Philippine Family Trees Series 4: The Philippine Female Presidents and Senators

In this fourth article, I wanted to feature feminism at its best in celebration of International Women's Day last March 8, 2017. As much as I would have loved to connect all the female senators of the Philippines and of course the 2 female presidents we have had, like many family trees I was unable to connect 

Of the 22 female senators of the Philippines so far, I was unable to find any connections with the rest for Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Nina Rasul, Nikki Coseteng, Magnolia Antonino, and Tecla Ziga. Of course, I will continue to research so we can connect these 5 to the rest.

The above family tree connects the 2 female presidents so far, one of whom was a former Senator as well. And, all current senators: Nancy Binay, Grace Poe, Cynthia Villar, Leila de Lima, Risa Hontiveros, and Loren Legarda are all connected here.

We have the first female senator, Geronima T. Pecson, is here as well as the rest: Pacita Madrigal-Warns. Maria Kalaw-Katigbak, Eva Estrada-Kalaw, Helena Z. Benitez, Leticia Ramos-Shahani, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Tessie Aquino-Oreta, Loi Ejercito, Jamby Madrigal, and Pia Cayetano.

Philippine Family Trees Series 3: The Philippine Vice-Presidents

Family Tree of Vice-Presidents

In this third of the series, I attempted to connect the Vice-Presidents of the Philippines in one big family tree (click the photo above to see the details). It would have been a bit easier now since 6 of our presidents also used to be Vice-Presidents (Osmena, Quirino, Garcia, Macapagal, Estrada, and Macapagal-Arroyo) and the previous article on Philippine Presidents already laid the groudwork for their connections. I almost succeeded in completing the Vice-Presidents' family tree save for one: VP Noli de Castro, try as I might, could not be connected with certainty to any of the other Vice-Presidential family trees. I am in the process of researching his ex-wife's and current wife's genealogies and see where it will lead us. In this meantime, this is what we have so far.

It is quite amusing to think that some people have assumed I had an ulterior motive in writing the Genealogy of Power article because it made President Duterte appear like an outsider compared to most of the previous presidents of the republic. However, I have always held that Duterte's election as president is the first in a very long time (since President Garcia, at least) that a person who was genealogically distant from the ruling elite was voted into power by the electorate. I made this very clear in another previous article when I said that "Duterte's all encompassing, inclusive type of leadership was one major factor that catapulted him to victory - those from the countrysides and from the provinces are tired of being left behind." 

But what many have not connected is that I also made the same conclusion with Vice-President Leni Robredo, a woman who I did not vote for but nonetheless believed to be someone who is fresh, political-wise. In the same previous article I wrote that "Leni is also not a product of Imperial Manila. Her upbringing is of the province, so she definitely will complement Duterte's own provincial background. In fact, in 2015, she was proud to say that among the 3 vice-presidential bets (Senators Gringo Honasan and Chiz Escudero also have roots to Bicol) she is the only one who grew up in the province. This insistence on clinging to her provincial background is a tell-tale sign of her affinity to and advocacy for those in the countrysides."

Which is exactly what the genealogical table above and the matrix of power below will show us. Just as I surmised that among the presidents, Digong is second to farthest from the bases of power in Imperial Manila, so is Vice-President Leni Robredo clearly an outsider among the Vice-Presidents.

As seen in the matrix above, Leni Robredo has the farthest average connection, family-tree-wise, from the other former Vice-Presidents. Surprisingly, Sergio Osmena is the front-runner from among his fellow VPs with an average of 17 steps. Truly, Leni Robredo's provincial roots have almost guaranteed that her connections to the ruling elite would be quite far away.

That is why I believe that if only President Duterte and Vice-President Robredo would set aside their differences and work together, they could achieve a lot. These are two people whose genealogies tell us they are outsiders; true, they still both come from the local elite (Duterte from Duterte-Durano-Almendras of Danao City and Robredo from the Gerona and Robredo clans of Naga City), but they have carved their own brand of politics not like those of their families. And if they worked together? What wonderful country the Philippines would most likely become!

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So, how did I connect these people? Let's begin with the Osmeña-Macapagal connection. Sergio Osmena's tree connects with Gloria Arroyo's through one of Osmeña's daughters. Unfortunately, this early on, the daughter's name is kept private. However, the tree further continues with the last name of this daughter's son, which is Valencia. So, using Concepcion G. Briones's book Life in Old Parian I discovered the daughter's name, which was Rosalina and who married Dr. Elpidio Valencia. But their son's name was still private, so I had to find another means to know this son's name since Briones's book only traced the Osmeña tree to certain lines. This Valencia son is married to a Revilla, whose name is also private. So I googled the last names Osmeña and Valencia and Revilla and was directed to 2014 Philippine Star Lifestyle article celebrating the 90th birthday of Rosalina Osmeña Valencia. In the same article, Sergie O. Valencia is mentioned as having a Tina Revilla as a spouse. Since the Macapagal-Arroyo family tree connects this private Revilla with an Armando Goyena as her father, another quick google search revealed that actor Armando Goyena has a daughter named Tina Revilla-Valencia. An IMDB article further validates this. The family tree continues to connect us to the Santos, then de la Rosa, and finally to the Macapagal family with all names already displayed. But while these names were all displayed, I still googled all names or checked other family trees to validate their connections. So far, so good.

