| Remedios T. Romualdez | |
|---|---|
| Born | Remedios Trinidad April 5, 1902 Baliuag, Bulacan, Philippines |
| Died | April 7, 1938 (aged 36) San Miguel, Manila, Philippines |
| Nationality | Filipino |
| Known for | Mother of Former First Lady Imelda Marcos |
Remedios T. Romualdez, also known as Remedios Trinidad, was the mother of former First Lady Imelda Marcos, the wife of Former President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos. It is not true that she was a maid or that she sired her daughter Imelda illegitimately. Though a simple lady, her sad story was the impetus that brought much determination in the hearts of her six children, who would later lead lives far bigger than those of their Romualdez relatives.
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Remedios Trinidad y de Guzman or "Meding" was born in Baliuag, Bulacan on April 5, 1902. She had a brother named Ricardo or "Carding" and a younger sister, Regina. Her mother was a fruit, fish and jewelry merchant from Capiz, Marciana de Guzman. Her father has never been identified by family historians, neither confirming whether she was a friar's daughter herself or if she was borne out of wedlock. All that is known of her father was that he was from the old town of Baliuag, Bulacan.
Miss Trinidad had a dusky Filipina complexion, jet black hair, an oval face which is similar to her daughter's, Imelda Marcos.
As it was improper for a bachelor to care for any female alone, Meding, as she was fondly called, entered the Asilo de San Vicente de Paul--- otherwise known as the Looban Convent--- which was a home for girls and abandoned babies. These included young women whose father's fortunes have dwindled, who were daughters of Spanish priests, who were sidestepped by stepmothers after their father's passing, "hijas naturales" and other circumstances that were not truly "proper" to speak of in pre-war Manila.
Carding lived nearby in a rented apartment, and visited his sister on certain weeks when time off work allowed it.
Administered by the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul who own today's Santa Isabel College, Manila and the Hospicio de San Jose in the Isla de Convalescencia of the Pasig River, San Miguel, Manila, the Looban Convent in Paco, Manila also served as a training facility for the skills of the home.
Enjoying the good patronage of Manila's elite, the Looban Convent also functioned as a place where Manila's affluent families could drop by to purchase the boarders' excellent handmade doilies and lace embroideries, homemade embutido, longanisa, tocino, camarrones, and at times, select wives for their sons. The Tuasons, Zobels, Roxases, Mendozas, Reyeses, Laperals, Ortolls, Escaños, Chiong Velosos, Velascos, Galas were but a few of these families who frequented the nuns and their Asilo.
Such was the respectable and impeccably rigid place that the boarder, Remedios, lived in.
In 1928, Remedios received formal visits from a Tinio son, heir to the Tinio haciendas of Nueva Ecija. When the suitor's parents found out, they harried away their boy to the United States purportedly to study engineering. The Tinio couple found it below their stature to have a well-bred yet penniless convent girl for a daughter-in-law.
Also in 1928, Doña Trinidad Romualdez y Lopez or "Tidad" (herself a daughter of a Spanish friar from Granada), matriarch of the Romualdez clan of Leyte (previously of Pandacan) knocked on the doors of her favorite charity, the Looban Convent, together with daughter-in-law Beatriz Buz Romualdez (daughter of Fray Salustiano Buz) and cousin Mariquita Lopez.
Doña Tidad sought to find a wife for her youngest son, the newly widowed Vicente Orestes Romualdez.
Behind closed doors, the Mother Superior asked two girls, Meding and Josephine (a mestiza with Moorish features) to enter the room and serve water and napkins to the Romualdez guests.
When Doña Tidad and her party left, the Mother Superior advised Meding and Josephine that they are to deliver a letter to Doña Tidad and to her older son, former Associate Justice Don Norberto Romualdez at the Romualdez home on Arquiza Street, Ermita a few days from that encounter. They are to wear their Sunday's best clothes. Unbeknownst to the two women, they would be judged on that day by the rest of the Romualdezes during their Sunday asalto.
