Doreen, the consummate teacher

We especially remember Doreen Gamboa Fernandez tomorrow, June 24, 10 years to the day we lost her unexpectedly from pneumonia complications while vacationing in New York.

Doreen was many things to many people. Invited by bosom friend and editor-publisher Eggie Apostol to do so, she and her husband, pioneering  interior designer and architect Wili Fernandez, ran a popular food column long before restaurant reviews were in vogue, more interested in food in the context of culinary history than the gustatory delight of it. Wili, a known gourmet, had openly said that Doreen wrote, while he ate. She was a cultural researcher and wrote scholarly and popular works on Philippine culture, literary and theater history. She took such pride in the richness of Philippine culture and wanted every Filipino to be similarly proud. In 2004 she was posthumously awarded a Gawad CCP for the arts in recognition of her groundbreaking research.

Despite her accomplishments and a dozen published books, Doreen was proudest of her role as a teacher. “I can’t imagine not teaching,” she once confessed. It was her sheer joy in learning, reading and writing that she wanted to pass on to her students. When she was a student at St. Scholastica’s College, the school librarian banned her from the library because she was borrowing too many books daily (the official quota was one book a week per student). At the Ateneo de Manila University where she held many administrative positions—her last being chair of the Department of Communication—she was well loved.

How does one measure the life and success of a teacher? Not merely through the well deserved and impressive Metrobank Foundation’s Outstanding Teacher Award she received in 1998, but also in how her students admired and regarded her.

By the students’ own success and achievements can a teacher be judged. Consider this roster of students Doreen had challenged and inspired and with whom she developed such a kinship that they would have regular lunch dates, truly enjoying each other’s company. Among them were Fr. Johnny Go, SJ, Xavier School director; Rudy Ang, dean of the school of management in the Loyola campus; Bill Luz, political activist; and Luigi Bernas, investment banker.

She knew the students who showed much promise in her classes and encouraged them to write for the newspapers. These are recognized bylines today: Ambeth Ocampo, Queena Lee Chua, Ruel de Vera.

Oh, to be so loved by one’s students that they would remember, not the drudgery of writing and learning, but the memorable experiences deliberately planned for them, all to be used as material for writing. She took them to trips to nearby Angono for its rich folk and popular culture. When the first McDonald’s first opened in downtown Manila, she took her freshman class there and placed an order of 24 of the following: burgers, fries, apple pies, fizzy drinks—all to discuss, analyze, savor, and write about in a writing exercise back in the classroom. Others cannot forget being led to discover how to open a fish head and its 13 distinct flavors. Another one said he never thought he was any good as a writer until she typed all his poems and photocopied them for the class to appreciate. One considers her the best single teacher he ever had. “She was our excuse to gush,” another one said unabashedly.

As a tribute to Doreen on her 67th birthday on Oct. 28, 2001, her students and friends launched two professorial chairs in her name for the Ateneo in fields of study close to her heart: Philippine culture, creative writing, and communication arts.

The wonder of it all is that Doreen did not remain a mere academician, writer, and researcher cocooned in her ivory tower. Despite her privileged lineage and affluent lifestyle, she was a conscientious worker, not allowing her failing health to disrupt the normalcy of her life. There was her signature excellence in all that she did. She was a committed citizen, was active in the anti-dictatorship struggle, and assisted freedom fighter friends at every turn. She was one of the founders of the Worldwide People Power Foundation, the forerunner of today’s Eggie Apostol Foundation.

I was privileged to know Doreen in a more personal way for we are maternal first cousins. (That is why it was a delight writing Bookmark’s “The Teacher,” her life story, for the Modern Heroes for the Filipino Youth series). The Santiago-Lucero clan was a special beneficiary of her love for words, as she gifted us every Christmas for 11 years starting in 1985, a family newsletter representing updates for each branch. She edited it but had a staff of septuagenarian aunts, yuppie cousins, and impressionable nieces to help write and gather photos. Truly, she never stopped teaching. And in what was to be her final editorial she was prescient, looking forward to an online future issue.

How best to keep alive Doreen’s legacy? To paraphrase Ambeth Ocampo, Doreen will live on as long as we continue to eat well, read well, write well, and teach well.

Neni Sta. Romana Cruz (nenisrcruz@gmail.com) is chair of the National Book Development Board, a trustee of the Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation and a member of the Eggie Apostol Foundation.