March 19, 2006
“Mother F”
Going 70 and going strong
By MYRA CAGUIOA
We often see a woman in her late 60’s in fora, symposia and rallies. In every mass action or gathering, she will be present as long as her health and domestic responsibilities allows. At 69, she exudes youthful energy, often speaking in gay language expressed with much gusto. Always with a contagious smile, amid the political chaos and repression, she earned the love, respect and admiration of so many men and women, gays and lesbians who affectionately call her “Mother F” or “Mother”. In return, she calls them her “political children”.
“Mother F” is Mary Lou Sabarre Felizco, a dedicated mother of four (Danny, Onie, Lot and Gel) and a devoted wife to her husband, Adolfo. She was born in Leyte to a Chinese-mestizo father who was a teacher and a half-Spanish mother, a homemaker. She and her only sister, Denday, attended a school for girls run by the Benedictine Sisters.
Her father died when she was seven and soon after her father’s Chinese family snubbed them that prompted her mother to leave Leyte for Manila where they stayed with a maternal aunt. That was when Mother F experienced hard times. Money was scarce to a young widow with two little children. However, Mother F had a good singing voice and a beautiful face that when she was 13, she started joining amateur singing contests to earn. At 16, she won the first prize at the Grand Amateur Singing Contest sponsored by a liquor company earning the cash prize of P75 and beating the popular tandem, Rey-Card duet.
With the song, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, she performed impressively in front of 25,000 people in Luneta including TV hosts, Rosa Rosal and Tinno Lapus, then popular TV and radio talents.
Mother F eventually became a member of the Philippine Musicians Guild and subsequently an actress of the Filipinas Pictures. These gave her the opportunity to travel to various provinces performing in town fiestas, always accompanied by an aunt.
It was around this time that she met her future husband, Adolfo Felizco, from an affluent family in Quezon Province. With her marriage to a conservative family, she became a fulltime housewife and started raising a family.
Meanwhile, her father’s family has patched things up with them and her family went back to Leyte to start her husband’s dental practice. Before they could settle there, her husband had a liver ailment and was treated in Manila. The family doctor advised them to take a Baguio vacation. In 1964, a year after that vacation, they decided to settle in Baguio.
Political awakening
Her husband used to work with the Baguio City Hall’s Barangay Affairs Office. The family easily got along with their neighbors and became very active in socio-civic and church organizations. In fact, Mother was once a Councilwoman of Bakakeng Central Barangay. Also, as member of the Catholic Women’s League, she was one of those who set up the first Nursery of the St. Vincent Parish. She also worked closely with the nuns of the Sta. Catalina and the Assumption Convents.
In the late 70’s, Lot, her third child, entered the University of the Philippines and was exposed to poverty in the streets of Manila where she joined mass actions against the Marcos dictatorship. With an activist daughter, Mother’s exposure to political activism started. She and her husband would often go to Manila to join mass actions with their daughter. Mother also started to host Lot’s friends at UP who are young activists like her. She said she could relate with them because she, too, experienced being poor.
Mother’s political life continued when she worked in Italy as domestic helper in 1981 and 1982. Although short, her Italian experience exposed her to the difficulties Filipino migrant workers face. She joined a group that looked after the rights and welfare of Filipino migrant workers.
After that, Mother joined the Population Commission as a Family Planning motivator. The Marcos administration was then implementing the four-child policy, and as a motivator, Mother was told that she was there “to change the system”. Her work involved interviewing women about their perception on family planning and she learned that the main problem of women was not the number of children they have, but poverty. She then, realized that was not the kind of “change” she wanted and so she resigned.
Human rights advocacy
At that time, Marcos dictatorship was at its peak. Human rights violations perpetuated by the Marcos regime were then condemned nationally and internationally. Her nun friends invited her in their fight for human rights and the setting-up of a human rights organization in Northern Luzon. It was then that she again hosted young activists and mingled with them. One of the priests she worked with at the NLHRO named her “Mother” then. Local activists rightly knew her husband as “Father”.
As human rights worker, she joined numerous fact-finding missions in the hinterlands of the Cordillera and Cagayan to deliver services to displaced indigenous peoples. She painstakingly documented HR (human rights) violations committed by Marcos men with the Low Intensity Conflict scheme and later, by the Aquino Administration that implemented the Total War Policy.
Despite difficulties, hunger and security risks, Mother continued to do what she believed right and just. She found fulfillment in her work as a woman, as a mother and as a motivator for true change.
In the later months of 1990, Mother has to set aside her advocacy work die to a thyroid cancer. She went through the difficulties of cancer treatment that includes two major surgeries and radiation therapy. Nevertheless, while recuperating, she still visited her co-workers and cheered them up with her gay antics. Physical limitations brought about by her illness and harsh treatments made her decide to leave HR work.
Women’s movement
She went back to a docile life but not for long. She craved for mass actions and longed to be involved again. She cannot be passive amid the continuing political and economic crisis engulfing the country. Thus by mid-90’s, she joined Innabuyog-Gabriela, the militant women’s movement in the region. Until today, she gives her time and effort advancing the causes of women and children with all her motherly love and concern.
Mother recognizes that she is no longer as physically strong as before. However this does not hinder her from being involved in the women’s movement and peoples’ movement. She is not retiring because of age. She will not give up because of cancer (which, she says, after surviving for more than ten years, can go back anytime). She is thankful to becoming an activist and proud to be one because it is what makes her young, gives her energy and sustains her life.
She hugs her political children when she sees them, whoever, wherever and whatever they are now. Mother serves as an inspiration to many activists - men and women, gays and lesbians, young and old.
Mother’s list of political children is getting longer with each passing decade. #
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