Josephine wore American clothes while Meding wore her saya and pañuelo.
They took with them the sealed envelope which had nothing more than a blank piece of paper.
When they arrived, the family invited both inside graciously. Song and the musical arts being actively pursued by the entire clan, the Romualdezes clamored the two to perform immediately after a piano and harp number by one of the younger members.
Josephine flatly declined adding that she neither plays nor can she sing. The Romualdezes were shocked in disbelief.
Remedios, the less beautiful of the two, hesitated at first. After a little more prodding, and with Loreto Buz Romualdez (later Mrs. Loreto Romualdez Ramos) on the musical instruments did she sang Ako'y Ibong Sawi (loosely translated to My Love Failed Me). Some were reduced to tears with the emotion Meding brought forth. A big round of applause thundered that day. Meding won a contest she did not plan on entering.
Meding and Josephine went home with a sealed envelope from Don Norberto Romualdez. Unknown to them, it still had another blank piece of paper inside it.
After a few more months, the Romualdezes accelerated their move on Remedios Trinidad. At that same time, the Tinio son no longer visited. The nuns convinced Remedios of the benefits of marrying a man she did not love. They said the heart could be taught to love. And she would do a great service to God by helping this widower's household full of five teenager children (Lourdes, Francisco, Victoria, Dulce, Vicente Jr). Señor Orestes was wealthy, a lawyer riding on the fame of his generous brother Norberto or "Nonoy". His other brother Miguel Romualdez may someday be Mayor of Manila (he eventually did while World War II was raging). The Romualdezes were educated. And most importantly, the nuns said, the Romualdezes were catolicos cerrados.
Meding capitulated. She agreed to marry the third and youngest son of Doña Tidad.
The High Mass was scheduled at 7:00AM at the San Miguel Pro Cathedral (the church still stands today) on General Solano street, San Miguel District, Manila. However, she was awakened at 3:00AM and was asked to get ready for the wedding hours in advance. The marriage ceremony lasted for a little more than 20 minutes behind closed church doors even when it was still dark outside. Later, she would find out that another woman by the name of "Trining" (or Trinidad) had been a "confidante of leisure" of her widower husband. The Romualdez matriarch moved the marriage so this other Trinidad would not come forth, stop the marriage, and embarrass the family.
Remedios Trinidad settled with her husband and five stepchildren. She occupied the house Vicente Orestes built two years ago, also on General Solano street, for his then wife, the Moorish-looking mestiza Juanita Acereda of Barrio Tanghas, Tolosa, Leyte (she died before the house was finished and was interred in San Miguel Pro-Cathedral). Calle General Solano was a bustling street in San Miguel District a few yards away from Malacañang Palace (home of the Philippine presidents and Philippine Governors-General) and the San Miguel Pro Cathedral. This street was once lined with Delonix Regia or Royal Poinciana trees. In this gentrified neighborhood lived a number of important families such as the heirs of Trinidad Zobel, Angela Olgado Zobel (mother of Enrique Zobel), Reyeses and Bustamantes, et al. Part of the Malacañang Palace gardens used to be owned by Daniel Romualdez Sr. of Pandacan, her eventual father-in-law. (This land was sold in the 1900s to pay for the schooling of Miguel Romualdez, Vicente Orestes Romualdez, and Norberto Romualdez at the Ateneo de Manila which was located in Intramuros before the war).
Her marriage was marked with heartaches from her stephchildren, a passive husband, numerous pregnancies, and much sacrifice to keep her husband's name in high repute.
Lourdes, the strong-willed daughter of Vicente Orestes, headed the children in rebelling against Meding. They treated her coldly. Arguments echoed from the Romualdez house especially when Lourdes insisted that the life size paintings of her mother's image not be moved in any way. Francisco and Vicente Jr followed suit. Meding spoke to her husband privately but he always sided with Lourdes.
