'Precious Silver'

She is one of the precious few who blossomed in her corner of the sky even as her brilliant and influential husband carved a name for himself as the greatest journalist of his time.

As Max V. Soliven was shining brightly as publisher and columnist of The Philippine STAR, a star in his own right, his wife, the former Preciosa Silverio, wasn’t simply basking in his glory. In the early days of her marriage to Max, she put up a school, O.B. Montessori. She embarked on a career in those days when women were expected to be homemakers (nothing wrong with that, though  my own mother Sonia was once a housewife herself).

 As a teacher and school administrator, she helped Max through his lean and hungry days while he was in jail during martial law, and the months after, when he was out of work and shunned by many of his friends. 

Under her guidance and her emphasis that children should have an appreciation for work, including housework, she steered O.B. Montessori into a grade school, high school and college. As Max reached his apex as a journalist, so did she fulfill her own potential as an educator. Today, there are five O.B. Montessori schools in the country (Greenhills, San Juan; Sta. Ana, Manila; Las Piñas City; Fairview, Quezon City; and Angeles City, Pampanga), with a combined student population of 5,000.

Precious celebrated a milestone in her life last Saturday at Brasserie Cicou, a French restaurant on Annapolis Street in Greenhills that used to be the La Dolce Fontana. French specialties like foie gras, French onion soup, salad Nicoise, coq au vin, beef bourguignon and crepes were complemented by French wines and champagne from Titania Wine Cellar. Eighty close friends and relatives came to greet the celebrator, who was looking very chic with her fashionable short ‘do. She reminisced a lot about Max and proudly showed off the ruby ring he gave her during their 40th wedding anniversary and gamely participated in a dance number presented by her staff.

In Max’s biography, Maximo V. Soliven: The Man and the Journalist, writer Nelson Navarro says Precious was “sweet sixteen and pretty as a movie star when Max met her.” According to Navarro, Precious’ mother Remedios was a daughter of Manila Police Captain Manuel Quiogue, a Spanish mestizo who married a rich heiress from Parañaque. Her father was Calixto Silverio, a justice of the peace from Bulacan, who was killed by the Japanese during the Liberation of Manila in 1945, “his body never to be found.” Precious’ older sister Remedios (Laquindanum) was my mom’s classmate at St. Scholastica’s College in Manila, which Precious also attended.

“A born romantic like his father and brothers, Max treated Precious like a princess from the very beginning. He called her ‘my Precious Silver,’ a literal play on her name,” Navarro writes. Though she at first wanted to be a nun, Precious became Max’s bride at the St. Anthony’s Church in Singalong, Manila in 1957.

Precious trained in Perugia, Italy for the Montessori method of education. The school got the two letters “OB” from Operation Brotherhood, whose “father” Oscar Arellano had encouraged Precious to start educating young children in the Philippines the Montessori way. He asked Precious to work with the children of squatters relocated by the Manila government from the slums of Intramuros to resettlement areas in Sapang Palay, Bulacan. According to Navarro’s book, when O.B. Montessori finally relocated to Greenhills, it would first rent property from Arellano relatives and eventually acquire the property that would be its flagship campus. Brasserie Cicou is right beside that campus.

I remember reading that when Max was “invited” to Camp Crame when martial law was declared, Precious was said to have reminded him to wear a barong, so he would look dignified before the foreign press who would surely flash the report around the world. He was put in the same cell as Ninoy Aquino, and was incarcerated for 70 days. Precious was both mother and father to their daughters during Max’s absence.

* * *

What I admire about Precious is that even when her husband reached the peak of his influence as a journalist and newspaper publisher, sought by presidents, kings and kingmakers for his opinion and advice, she was her own person. I believe that though her husband also brought out the best in her, she was not totally defined by who he was. She defined herself with her own hard-earned accomplishments, and this made her husband very proud of his “Precious Silver.” She was not only known as the wife of Max, she was also known as an accomplished educator and a diplomat. From its first home in an apartment in Malate, O.B. Montessori is now a sprawling multi-story school with elevators.

O.B. Montessori is a continuing success story, with Precious as CEO and daughter Sara Soliven-de Guzman as chief operating officer. On Easter Sunday, she and Sara and 21 of the school’s line teachers are going on an incentive trip to Turkey and Greece!

The late Max Soliven shaped many minds and molded many opinions, he launched careers, made kings out of commoners and made commoners out of kings. His influence outlives him. Precious Soliven has done no less. Through the students she has molded in O.B. Montessori for almost 50 years now, she has made a dent in precious young minds who would later shape and change the nation as well.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)