Remembering Tita Betty

The President needs to get a grip of things from the eyes of the citizens and not through her advisers or what she wants to believe in. She should get the real picture and face it head-on. She seems to have created a bubble around her so that she can be unaffected with the cries of the people and go on with her work – whatever it is she is doing.

The people around her make it seem like she is very busy doing this and that – but what is ironic is that the people she should serve – the Pinoys – do not feel any change at all. We only continue to see the deterioration of our country’s talents, resources, wealth – everything going down the drain because the President chooses not to act on saving them. Well, this is the public’s perception. Now, it is GMA’s turn to show us what her leadership is really all about.

Why is she continuing to cuddle the wrongdoings of people close to her? Why can’t she stop them or get them out of office? What is taking her so long to recover? Why hasn’t she found the right cure for the ills in government? Why hasn’t she stopped the spoils in public office? What has become of her? We are such a small country. Our economy will not affect nor influence the world. Our never-ending dream of wanting to become the next Tiger in Asia is no longer relevant (even farfetched) to many Filipinos who suffer poverty and injustice. Ours is a simple aspiration – that is to live well in our precious islands and to be happy. We need leaders who will protect and defend this country and not sell it off to any Tom, Dick or Harry. We need leaders who will lead us by example – who will start being responsible for their actions and start working for the common good. All we really wish for is to get “good” government services. Why aren’t we getting them Madame President?

Why is it too difficult to resolve simple problems like traffic, squatting, pollution, dirty markets, dirty hospitals, etc.? Why, even the roads to this day are still full of potholes and manholes. It has been so easy for you to tell us that the Governors, the Congressmen and the Mayors or your Cabinet members take charge of these “micro” issues – but for a Juan dela Cruz these are “macro” issues and until the basic needs have been resolved and satisfied they will remain more important to us than that “economic” package you have been trying to pursue or prove all this time. Where is it anyway? Ultimately, Madame, this is about leadership. We had hoped and still hope that through your leadership things will change — but here we are again in the crossroads of history –questioning!

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How can I let the memory of Tita Betty Go Belmonte fade away? Whenever there are decisions that I have to make regarding my family’s stake in the Philippine Star, I turn to my dad (the late Maximo V. Soliven) and Tita Betty (who died January 1994). I was a little girl back then in 1987 when they began their journey to fight the dictatorship. I was conscious of life and its realities. Don’t forget I was a martial law baby, so I grew up to be socially and politically conscious. When Tita Betty and my dad set up The Inquirer along with other journalists, I was there. I was always part of the action. I was even with Tita Betty and my dad distributing The Inquirer to the people at EDSA as we were walking to get inside Camp Crame where we would meet Ramos. Tita Betty held my hand along the way until we entered the gates. There was just that special bond, a tiny one that I can never forget and is hard to let go. The ‘idea’ and the mission of the work they have began and which today has paid off through the success and the fruits reaped by The STAR, must continue and be strengthened because we have already began leading the way. No newspaper can ever match or even claim to be better than us — the heights we have reached, the honor and respect we have earned. The STAR has always been guided by the Biblical exhortation, “Truth shall prevail.” This is the legacy that Tita Betty and my dad have given to the Filipino people.

I have been keeping in my journals this piece that my father wrote about Tita Betty and I would like to share it with you:

Remembering a tireless, dynamic Betty Go Belmonte….If there’s a Japanese word that can sum up Betty Belmonte’s character, it’s ganbare (which means that one must grit one’s teeth, embrace pain and suffering, and not be bowed or defeated by injury or adversity). In the last year of her life, when she was confined to a wheelchair, she confided only to a very tiny handful of us who were closest to her that she was “dying” of cancer. She concealed her debilitating and wasting disease from everyone, even her relatives outside her immediate family, because she wanted no one to pity her and she didn’t wish to demoralize the STAR staff. Up to the last two weeks, when she could no longer rise from her bed of pain, Betty insisted on going on with the workaday tasks of life in her ubiquitous wheelchair, with a ready smile and a shrug bravely carrying on the charade that her inability to walk was the result of a bad fall and a temporary spinal injury.

Betty kept on presiding at board meetings up to November 1993, assuring the other board members that “I’m all right.” The few of us who knew admired but shook our heads sadly at her virtuoso performance. I wondered whether her jaunty and courageous manner had managed to fool any of the others who were in her inner circle, since we visibly saw her – game and quick smiles notwithstanding – virtually shrinking and melting away before our eyes. But Betty forged on, all flags flying her indomitable will strengthening as her own physical body waned. Her final Christmas and New Year were merry and bright. And at long last, she went home to Heaven surrounded by her loving family.

Writing about a friend more than just a partner, is a temptation to sound maudlin and over-sentimental. Betty would have had nothing of this. She was a dreamer, but she was a practical doer as well. “Enough wasteful tears,” she would say (although she got her way, often, by having her eyes brim over with them unbidden in the midst of heated discussions or in the throes of frustration.) She was a fighter. And, never wavering in her faith in God’s guidance and love, she co-captained The STAR to its inevitable success. She cautioned us not to be “boastful”, even when we had surged to top circulation and clout (despite brags and deceitful claims of others), but now that she is gone, though she smiles down on us, I can say that the latest surveys have confirmed that we’re Number One. Betty will intercede with the Lord to forgive me for this moment of over-enthusiasm.

For, as I’ve said before, Betty was the ‘saint’ in our pangkat, and I am the “sinner”. We were, may I have the presumption to say, the perfect balance. Her prayers gave the STAR, and the wonderful guys and girls who man the ramparts in its editorial newsrooms and in the printing shop, and circulate its copies daily throughout our archipelago, the boost they needed from above. I gave them the “hot foot” they required from below.

Hello, up there, Betty! Your dream goes on. You can never die.