With her husband being so strict with his brood of girls, Victoria (later a lawyer) suffered a nervous breakdown and Dulce (later Sister Bellarmine Romualdez, head of the Holy Ghost College, now known as the School of the Holy Spirit) was intimately shy. Meding, ever kind and mindful of her stepchildren's well being, brought them to Malolos and Baliuag to see the fiestas and meet young men and women their age.
She sought help from Beatriz, Norberto's second wife (Norberto's deceased first wife was Beatriz's cousin). Beatriz advised Meding to talk it over with Orestes. The latter was a boheme and cared little for the tempers flaring in his house. During nights to the zarzuelas and movies, he brought his daughters along and left Meding in the house. She scrubbed the floors, cleaned the aparadores, counted the sheets, mended the clothes, and kept the entire house in good order similar to how she was trained at the Asilo. Instead of saying thank you, Lourdes and the rest regarded her hardwork as nothing more than being working class. They refused to be seen with Imelda and Benjamin even when all of them went to the same school so now the maid had to walk Remedios's children separately.
She went back to the nuns of the Looban Convent but there is not much that they could do. They said it was part of the sacrifices of marriage. Whatever Meding would do, they warned, she must keep the good Romualdez name intact.
Remedios's only causes for joy were the coming of her children: Imelda, Benjamin, Alita, Alfredo, Armando and Concepcion "Conchita." She made sure that she held happy thoughts, cooked her excellent galantina and embutido and frequented the churches and relatives around the city (to avoid confrontations with Lourdes). On practically all of these trips she brought her eldest Imelda, the most beautiful and gregarious of her offspring. (She would heat iron and curl her tressles and doll her up). Her love for her children kept her alive. She made sure she exuded a positive aura so that her children would not embibe the pains in her heart, so that they would come out healthy and strong.
Her old friend from the Asilo, Josephine, visited her once and was terribly surprised by what she saw. Society has come to know the Norberto Romualdezes and Miguel Romualdezes to be very wealthy and distinguished families. It was such an opposite that the youngest branch would have Meding cleaning house without enough househelp around her.
Her suitor, the Tinio son, came to know of her fate and stopped by General Solano. It was a doubly awkward moment as Vicente Orestes opened the door and Remedios was busy caring for her young children.
The Tinio son, now a graduate of Engineering, had come back--- still single. He was ready to marry Remedios against his family's wishes. That could not happen though, as now Remedios is married. The visit was civil, heartwarming, and very long. Vicente Orestes kept a wary eye from afar.
Her nearest friends during that time were their erstwhile male househelp Marcelo Cumpas and a young Leyte maid, Estrella Cinco, who have remained with her, without any compensation, as the finances of the Vicente Orestes Romualdezes crumbled to pieces (Estrella Cinco was one of the daughters of the encargados managing the Romualdez plantations in Leyte. A very young but impoverished girl, she was adopted by Meding whose original intent was to bring her to Manila and enroll her to one of Manila's schools while at the same time helping around in the Romualdez home. Because of the crises that fell around them, Estrella stopped school and became nanny to Meding's six toddlers. She eventually married Marcelo Cumpas, had children and returned to Tanauan, Leyte.)
In the 1930s, Attorney Estela Romualdez Sulit, daughter of older brother Miguel Romualdez, was involved in a bar test scandal. The answers to the bar examinations were leaked and the Romualdez name was dragged into the newspapers.
This incident barely affected the Norberto Romualdezes who at this time were enjoying affluence in their homes in Mandaluyong, Ermita and Pasay.
This also did not affect much the fortunes of Miguel, who have since assembled choice Manila properties for rental and commercial deals.
However, for the easygoing Vicente, this was a death sentence. As administrator to Norberto's Romualdez Law Offices, many clients disassociated themselves from the firm. Vicente Orestes Romualdez's nest egg was slowly denuded to nothing.
One by one the maids started to disappear. Later, Vicente Orestes' prized Berlina limousine was repossessed by Estrella del Norte where he previously purchased it and which was the same car that carried Remedios to the then high class San Juan de Dios hospital to give birth to Imelda. The gates to the two story home began to rust and the hardwood floors no longer shimmered.
