At long last, a book on Philippine First Ladies

In Carlos Quirino’s Who’s Who in Philippine History, only one First Lady was listed – Doña Aurora Aragon Quezon. And there was no book where one could get information on the other past First Ladies of the Philippines. Tomorrow, the Tantoco-Rustia Foundation will fill this gap in the Filipiniana Libraries by launching the book Philippine First Ladies Portraits written by Jose R. Rodriguez with oil portraits of all the First Ladies by his spouse, Lulu Conching-Rodriguez, all of which now adorn the walls of Malacañang. Rodriguez is a Spanish journalist who has been a permanent Philippine resident for a quarter of a century. This is not his first book on the Philippines. More than two years ago, he published his random recollections in the Philippines. Nick Joaquin described his Cronicas as "delightful, delicious, deluxe, delovely. It's a love letter (at last!) from dear old Spain." What we can say of his Philippine First Ladies is that at last there is a book on that topic and it had to come from mother Spain.

The book starts with Hilaria del Rosario-Aguinaldo, a name most people will not be able to identify. The very first thing that we learn is that Emilio Aguinaldo married her on New Year’s Day, 1896, the very same day he had joined the secret society that would initiate Asia’s very first anti-colonial revolution. By August 29 of that same year, Aguinaldo and his men left Kawit to liberate Imus from the Spaniards. Hilaria stayed in Kawit as she was eight months pregnant at that time. When she gave birth a month later, Aguinaldo came home to welcome his first born with fireworks. In his memoirs, Aguinaldo paid tribute to the role that the two women in his life played in the revolution, "while my wife distributed palay in the granary to the poor, my mother gave rice from her bodega to the families of wounded soldiers. These deeds made me happy indeed, because they were with us in our fight for freedom."

Doña Hilaria joined Aguinaldo in the mountains of Rizal and Biak-na-Bato. On June 12, 1898, Aguinaldo declared independence from Spain, thus becoming the First President of the Philippine Republic with Doña Hilaria as the first First Lady. As First Lady, she headed the Asociacion Nacional de la Cruz Roja that is now our Red Cross.

The Americans eventually drove back Aguinaldo’s revolutionary forces all the way back to Bayombong, Pangasinan. In one of the encounters, Doña Hilaria fell unconscious and had to be brought to safety in a hammock. Later, she was captured, but the Americans released and took her back to her residence in Kawit. Aguinaldo outlived his First Lady by 43 years.

The next First Lady Aurora Aragon-Quezon was only eight when General Emilio Aguinaldo was waging revolution. But her father, Pedro Aragon, was also a Katipunero who was imprisoned in Fort Santiago. In 1918, she accompanied his first cousin, Manuel Luis Quezon, to the first independence mission to the United States. By the time they got to Hong Kong, they were husband and wife. Doña Aurora was associated with the Asociacion de Damas Filipinas, a civic organization dedicated to helping unwed mothers and abandoned children. She also took an active part that attained women‚s suffrage in 1937.

Of all the First Ladies, it was Doña Aurora that had the most tragic end.

She was always making trips to the rural areas in order to help the neglected and underprivileged. On April 28, 1949, she was ambushed and slain by communist guerillas, along with her daughter and son-in-law. She is the only First Lady that has a province named after her. In 1978, President Quirino named Aurora Province after her.

Philippine First Ladies by Jose R. Rodriquez and Lulu Conching-Rodriguez is a well-researched, well-written and well-illustrated book. It merits a place in any Filipiniana collection.