FEATURES: Well-loved Ilonggo educators
Balita News
ILOILO CITY, Jan. 24 (PNA) -- The well-loved and admired Ilonggo
educators, according to famous Ilonggo historian and Iloilo Vice-Gov.
Demy Sonza, were the Avancena sisters.
Jovita and Ramona Avancena, daughters of Don Lucas of Molo, Iloilo
City, were teaching course graduates of the Colegio de la Concordia of
Manila.
Sonza narrated that their father, Don Lucas, the wealthiest Ilonggo
during his time, became financially unstable because a typhoon wrecked
four of his ships compounded by the failure of a miscalculated big
business transaction.
Don Lucas was constrained to declare bankruptcy, Sonza said.
His two daughters, Jovita, 14, and Ramona, 13, told their father that
they will put up a class for girls in one of the rooms of their big
house in Molo to raise money to pay for his debts.
The class increased rapidly in number because parents in Arevalo and
the neighboring towns were impressed by the competence and character of
the young teachers.
The class grew into a school and several years later into a college.
With the spiritual guidance of their uncle, Fr. Anselmo Avancena, Jovita
and Ramona established the college campus and building in Molo and named
it Colegio de Sta. Ana in honor of the town's patron saint.
Like other girl's colleges in the country at that time, the Colegio
de Sta. Ana was a boarding school.
Although it was a private institution and not related to a religious
order, the college offered religious instruction. It had its own chapel,
Sonza disclosed.
Students came from all over Panay and Negros. As one alumna averred,
there was hardly any educated lady in these islands who did not obtain
her education at the Colegio de Sta. Ana. The Avancena sisters did not
only teach the academic and professional subjects prescribed in the
curriculum. They also instilled in their students, by deed and example,
such virtues and values as humility, and love of country.
With their income from the college, Jovita and Ramona helped their
father pay his debts up to the last centavo.
They also helped in sending their younger siblings to college. Paz,
Jacoba, Rosario and Josefina, inspired by the dedication and enthusiasm
of their elder sisters, decided to become teachers themselves.
Eventually all six sisters became faculty members of the Colegio de
Sta. Ana.
The college continued to operate throughout revolution up to the
American period. The college gained its place among the leading
institutions of learning in the country.
The certificates that it issued were accepted without question by
schools in Manila, including the Assumption College.
Of the male children of Don Lucas, only Gil, the eldest, did not go
to college. Vicente became a doctor, Antonio, Ramon, and Amando became
lawyers. Manuel chose to be an agriculturist. The youngest, Amando, was
elected as the first assemblyman from the First District of Iloilo in
1907, and as governor of Iloilo in 1913. The most illustrious of them,
Ramon rose to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the
Philippines. All of them started their studies under Jovita and Ramona.
The college also produced famous graduates such as Sofia Reyes de
Veyra- a social worker, author, co-founder and vice president of Centro
Escolar University and adviser to Presidents Quezon, Osmena, Roxas and
Quirino.
Pura Villanueva Kalaw of Molo was the first Manila Carnival Queen
(1907), writer, strong advocate of women's suffrage, and outstanding
business leader and Rosario Lopez Santos of Jaro-industrialist,
philanthropist, president of two sugar centrals, patron of music and
arts.
The sisters became recipients of Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medals
awarded by Pope Pius XI on July 5, 1931.
After World War II, the Avancena sisters donated the land where the
college used to stand to the Mill Hills Brothers, including the sum of
P15,000 that was received as war damage payment. Jovita died in 1948
and Ramona in 1950.
The sisters died while Colegio de Sta. Ana is now being replaced by
the Mill Hills mother house in Molo, but the countless lives touched by
the sisters through their college contributed much to the development of
the region and the country, Sonza said. (PNA) bfm/wpt/NAG/:
PNA 01241412