Grand Reunion
In July of this year a reunion of the Quirino clan is being organized. The setting –Vigan, Ilocos Sur. Amazingly gathering of the clan is made easier in this day and time what with email, face book, computers and cell phones. Already a mini-gathering in a wisely organized face book group begins to attract relatives all over the world. I attempted to gather these same relatives a few years back when yahoo group was new. I did get some to join me but not as big a number and as fast as the face book group. It went around so fast as soon as it got viral now the group has reached over a hundred relatives and increasing fast! Amazing! It got me to thinking…maybe the group site could serve as a venue to share information about our elders, keep the genealogy tree updated, and get responses to unanswered questions about the family. This of course is secondary to the goal of the reunion of getting all living relatives to know each other and establish family relationships.
All my growing up years I wondered, how it was like to have lived during the times of Elpidio, Ernesto, Eliseo and Antonio? My grandfather, Ernesto died when I was just a baby. From my mother, I learned he was a lawyer and a good one to boot. The only fact I learned from researching about him was his participation in a government scholarship program to train future leaders of the country when Americans took over from Spain. He was sent to America as a “pensionado” the term they used for scholar. He reached junior year in law but had to discontinue in view of his mother’s failing health. He never was able to get back into the program despite being allowed to do so to play the role of head of the family when his mother died. Eventually he finished law at UP in 1916 a year behind Elpidio who graduated in 1915. During the war, I learned he was staying in Manila and survived the bombing of the city. His brother’s family was not too lucky. Elpidio died when I was four years old. I’ve learned a lot more of Elpidio from history books. I was bewildered by the way his administration was associated with graft and corruption. Political discourse about his administration in my college days revolved around the “Tambobong Case” and his “golden arenola”. Perhaps these were the main reasons why I was driven by my desire to learn more about him so I can defend his good name. But I never knew him personally as a granduncle. So when my cousin Cecilia shared with me the story that grandfather Ernesto was the one who influenced him to drop his hobby as a painter to get into politics and the story that Magsaysay after being elected as President went to him and beg for his forgiveness, that thrilled me and gave me some personal knowledge of Elpidio. Memories of when I was a child have snippets of Eliseo and Antonio whom I have met during my mother’s occasional visits with them. I learned from my mother who stayed with Lolo Antonio’s family for a while that he pioneered the use of television in the Philippines and that he also attempted to ran for President. The summer home of Lolo Antonio in Baguio forms part of my childhood memories. I could up to this time describe vividly the layout of the house as we must have stayed there for a while. I also remember an Easter Sunday gathering in this house. And of course I also remember Lolo Antonio and Lola Alex visiting us at PMA one time. These curiosities in the past have turned into an obsession to learn more about the Quirinos and how they helped shape a nation. The upcoming grand reunion should be quite interesting indeed!
