Child of history

She came out like a star diversion during the Corona impeachment trial, yet a celebrity she had not wanted to be. She simply wanted to speak the truth, knowing she was at life’s twilight. For the truth she knew was first-hand and was held by no other.

Sr. Flor Maria Basa, FMM, was the last of five Basa siblings to check out of this world. The eldest, Concepcion (Tita Chitang to family), was

also a Franciscan Missionaries of Mary nun ahead of her. The second, Mario, was famous in his lifetime as the Philippines’ foremost bonsai master. The third was Asuncion (Cristina Roco Corona’s mother), followed by Flor Maria, Tita Flory to family. The youngest, Tito Peping, had the distinction of being named Jose Maria Basa III, after their grandfather, the friend of Rizal.

This was a family that had a front-seat affiliation with Philippine history. While it is true there is a JM Basa Street in many cities of the country (Iloilo City’s main thoroughfare, for example), the nun’s public disclosure at the height of the Corona impeachment trial—after years of living in conventual obscurity—was, for us, more of a reminder of the participation of a family forebear in the making of our nation. Buried deep under news bits of what had once been a simmering family feud with Cristina Corona’s side of the family is the story of the Basas and Sr. Flor Maria’s own journey as a nun. Thanks to her, even Ambeth Ocampo burrowed into Jose Maria Basa’s files to find an old photograph of him.

I refrained from writing about her at the height of that trial, when my biases for her would have been easily derided in a period of divisive debate. For she was in fact known personally to family as both blood and affinal kin. My sister-in-law, daughter of her brother Mario, is her namesake. Why Flory, my brother’s wife, was named after her is a story of its own.

But first, who exactly was Jose Maria Basa that his name is closely linked to Rizal and the Propaganda Movement? Often it has been said that Rizal entrusted books to him. Basa was engaged in the distillery business when he was implicated in the 1872 Cavite Mutiny that led to the execution of the “Gomburza” priests. Exile was part of his sentence. He was later pardoned on condition he will not return to the country. He settled in Hong Kong where Rizal, M.H. del Pilar and Graciano Lopez Jaena variously visited him. Through his intervention, copies of La Solidaridad and Rizal’s novels were smuggled into the Philippines.

In so friendly terms were the Basas with our heroes who tasted the Basa hospitality in Hong Kong that the Basa “inheritance” abounds with so many “associations” with history. Juan Luna, for instance, bequeathed to Basa his small version of the epic mural “La Batalla de Lepanto” that today hangs in Madrid’s Palacio del Senado. The Basa copy is now part of the Malacañang Palace collection. A young Tita Flory once sat for a portrait done by Fabian dela Rosa.

The five Basa siblings we speak of were born to Jose Maria’s son Jose Maria II and wife Rosario Guidote. At last Friday’s funeral rites in Tagaytay, Betsy Basa Tenchavez, a descendant of Mario Basa, recalled in her eulogy how as a little girl she would go with her Lola Charing (Rosario) for daily Mass. “I did not understand why lola would stay longer every Friday. One day she told me, huwag kang magpahula. Once, a manghuhula came, and although not believing in them, she allowed her out of fun. The palm-reader said, ‘Your youngest daughter will break your heart; you will cry so much because of her.’” In her anxiety, she vowed to pray the Stations of the Cross every Friday; the young Betsy had to agonizingly wait for her lola to finish.

One day, Tita Flory announced that like her elder sister, she too would enter the Franciscan convent. Rosario Guidote Basa cried buckets of tears. At that time, a daughter entering the religious life was a certified way of losing one. Family visits were rarely permitted. The ties that bind were finally broken when the new nun took on a new identity. She became Sr. Blanca Azucena—white flower; Tita Chitang was already Sr. Divino Amor. To appease Lola Charing, her son Mario would name his newly born daughter Flor Maria. Also nicknamed Flory, she was born six months after Tita Flory entered the convent.

Vatican II, of course, changed convent life. The following years allowed family bonding in her various assignments—as superior in Stella Maris in Quezon City, in Sariaya in Quezon province, and in Baguio City. Posted in Jerusalem for more than 10 years, she became known as a willing tour guide to visiting Filipino friends. Fellow nuns called her their Miss Hospitality. Family surrounded her on her last birthday this December at the nuns’ retirement home in Carmona, Cavite. Bedridden from colon cancer, she had told them, “I will just stay in my room, no calls from anyone.” She could hardly eat but the pain she never showed.

Once she had a simple dream: a chapel for Carmona’s poor in memory of her older sister, Sr. Concepcion Basa, who was known for a heroic life lived for the poor and who herself lived poorly. (Family members occasionally visiting her were aghast that mice were running around her room. Livelihood projects she had organized for the poor produced export quality products for international markets.) The dream now stands in Carmona. That was characteristic Tita Flory.

By coming out in public to say the truth, all she had wanted was to challenge us with a life lived for others. Truth, charity, justice were not just religious platitudes from convent life. These were virtues to live by, which her grandfather-hero shared in the making of our nation.