the Church of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons). On several occasions we met in conferences, lecture series on local history and culture and it was always a very productive meeting with him sharing what he had researched.
Sometimes he would correct me on certain data. Unfortunately, Vip never wrote or published what he researched. So when he passed away three weeks ago of pancreatic cancer, the first thing I asked his family was where was his research work. I offered to help organize what he did and even have it published to enrich sources of local history.