Doña Bea Zobel de Ayala: Beautiful Inside & Out

It was a privilege to have known, and worked with, the late Doña Bea Zobel de Ayala during the administration of President Cory Aquino. After she became President in 1986, President Cory created the Bigay Puso Foundation to take on some of the outreach duties of a presidential spouse, since she (Cory) was a widow. It was composed of wives of Cabinet secretaries and military officials, and women from the private sector. I was assigned by the Office of the Press Secretary to cover their activities.

I remember very clearly the day we flew to Lupao, Nueva Ecija to visit the victims, mostly farmers and their children, of a gun battle. One of the children had lost a hand and swaths of gauze had been rolled around her wrist to stanch the bleeding. I remember Doña Bea scooping up the child in her arms, and with the child’s parents’ permission, bringing her to a helicopter that would take her to a more sophisticated healthcare facility. I really remember this beautiful and tall mestiza with the wounded child on her hip, as if it was the most natural thing in the world for her to care for strangers. And the child feeling right at home in her arms.

At another time, we visited the Tala Leprosarium in Caloocan in order to bring apples from the Bureau of Customs to the residents. President Cory wanted the apples distributed to those who could not afford them. At the time, there was a stigma on those who were suffering from leprosy (which is curable), or even those who had recovered from it. This made Doña Bea even more concerned about the residents of Tala. I accompanied the Bigay Puso ladies when they distributed apples and other supplies in Tala. After visiting the various wards of recovered patients in the leprosarium, we realized we were all very hungry. It was 3 p.m.! But we had one more stop before we called it a day — the home of the nuns who had a ministry in the facility — to say hello before we left the leprosarium to find lunch. In true Filipino fashion, the nuns offered us (including Doña Bea’s friend and fellow Bigay Puso member Mercy Tuason) something to eat. They were apologetic they could only offer us tuna spread (the one you use to make tuna sandwich). Doña Bea gladly accepted it. Then the nuns said they had leftover rice, but no bread to make a sandwich. She gladly accepted that, too, and I remember Doña Bea, the wife of the head of one of the biggest conglomerates in the country, eating with gusto tuna spread mixed with cold rice like she was eating in a Michelin-star restaurant! The nuns were awestruck.

Doña Bea was a supportive wife to Don Jaime.

I wasn’t with the group when they went to Smokey Mountain. But Tita Mercy, who later become ambassador to the Vatican, recalled to Margie Juico that after they had distributed the apples, the residents asked if they could thank Cory personally for them. Doña Bea and Tita Mercy relayed the request to the President — and with such determined emissaries, the President not only received the Smokey Mountain residents at Malacañang, she also listened to their concerns.

The Mangyans of Mindoro

I had heard of Doña Bea’s love for the Mangyans of Mindoro, particularly the Iraya Mangyans, whom she had met when her family built a rest house in Puerto Galera. Someone close to the family told me that once, while hiking in the forest to meet with the tribe, Doña Bea got so dehydrated her Mangyan friends carried her on a makeshift canvas cot on their shoulders to bring her back home.

“Indeed, while money may flow abundantly from the Ayalas, it is not just financial resources that built and sustained this community. It is a genuine and profound love — the kind of love that also serves as inspiration for me and my group. It’s a love that has the power to bring about a better life for all our indigenous brothers and sisters,” Kelly Austria of Trails to Empower Kids (TREK) once wrote in her blog.

She shared her surprise when she saw the village built by the Ayalas for the Iraya Mangyans—one of the eight Mangyan cultural communities in Mindoro — in Puerto Galera.

Before their plight came to the attention of Doña Bea, the Mangyans, according to a report by the PROBE Team, didn’t have access to basic education, health care and decent housing.

“When we visited the community, there was already a public school, a medical facility being managed by Indian nuns, common comfort rooms and 62 houses,” wrote Kelly.

And who could forget snapshots that went viral of Doña Bea and Don Jaime lining up for the COVID vaccine just like everybody else during the height of the pandemic?

Finally, an excerpt “Shoeless in Paris” from the book Cory: An Intimate Portrait edited by Margie Juico, who was Cory’s Appointments Secretary and confidante, written by Doña Bea herself. Though she was writing about Cory, the anecdote also reveals  what a  down-to-earth woman Doña Bea was, devoid of airs and affectation.

The former Beatriz Miranda Barcon.

Shoeless in Paris By Bea Zobel

One of the things I admired most of Cory was her discipline when attending functions — her punctuality. For those of us who were accompanying her, it was always a bit of an ordeal to try to anticipate when she would be at our door, checking if we were ready to go, because usually this happened too early for us.

On this particular occasion, we were in Paris with her on the eve of our departure for London. We were to leave the hotel very early in the morning. Mercy Tuason and I, who were sharing a room, chatted till the wee hours but did not forget to do as told: before retiring, we put our luggage outside the door.

When we woke up to dress, I realized I had put in my suitcase more things than I would have wanted — for one thing, all my underwear and the shoes I had intended to wear on the trip; in fact, I had only my hotel slippers, and at that hour, no shop was open.

I went down and offered to any of the ladies at the front desk who wore size 29 enough money to buy a brand-new pair of Ferragamo. You can imagine the look I got, but upon frantic insistence, I was taken seriously. One lady disappeared and came back with the ugliest and dirtiest pair of rain shoes, wet yet since it had been pouring all night. They were a bit big for me, but I was desperate. So, floating in them, I followed Cory to the airport.

In London, all eyes from the group of Filipino ladies who met us were on my shoes and between two of them the following exchange supposedly transpired: “What’s with Bea’s shoes?” “I have no clue…it must be the latest in Paris.” Cory herself was quite amused at how I had solved the problem.

(Bea Zobel de Ayala, wife of Jaime Zobel de Ayala and matriarch of one of the country’s oldest and most influential business conglomerates, died last Sept. 23. Born in Madrid, Spain on Feb. 29, 1936, the former Beatriz Miranda Barcon is survived by her husband Jaime and their children Jaime Augusto, Fernando, Bea Jr., Patsy, Cristina, Monica and Sofia, as well as the couple’s children-in-law and grandchildren.) *