This story was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VI, No. 7, March 19-25, 2006

‘Mother F’: Still Marching, After All These Years

We often see a woman in her late 60s in fora, symposia and rallies. At 69, she exudes youthful energy, often speaking in gay language with much gusto. Always with a contagious smile, even amid the political chaos and repression, she has earned the love, respect and admiration of so many men and women, gays and lesbians who affectionately call her “Mother F” or “Mother.” In return, she calls them her “political children.”

BY MYRA CAGUIOA
NORTHERN DISPATCH
Posted by Bulatlat

We often see a woman in her late 60s in fora, symposia and rallies. In every mass action or gathering, she would be present as long as her health and domestic responsibilities allow. At 69, she exudes youthful energy, often speaking in gay language with much gusto. Always with a contagious smile, even amid the political chaos and repression, she has earned the love, respect and admiration of so many men and women, gays and lesbians who affectionately call her “Mother F” or “Mother.”  In return, she calls them her “political children.”

“Mother F” is Mary Lou Sabarre Felizco, a dedicated mother of four (Danny, Onie, Lot and Gel) and a devoted wife to her husband, Adolfo. She was born in Leyte to a Chinese mestizo father who was a teacher and a half-Spanish mother, a homemaker. She and her only sister, Denday, attended a school for girls run by the Benedictine Sisters.

Her father died when she was seven and soon after her father’s Chinese kin snubbed them, prompting her mother to leave Leyte for Manila where they stayed with a maternal aunt. 

That was when Mother F began to experience hard times.  Money was scarce to a young widow with two little children.

However, Mother F had such a good singing voice and such a beautiful face that when she was 13, she started joining amateur singing contests to earn – and always successfully so. At 16, she won the first prize at the Grand Amateur Singing Contest sponsored by a liquor company, earning the cash prize of P75.00 – quite a hefty sum in those days when the peso was still worth two to a dollar – and beating the tandem who would later gain popularity as the Reycard Duet, composed of Rey Ramirez and Carding Castro.

With the song, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” she performed impressively in front of 25,000 people in Luneta including TV hosts Rosa Rosal and Tinno Lapus, then popular TV and radio talents. 

Mother F eventually became a member of the Philippine Musicians Guild and subsequently an actress of Filipinas Pictures. These gave her the opportunity to travel to various provinces, performing in town fiestas, always accompanied by an aunt.

It was around this time that she met her future husband, Adolfo Felizco, from an affluent family in Quezon province. With her marriage to a conservative family, she became a full-time housewife and started raising a family.

Shortly after, her father’s relatives would patch things up with them and they moved to Leyte where Adolfo started his dental practice. Before they could settle there, her husband contracted a liver ailment and was treated in Manila. The family doctor advised them to take a Baguio vacation. They did and in 1964, a year after, they decided to settle in the city known as the country’s “summer capital.”

Her husband used to work with the Baguio City Hall’s Barangay Affairs Office. The family easily got along with their neighbors and became very active in socio-civic and church organizations. In fact, Mother was once a councilwoman of Bakakeng Central Barangay. Also, as member of the Catholic Women’s League (CWL), she was one of those who set up the first Nursery of the St. Vincent Parish. She also worked closely with the nuns of the Sta. Catalina and Assumption Convents.

In the late 1970s, Lot, her third child, entered the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman, Quezon City and got exposed to poverty in the streets of Manila where she joined mass actions against the Marcos dictatorship. With an activist daughter, Mother’s exposure to political activism started. She and her husband would often go to Manila to join mass actions with their daughter. Mother also started to host Lot’s friends at UP who were young activists like her. She said she could relate with them because she, too, experienced being poor.

Mother’s political life continued when she worked in Italy as domestic helper in 1981 and 1982. Although short, her Italian experience exposed her to the difficulties Filipino migrant workers face. She joined a group that looked after the rights and welfare of Filipino migrant workers.

After that, Mother joined the Population Commission (Popcom) as a family planning motivator. The Marcos administration was then implementing the four-child policy, and as a motivator, Mother was told that she was there “to change the system.” Her work involved interviewing women about their perception on family planning and she learned that the main problem of women was not the number of children they have, but poverty. She then realized that was not the kind of “change” she wanted and so she resigned.

At that time, the Marcos dictatorship was at its peak. Human rights violations perpetuated by the Marcos regime were then condemned nationally and internationally. Her nun friends invited her in their fight for human rights and the setting-up of a human rights organization in Northern Luzon.

It was then that she again started hosting young activists and mingling with them. One of the priests she worked with at the Northern Luzon Human Rights Organization (NLHRO) named her “Mother” then. Local activists came to call her husband “Father.”

As human rights worker, she joined numerous fact-finding missions in the hinterlands of the Cordillera and Cagayan to deliver services to displaced indigenous peoples. She painstakingly documented human rights violations committed by Marcos men with the low-intensity conflict (LIC) scheme and later, by the Aquino administration that implemented the Total War Policy.  

Despite difficulties, hunger and security risks, Mother continued to do what she believed right and just. She found fulfillment in her work as a woman, as a mother and as a motivator for true change.

In the later months of 1990, Mother had to set aside her advocacy work due to thyroid cancer. She went through the difficulties of cancer treatment, which included two major surgeries and radiation therapy. Nevertheless, while recuperating, she still visited her co-workers and cheered them up with her gay antics. Physical limitations brought about by her illness and harsh treatments made her decide to leave human rights work. 

She went back to a inactive life but not for long. She craved for mass actions and longed to be involved again. She could not be passive amid the continuing political and economic crisis engulfing the country. Thus by the mid-1990s, she joined Innabuyog-GABRIELA, the militant women’s movement in the region. To this day, she gives time and effort advancing the causes of women and children with all her motherly love and concern.

Mother recognizes that she is no longer as physically strong as before. However this does not hinder her from being involved in the women’s and people’s movements. She is not retiring because of age. She will not give up because of cancer – which, she says, can go back anytime even as she has been a survivor for more than ten years. She is thankful she became an activist and proud to be one because, she says, it is what makes her young, gives her energy and sustains her in life.

She hugs her political children when she sees them, whoever, wherever and whatever they are now. Mother serves as an inspiration to many activists – men and women, gays and lesbians, young and old. Her list of political children is getting longer with each passing decade. Northern Dispatch / Posted by Bulatlat 

© 2006 Bulatlat ■  Alipato Publications

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