Conchitina S. Bernardo’s book on national identity

Being Truly Filipino, Personal Expressions of An Identity by Conchitina Sevilla Bernardo will be launched this afternoon at the Manila Golf Club. The elegant coffee table book is a treasured addition to my Filipiniana collection.

I have known the author since she was a child; according to her, I was the first to call her "Conchitina". Her background and breeding are impeccable. She is the daughter of the late eminent specialist Dr. Carlos Sevilla and Lina "Nang" Obieta Sevilla. Nang was a classmate of my late sister Leonor in St. Scholastica’s College, and they became close friends. Nang’s glowing praise of Leonor’s full-length dance creation "Filipinescas" was a sincere tribute.

Recipient of the Premio Zobel for her excellent literary works in Spanish, Nang is a nationalist of the first order. Her column in The Manila Times was consistently redolent with love of country. It is inevitable that Conchitina, steeped in public service and her mother’s nationalistic ideals, should come out with Being Truly Filipino. Wife of Joseph D. Bernardo, distinguished Philippine Ambassador to Spain, Conchitina confesses that in Spain, she "discovered a wealth of archives and documents regarding the Philippines, and was also keenly aware that she had to showcase the country in her surroundings, her home, her table settings, her recipes and culinary endeavors, and her wardrobe." She does showcase all these admirably in her book.

Her first, Making Yourself Over Into a Compleat Woman, was for her MA degree in Education. Her second, The Compleat Filipino, was a compilation of all her pioneering instructional materials on personality development and social graces. She founded the Karilagan Finishing School, the first of its kind in the country, later becoming president and manager of the Karilagan Training Institute. She has served as Makati vice-mayor and MTRCB board member.

Being Truly Filipino should be a delight to both the academician and non-academician, being easily readable yet highly literate. Thanks to Conchitina’s proficiency in Spanish, she has translated documents in Spain’s archives which help to unravel not only the history but also the literature, religion, customs and traditions, culture — in a word the identity of the Filipino.

The author graciously includes in her book past ambassadors to Spain as also notable hostesses in Manila’s social circles. The attractive photos make the reading even more enlightening. One chapter which amuses me no end is on social blunders (faux pas) committed by diplomats (incredibly enough!) as recounted by Conchitina, the arbiter of taste and social conduct.

I feel compelled to quote in its entirety the final page "A Footnote in the Archives of Life" for its literary style and philosophic depth and substance. How eloquently it sums up life’s meaning to Filipinos and to all other mortals!

"It is autumn, and winter is around the corner. I watch the leaves fall from the trees … many leaves, from thousands of trees, all over the city. I know this is happening in all of Spain, in all of Europe, in all other continents, in all the temperate countries that await the coming of winter. I contemplate them falling and I recall how my mother finally found consolation from a personal tragedy when a Carmelite nun told her that ‘not a single leaf falls from a tree without the Lord consenting to it.’ I think of how humbling such a statement is, and how comforting. I realize how insignificant we all are in the larger scheme of things. Like a lone leaf fluttering down, one of millions, even billions, impossible to count. Yet how important we are, just like the leaf, that it should require Divine consent. Nothing in life happens without a Godly permission, and without a reason. We have only to comply. I have long ago relinquished a compulsion to control. I know that I have never been in control. I say this as I conclude this book, because I am tempted to congratulate myself. Then humbly, I remember the many books I haven’t read nor even begun to read; the music composed through the centuries I haven’t even begun to listen to, and shall never hear. I think of the grandchildren that I am yet to see, the life that I have left to live, and I realize how truly ‘little’ I am. Yet no matter how infinitesimal, I mattered enough to have contributed a footnote to life’s archives. A small journal of a time that was, to me, almost magical, a time when I was truly Filipino."