Remedios, barraged with ill feelings from Lourdes, tried her best to keep her household together. Since it would be improper to sell her wares while using the Romualdez name, she resorted to the Asilo nuns who readily spread the word that Meding's famous galantinas, embutidos and tocinos were available once more. Many among the wealthy came eager to buy--- only through the Asilo. With the help of a niece-in-law, Cecilia Planas Romualdez (wife of Miguel Jr), she also started selling embroidered baby's clothes covertly under the name of "R. Trinidad" so as to confuse the emporium owners that they were dealing with Ricardo, her brother. The baby's clothes were bestsellers among the window shops of the Escolta in Santa Cruz district.
She repeatedly made the voyage to Tacloban to put things in order. At that time, some encargados were pocketing money from the abaca and coconut plantation on Gran Capitan left by Doña Tidad to her son Señor Orestes (these properties were actually purchased by Norberto for his own children. Instead, he named it to his mother Doña Tidad out of pure love and to lend credence that the Romualdezes were "landed". Doña Tidad, knowing that Miguel and Nonoy were far more astute and will lead affluent lives, deeded the choicest properties to her youngest Señor Orestes, whom she knew would be the weakest, though most handsome, among her her three children). Meding used part of the money she earned selling meats and embroideries to this matter.
Remedios, true to her merchant background, toiled very hard to save the Vicente Orestes Romualdez branch from outright indignation from Manila's elite.
Because of rising tensions at the house, Remedios vacated the home entirely, with her then five children in tow, Estrella Cinco, some tampipis and a big aparador (Marcelo Cumpas has since been let go because there was no money to pay him. He took a job at the American Bazaar Ice Cream Parlor nearby and tried to finish school at night). They first stayed at the vacation home of Norberto and Beatriz in Mandaluyong. Afterwards, they rented single room apartments to be closer to the emporiums of Escolta and the nuns (The Looban Convent exists even today. It is located along United Nations Avenue in Manila). This lasted months.
With the help of Ricardo Trinidad who at that time married a "wet market" vendor in Muñoz market, a repentant Vicente Orestes knocked on her door and asked for her return. He urgently needed help. Doña Tidad died in 1933. His older brother Nonoy was touring Bacolod and Miguel was busy with his enterprises. Both were preoccupied with their growing families. What little help they could offer could not compare if Meding would return and put the house in order again.
When Remedios returned to the house on General Solano street, the house was on lis pendens. She had to pay huge mortgage payments for the house to be back in the good graces of the bank creditor. The house was a big mess--- similar to the day when she first entered it that morning of her wedding. She tried her best to clean, mend the curtains, ordered bolts of fabric so she can sew and make the sheets, scrubbed the floors, sort the chipped china, everything. She paid for the electricity and the water. The roof was leaking so she asked Marcelo to buy rubber cement to cover th holes. When that did not work she went to the hardware and ordered galvanized sheets or "yero" / "hierro", a novelty at that time and therefore a tad more expensive. Her stepchildren were silent but could no longer interfere. The threat of Poverty stripped their Pride away.
Meding chose to live in the now empty garage to avoid further fights with her husband's children. On the heavy and large old table at the center of the garage was where her youngest, nicknamed "Conchita", conceived. This garage was also from where the young Imelda or "Meldy" would come out to ascend the staircase to the front door and ask for her allowance from her dear papa.
In her last two years Meding was always "afar", always caught looking else where. She was living day by day only for her children. She no longer cared for anything else, even the Romualdez name so held highly by those around her.
In her last act of defiance, Meding summoned a taxicab as soon as she felt labor pains, without anyone knowing. Days later, her husband's daughters by Juanita found her in the charity ward of the Philippine General Hospital. Vicente Orestes was enraged. His youngest daughter's birth certificate would read "charity ward" in it forever and he felt he was slighted. (The said birth certificate was then changed in the later years during the Marcos presidency.)
