Icons of motherhood: Mommy Dionisia and Annabelle Rama
If not for Mommy Dionisia's brand of motherhood, we should not be having a Manny Pacquiao today. And if not for Annabelle Rama's style of raising the Gutierrez kids, we would not have a very fine, well-bred Ruffa Gutierrez and the excellent Gutierrez boys (Richard, Raymond and all). The same thesis holds true for Leah Salonga, Daniel Padilla and Sarah Geronimo. Well, their lives are not all beds of roses. They have their own struggles and their ups and downs. But in their totality, the moms did excellently. For every successful son and successful daughter, I always credit their respective mothers. The fathers helped, but the greater bulk of the hard works were done by the mothers.
Mommy Dionisia, with all her so-called belated "love-struck inamorata" with a very young man who could be his grandson, can easily be forgiven by the public because she was able to raise, almost single-handedly, a very driven, passionate and determined fighter. Her sophomoric singing aberrations are easily overlooked because nobody could argue against success. And even Imelda Papin did not mind doing a duet with her because indeed Aling Dionisia has earned her feathers as a good mother of the family, what the Romans would call a "bonum mater familium." Manny cannot stop Mommy in her romantic peregrinations. He would not dare. Mom's words are more powerful than any boxing referee.
Everybody considers Annabelle Rama a class by herself, a "sui generis," a character that defies characterization or categorization. She has her own ways of getting results and earning respect from others. Since the days when I earned the honor of being one of her classmates in Southwestern University, I have always respected Annabelle. She run under my ticket with me as standard bearer, when we were campus politicians back then, and we won overwhelmingly. Annabelle speaks her mind no matter who gets hurt. She tells you straight and calls a spade a spade. Somehow, she resembles a more adversarial version of Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago.
As a mother Mommy Dionisia pushes her children to aim higher, to hitch their wagons to the stars, never to be hindered by poverty and lack of education, but to focus on their goals. As a mom, Annabelle is uncompromising. She is never terrorized by the Londoner English and accent of daughter Ruffa. Her words is the law and her children just have to follow. Above all, Annabelle was able to soften and mellow down the great Eddie Gutierrez, a feat that was never attained by either Liza Lorena, Pilita Corales or even Susan Roces. If she is a great mom, Annabelle is even greater as a wife, partner and disciplinarian of Eddie.
If it takes guts to be a Gutierrez, it takes a lot of grit, stamina and staying power to be a Pacquiao. I will always credit Aling Dionisia and Annabelle Rama for having raised such successful families. Leah Salonga was also mentored, counseled and cajoled by a doting mother. Sarah Geronimo too and Daniel Padilla. And all the successful sons and daughters in the whole world, whether presidents or sultans or kings, tycoons, taipans, or moguls, athletes or movie actors, military officers, or space explorers, each of them was loved, cared for and trained, advised and scolded by a mother. Fathers come and go. It is always the mothers who remain as the anchors of family unity and children's success. Cheers to all the moms of the world, my mother and wife included.
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