Betty’s Spirit Lives On

Before I actually met Betty Go, her reputation preceded her–in a fashion. As a fledging member of the Chronicle under the Lopezes, I worked with Feliciano "Sonny" Belmonte, Jr., an intelligent, enterprising 19-year-old police reporter who was studying law on the side. Often exchanging views during off-hours, Sonny and I became friends.

One day, Sonny confided to me that he had been smitten by Betty Go whose father, the lay missionary Go Puan Seng (married to Fely Velasco) was even then already identified as a towering pioneer in the printing industry. Betty was pretty but she was no ravishing beauty by Miss Universe standards. Consequently, I presumed that what had attracted Sonny to Betty was her character–her simplicity, sincerity and utter lack of sophistication, as indeed Sonny had described these traits to me. More than once–though he may no longer remember it now–the love-struck teen-aged Sonny would read aloud to me lines from the letters he avidly wrote Betty.

After Sonny married Betty, her path seldom crossed mine; however, our membership in the UP Sigma Delta Phi Sorority served as a common bond.

Later, when Betty finally became my boss, I found her to be a caring employer who took personal interest in each of the rank and file. How they adored her! Whenever she gave me a special assignment, she would call me herself by phone; it never occurred to her to relay the message through a third party. As The STAR prospered, gaining in prestige and widening its sphere of influence, Betty’s power and authority increased proportionately. Yet, she would still call me by phone if she needed me, thus demonstrating the truism that the great become even more humble, more unassuming and approachable as their stature grows. In this light, how absurd and ridiculous are the airs of conceit and self-importance lesser people affect!

A few years before Betty died, she had asked me to represent her at certain official functions. I distinctly remember two of these: a cultural meeting at the Manila Polo Club presided by Don Jaime Zobel de Ayala (I had to beg off from attending this owing to a prior commitment), and a conference held by some civic leaders at the Philippine Normal College (now University) on Taft Avenue.

It was only after Betty’s untimely death that I realized what strong moral and spiritual influence she had exerted over me. Only then did I fully appreciate, in retrospect, what a magnificently edifying creature of God she was.

Let me illustrate. Years ago, I wrote a series of articles on a young performing artist after her return from arduous training abroad. Modesty aside, I like to assume that that series helped to start her off in her career. Of course, being neither a paid hack nor an impresario-PRO for hire, I did not send her mother a bill. Having totally forgotten the genuine and continuing interest I had taken in her young daughter, the mother, attempting to ingratiate herself with a journalist, did so at my expense by repeating to her a random remark I had tossed off in a private conversation. To this day, the supposedly aggrieved journalist does me harm through various subtle ways–in a patent abuse of power.

By contrast, I once inadvertently and unwittingly hurt the refined sensibilities of Betty. Yet, she never showed any resentment toward me, nor did she give proof of any desire for "revenge". In fact, after the incident, she graciously attended two events which were meaningful to me: the launching of my book "Above the Throng" in 1981 at the National Library, and the ceremonies at the Casino Español in 1990 during which I was awarded the Premio Zobel.

To top these gestures of noblesse oblige, Betty asked me, most persuasively, to join The STAR. What incredible open-mindedness, what generosity, nobility and largeness of spirit her invitation conveyed!

It is doubtless reassuring to the staff of The STAR, no less than to its expanded family–of which I proudly claim to be a member–that Betty’s sons Miguel, Isaac and Kevin Belmonte and younger sister Grace Glory Go are at the helm, deeply imbued as they are with Betty’s idealism (quixotic as this often was), the journalistic world of today being generally ruled by ruthless pragmatism.