She died on April 7, 1938 in the Singian clinic, also on General Solano and a few yards away from both the Romualdez home and the San Miguel Pro-Cathedral, two days after her birthday, when she was 36. (Strangely, Juanita Acereda (Vicente Orestes' first wife) was still is interred inside the same church).
The diagnosis was that she had severe pneumonia. Many attested that it was not so. Rather, she died with a broken heart.
She left the aparador that she brought with her in her every sojourn, some personal effects and a few pieces of good quality heirloom jewelry for Imelda. No one knows what came about of these stones.
On her burial day, none of her own children were present to see their mother off. They were told to stay in the house. She was interred in the Paco Park cemetery, very near the Asilo from where she came. Lourdes, together with her sisters and brothers, was remorseful. She would later bring up Remedios's six young children as if they were her own.
On her death the Vicente Orestes Romualdez branch's fortunes fizzled out to nothing. The house was nearly foreclosed had it not been purchased for a measly sum by friends of the family, Mr. and Mrs. Antonio Ricafort.
Vicente Orestes and his eleven children from both marriages left Manila for the tranquil shores and less complicated life of Leyte.
Up until their teenage years, Imelda, Benjamin, Alita, Alfredo, Armando and Conchita thought that the lady in the photographs (Juanita Acereda) their step siblings showed to them were their mother as well. Only in their mature years did they know more about their true mother, Remedios Trinidad.
During World War II, Paco Park's age old Roman style cemetery was used as foxholes by the Japanese. Remedios Trinidad's bones were disinterred after her husband Señor Orestes's paid encargado was shot to death prior to saving her remains from the chaos. This explains why, in 1965, her daughter the newly installed First Lady laid wreaths to her cousin Speaker Daniel Romualdez y Zialcita's (a son of Miguel Romualdez) but none for her (even after Loreto Romualdez Ramos insisted so every time she met her cousin Imelda); no one could tell where the bones of Remedios went.
Imelda Romualdez Marcos, married to Ferdinand Marcos, former Philippine President. Former congresswoman of Leyte. Former governor of Manila. Her children include Maria Imelda Josefa Marcos or Imee Marcos, congresswoman of Ilocos Norte; Ferdinand Jr or Bongbong Marcos, governor of Ilocos Norte; Irene Marcos, married to Gregorio Benitez Araneta; and Aimee Marcos.
Benjamin Trinidad Romualdez, married to Julita Gomez, of the prosperous Gomezes of Leyte. His children are Architect Daniel Romualdez of New York and the Hamptons; Benjamin Phillip Romualdez of the Benguet Mining Corporation; congressman Ferdinand Martin Romualdez who owns shares in Banco de Oro and San Miguel Pure Foods; and Maria Remedios "Marean" Pompidou of Paris and Boston, wife of one of one of the grandsons of Georges Pompidou.
Alita Trinidad Romualdez, married to Rodolfo Martel. Alfredo Trinidad Romualdez, married to Agnes Sison. Former Tacloban city mayor. His son, Alfredo Jr, was a former congressman of Leyte.
Armando Trinidad Romualdez, married to Vilma Romualdez.
Concepcion Trinidad Romualdez, also known as Conchita, married to Edon Yap. Mr. Yap who was a close security aide of Imelda Marcos. Their daughter, Michelle is married to the mayor Tobey Tiangco of Navotas.
Lourdes Acereda Romualdez, divorced from Emilio Caguiat, a Filipino based in the United States. Lourdes Romualdez was a lawyer.
Francisco Acereda Romualdez, married to Milagros Lebumfacil. Their daughter is Miss Philippines Margarita Lebumfacil Romualdez.
Victoria Acereda Romualdez. She remained single all her life. She was also a lawyer.
Dulce Acereda Romualdez, and later known as Bellarmine, single. A Catholic nun, specifically the former Mother Superior of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit's Philippine province.
Vicente Acereda Romualdez Jr., married first to Juanita Paguia then second to Rosita Veloso.