Clem, master traveler

Maria Clementina Luciano Pablo, youngest daughter of the late Court of Appeals Justice Leonor Luciano and the first female resident manager of a five-star hotel in the country, passed away last Thursday after a two-year uphill battle with lung cancer.

After an evening Mass last week, Mabini “EQ” Pablo, former undersecretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways and now governor of the Philippine National Red Cross, shared with us some thoughts on his beloved Clem and the wonderful moments spent together discovering distant destinations on a shoestring budget.

“My life with Clem has always been marked by journey and travel and adventure and exploring. While we both grew up here in Manila, we met in Mindanao, of all places, where she was pioneering a hotel institute and I was working on a Mindanao regional development project. The fact that we met while on the road was, for me, a sign of things to come. For more than 40 years, we would travel and explore together. Our bags have landed on carousels at airports all around the globe. But more important than the places, we also explored the different terrains of life—the ups and downs, the smooth and the rough.

“Clem and I went through the typical boyfriend-and-girlfriend stage for some years before settling down. We had a long distance relationship. In the 1970s, she studied in Salzburg and worked at the Vienna Hilton for seven years. I went to the Netherlands on a scholarship. We would travel by train together, at times on one train ticket as we would enter the turnstiles at the same time when the station guards were not looking. We would share a baguette while under the Eiffel Tower. (We could not afford the lift that would take us to the top.) Sometimes our dates were not dates at all. She would be on the night shift at her hotel in Vienna, so I would wait for her in the lobby. I waited there so often that on one night, I was mistaken for a bum trying to get warm and got thrown out of the hotel. It didn’t matter. We were in Europe and we were together.

“After two years, I returned to Manila. We didn’t have Facebook or Skype or Facetime. What we had was the old style, operator-assisted PLDT telephone. Believe me, at that time, there were ways of getting big discounts for international calls, so I could talk to Clem for hours.

“We got married in 1981 and we started our family, first with Joao and then with Lia. As much as possible, we made it a point to travel as a family. By the time Lia was 11, she had already seen several Disneylands. Sometimes we would look back and calculate how much we spent on travel and we would say, ‘Siguro may bahay na tayo.’ But we never had regrets.

“Clem was in her element when we went on these adventures. She had the highest standards about everything. And she was obsessive about every detail… Even packing was a major production. She made sure that we would have everything: underwear folded into squares, Tide bar so she could do our laundry on the road, hand wash, paper toilet seat covers.

“She knew the most quaint and charming places to stay, the best hotels—those that gave value for money. Sometimes she even knew the best rooms in these hotels. Once she decided that she didn’t like the view from a hotel room in Paris, and she insisted on a transfer even though it was midnight. She always knew the best places to eat, the best dishes to order. She could overhaul a menu at a moment’s notice to get the best culinary experience and the best value for money. She knew where to get the best foie gras, the best truffles, the best danggit, and the best bagnet.

“That was Clem. Some say that this was from her training in the international hotel industry. I am sure that is true. But even deeper than that, I think it was because she was born with a heart for service. She was hardwired to move heaven and earth for those she loved.

“I have been blessed to be at the center of that kind of love for many years. Her support for me was unconditional. I worked with government for 33 years, and I would take home a paycheck that was puny compared to what she was making. It didn’t matter. She supported me. I would encounter the instabilities of changes in government. It didn’t matter. She supported me. I made good career decisions. I made some bad ones. It didn’t matter. She supported me. No one loved me more than Clem.

“The last trip that we planned together was in May 2012. We were going to tour Italy as a family as a gift for Lia, who had just graduated from UP cum laude. The weekend before departure, Clem went in for a routine checkup and the findings were discouraging.

“Since that time, Clem and I have been on a journey of a different kind. We have had to navigate a completely different terrain. It had become a journey that was full of doctor’s offices, multiple CT scans, blood tests, and chemotherapy. It was one surgery after another and continuing struggles with infections. Eventually the journey had to be lived day by day, then hour by hour, then breath by breath.

“….For both of us, the story began with denial, then resignation. Slowly, we both moved to acceptance, conforming with God’s will. Even in this kind of journey, she was the master traveler and just as I had in the years before, I continued to learn from her.

“During her last days, Clem was at home and it was becoming more and more difficult to breathe and to talk. I would take sheets of paper on a pen and encourage her to write what she wanted to say. Once she wrote, ‘Baked Ziti from Sbarro, half order.’ Another time, she wrote, ‘Victorinox menu.’ On one occasion, she wrote a single word ‘beautiful’. I still have that sheet of paper with me. I take it as a message from God that he will create something beautiful out of this suffering.

“Last night, Clem began the ultimate journey of her life, hand in hand with God. I can only imagine the marvelous things she is seeing right now.

“Thank you for being with us on this journey.”

* * *

EQ, which stands for Elpidio Quirino (as a baby, he had the same chubby cheeks as the president), is the son of my first cousin Bituin Pablo, an older sister of my mother. Clem’s brother, Victor Luciano, is president and CEO of Clark International Airport Corp.