Becoming Mom

I suppose the task of childhood when your mother is a famous actress becomes much easier when it is lived away from the glare of the klieg lights. I am amazed at the way the younger ones do it nowadays. However, shielding me from the trappings of showbiz was my mother’s choice when I was growing up in 70s.

My mother and I do not look alike, at all. I am often introduced as “the daughter of …” and a joke I like to play with people I meet for the first time is that I let the introductory statement hang and say “Wait, don’t tell them, let them guess.” I often give them three chances to guess who my mommy is and 90% of the time they are unable to name mommy unless I shower them with very obvious clues. Mommy always gets a kick every time I tell her who my latest “mom” is.

However, the differences end there and now that I’m in my 40s, I slowly realize that no matter how much I tried to avoid becoming my mother during my younger, angst-ridden years, I am slowly becoming her. I can see my mother grinning as she reads this.

Our mothers role-model for us the women we eventually become. Their behavior and mothering styles during our growing up years really set the kind of pattern that determines the way that we, ourselves mother more or less to a certain degree. Unless you had a terribly dysfunctional childhood, you often become the same type of nurturer that you remember your mother to be. Your values, the manner by which you dress, relate to others, cope with life’s challenges – the small and big things that remind you of mom truly become a part of you later on.

My good friend and college batch mate Alya Honasan says that her mom, Alice Ballesteros Honasan role-modeled for her how one should bear life’s trials with grace and dignity. “I used to wallow in my problems, but seeing my mom get up and cook after just learning of her son’s death has made me aspire for such strength.” Honasan who is also known for her wit, says that she and her mother are the best of friends and share the same wry sense of humor.

Swimming champion Akiko Thompson says that she and her mom Hiroko share many of the same quirks and mannerisms. “For starters I eat like a rabbit all the time now, close my eyes when I am in deep thought or listening, literally giving my ear when conversing, not wanting to shampoo my hair everyday and putting weird stuff like smelly aloe vera on my face. I’ll be shocked if I start cutting my dog’s hair soon!” Truly, we become our mother’s daughters sooner or later in life.

Nina Lim Yuson who set up Museo Pambata with her mother the well-loved and highly-respected Estefania Aldaba Lim says that her late mother was a liberated and progressive woman who was not afraid to question a lot of things. “I was a very shy child but learned to break through because I saw that from my mom. We are also both hardworking and persevering.” Interestingly, Lim-Yuson was also widowed in her 40s just like her mother before her and she said that at this lowest point in her life, it was the memory of how her own mother carried on after losing her dad that helped her pull through as well.

My TOWNS sister, forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun had the most devoted of mothers. Fortun recalls how mom, Amelia Luisa del Rosario Fortun was a hands-on mom who would deliver (via tricycle and PUJ) hot beef sinigang, rice, ice and patis with kalamansi for my lunch at St Mary’s College in Grade 3, and dinner when I was on duty at UERM. She was the one who kept vigil as I took the entrance exam at UP
Elem School in Grade 5 and she dutifully fetched me everyday till high school in UPIS. And just like mom, Fortun says that she is “one who abhors kalat and is obsessive-compulsive about keeping things in order like me.”

One of good friends growing up was Leah Roa, eldest daughter of actress Boots Anson Roa. Leah and I went to the same exclusive girl’s school and were classmates from first grade all the way until 4th year high school. Like me, Tita Boots, who was like the Sharon Cuneta of the 70s, made sure that her children lead very private lives away from the cameras. Today Leah makes a home in Virginia and works at one of the top universities there. To this day, she gets asked by Filipinos in the
U.S. if she is Boots Anson-Roa’s daughter or her younger sister. Leah says that perhaps it is because of the striking resemblance. “Some even say I sound like her. More importantly though, I see and hear a lot of mom in me when I interact with others, especially with my kids. I end up thinking to myself, “Did I just say what my mom used to say?” Dad often teases mom by saying to her “ten words or less”. Now my kids and husband have to remind me of that as well!”

Of my own mother I have a trunk full of memories. For many years, mom put aside her acting career in favor of raising my brother and me. She only did television shows when I was in my elementary years and would drive me to and from school each and every day all the way until high school and on some days in college. One memory that stands out from those years is how during a storm, when the entire Katipunan Avenue was terribly flooded and impassable, my mother, with and my then 7 year old brother, waded through knee-deep waters to pick me up from school. It is a childhood memory that my brother and I treasure to this very day.

Mom who needs to run (or walk) several miles each week to keep fit, indulged in the sport when she hit her 40s, makes me believe that fitness is possible at any age so it is something that I am trying to emulate and live myself now that I am in 40s. As for quirks, as far back as I can remember, mom has carried a long-standing love affair with virgin coconut oil long before it was in vogue. As a child I could not stand the smell but now that I am much older I find myself turning into a VCO junkie as well. Mom’s glowing skin and jet-black hair are proof that it really does work!

How about you? In what ways have you turned into your mother?Happy mother’s day to my mom and my mother-in-law Dr. Naida Guballa. Thank you for all the love and support you have given me all these years. I am truly blessed to have you both in my life.

Three Generations of PMA Graduates

MANILA, Philippines -- Cadet 1st Class Marc Anthony Romero of the “Maragtas” Class of 2007 etched a place in Philippine Military Academy history by becoming only the third graduate of a three-generation PMA family.
His grandfather, Brig. Gen. Antonio Romero, was a member of Class 1941.
His father, Armed Forces of the Philippines Vice Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Antonio L. Romero II, belongs to Class 1974.
On Monday, it was Marc’s turn to graduate from the academy and join the Philippine Army.
A former PMA superintendent, retired Maj. Gen. Rodolfo Estrellado says that of the approximately 8,000 graduates since 1905, there have only been two families with genealogical succession involving three generations of PMA graduates.
“It occurred first in 1981 when Natalio Ecarma III, the son of Rodolfo Ecarma of Class 1954 and grandson of Natalio Ecarma Sr. of Class 1923, graduated. It occurred again in 1986 when Paulino Dumlao, son of Jose Dumlao of Class 1951 and grandnephew of Armando Dumlao of Class 1917, graduated from the PMA. This is only the third instance, with Cadet Romero, that the PMA shall have a third generation graduate.”
2nd generation grads
Second generation graduates were more common in the academy.
Estrellado says that there were 131 fathers and sons who graduated from PMA. Given this number, it is safe to assume that there has been one in every batch.
In addition, there were seven families with four siblings who had graduated. The Andayas, Arevalos, Brawners, Maligaligs, Manlongats, Villacortes and Vinoyas.
There were also 24 families with three siblings belonging to the long gray line.
The experience of being in the academy from one generation to another has been both similar and different in the ways that matter.
Romero II says that during his time in the academy, he could not discuss military matters with his father who was in fact already retired.
“It just was not discussed. Maybe it was because he was still a part of the old school,” Romero II says.
“I remember writing a letter to my mother one time, telling her about the time I received punishment for an infraction. My father wrote me back to say that I should refrain from writing those kinds of letters to my mother because it put her in tears. From then on, I never wrote about those things again.”
Family support
The younger Romero has, on his own, decided to spare his mother from the details of his difficulties.
“He doesn’t discuss those things with us,” his mother Bechie says. However, the cadet shares an specially close bond with his parents -- ties that, he himself says, helped him during his toughest days in the academy.
“My family has always been there for me and I am able to discuss my problems with them openly. In my first two months here I really just wanted to go home. When my parents came for my incorporation into the academy, I wanted to just quit and go back to Manila with them,” he says.
In the end, his parents gave him the support that he needed to hang on and after his “Beast Barracks” days (the two-month period prior to his incorporation into the academy) there was no turning back for him.
“The biggest difficulty is being separated from your loved ones and having hardly any contact with them,” he says. In the first year, cellular phones were not allowed and you were only permitted a limited time to use the pay phone to call long distance.
“You adjust eventually,” Romero adds.
Pressure
He had entered the PMA at the age of 20, after spending two years at University of Santo Tomas where he was majoring in Electronics and Communications Engineering.
Is life harder in the academy for a second or third generation cadet?
Estrellado explains that the pressure on the children of cavaliers came mostly from upper classmen giving them more challenges.
“Knowing that I was my father’s son really pushed me to do my best because I did not want to let my family down,” says Romero.

Published on page 1 of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 21, 2007