VP Osmeña also has another close connection, VP Emmanuel Pelaez. In the online family tree, the Osmeña-Pelaez connection is through Osmeña's first wife's family. The tree connects a "private" sister of Estefania Chiong Veloso, Osmeña's first wife, with the Villalon family. Once again, Briones's Life in Old Parian helped with the connection since the Chiong Velosos are also documented in the book. The book gave us the name of Estefania's sister, Eleuteria, whose daughter Genoveva married into the Villalon family. Because this was the only name made private, it was easy to follow the trail of relationship from Genoveva to her son Augusto, then connected to the Fabella family through his wife, then to Fabella's cousin, Edith, who married Vice-President Pelaez.

Then we connect the VP Gloria M. Arroyo with VP Jejomar Binay, VP Laurel, and VP Guingona through both sides of her husband's family. First Gentleman Arroyo's father is from the Araneta clan of Negros Occidental, whose complete genealogy has been compiled by Roland Oscar Araneta (who shared their records with me in 2010). The Araneta genealogy connects various lines and generations of the family until we go down to Tonypet Araneta, who married former Ms. International Gemma Cruz. From here, we look into the Nakpil genealogy, also available online. Gemma Cruz Araneta's step-sister, Nina Angela Nakpil, married into the Campos family and one of her sons, Luis Jose Campos, married Abigail Binay, daughter of Vice-President Jejomar Binay. Meanwhile, on First Gentleman Arroyo's mother side, we trace the connection with VP Laurel and Guingona. The Tuasons, Arroyo's maternal family, have their genealogy discussed in the the article The Last Haciendera: Teresa de la Paz by Luciano P.R. Santiago. So we trace this line through the Tuasons, then through the Legardas, Roces, and Prietos, who on one side married into the Rufino family whose one member, Paz, married Arsenio Laurel, brother of VP Salvador Laurel, and on another side married into the Romualdez family (genealogy derived from countless books including Carmen Pedrosa's The Rise and Fall of Imelda Marcos and Imelda and the Clans: A story of the Philippines by Beatriz Romualdez Francia), whose one member married into the Kittilstvedt family. Once again the online family tree made private the name of the Romualdez who married Yedda Marie Kittilstvedt but her personal website gives us the name of Martin Romualdez. And so through the Kittilstvedt family, then the Atega, then the de Lara, whose one member, Ruth, married VP Guingona. The de Laras also have their genealogy privately compiled.

Then we can go through the Romualdez family again and get connected to VP Fernando Lopez through the Manotoc-La'O-Lopez connection. Of course, this then would give us 2 more Vice-Presidents: one was Fernando Lopez, and the other is Erap Estrada whose daughter Jacqueline married into the Lopez clan. The Lopezes of course have their genealogies thoroughly discussed and documented. What I used was Alfred McCoy's An Anarchy of Families: State and Family in the Philippines, Phoenix: The Saga of the Lopez Family by Raul Rodrigo, and countless church records and other sources.

Still through the Manotoc connection we can further connect VP Elpidio Quirino which takes us through the Mayuga, Lucero, Besa, then Quirino connections. 

Finally, we connect the current Vice-President, Leni Robredo, through a long line: we start once again with one of Osmeña's daughters, connecting with the Alonso, Reynes, Veloso, Noel, Arriola, Pimentel, Requejo, and then Sto. Tomas families which ultimately landed us with Apolonio Sto. Tomas, grandfather of VP Robredo.

I think one can get the idea of how easy it is to connect family trees. As long as you have the patience and the nose to sniff out clues, then you can connect just about any family tree you want. As always, enjoy tracing family trees. And if you found this helpful, please like my Facebook page!

© 2017 TODD CABRERA LUCERO

Philippine Family Trees Series 2: The Philippine Presidents

Philippine Family Trees Series: Connecting All Filipino Families

In my article, RP Politics: A Family Affair, I started with the dream of connecting all 15 (the article was rewritten during the presidency of Benigno Simeon Aquino III) Philippine presidents. Aside from the idea of Six Degrees of Separation, I have always been a firm believer that everyone can be connected genealogically, no matter how distant the relationship may be. Of course, in 2010, I failed miserably in my connections in that I was only able to connect 14 of the 15 presidents, and 2 of these were not even 100% verified.

With the exponential growth of information readily available on the Internet, things have become easier. I have finally been able to connect ALL 16 of our Philippine Presidents in one big family tree which I released to the public just a week ago. This writeup is meant to give the public an idea of how this feat was achieved, as well as introduce this series of articles on connecting Filipino families.

Genealogy Software

Before the web became accessible by just about anybody and back when I was still in high school and had no money to buy software for use in the my research, I connected family trees using pen and paper and scotch tape only. Naturally, this took very long to finish and the dream of connecting people from different families was still just that, a dream. When genealogy software became very inexpensive with some even being offered for free, tracing family trees became easier and faster. I detailed the more useful and readily accessible software in  RP Politics: Family Affair.

Geni and Other Online Family Tree Programs

While offline software helped me a lot in consolidating family trees, nothing could outdo the usefulness of Geni if you want to explore genealogy to a whole new level. According to its website, Geni is "solving the problem of genealogy by inviting the world to build the definitive online family tree. Using the basic free service at Geni.com, users add and invite their close relatives to join their family tree. All Geni users can share photos, videos, and documents with their families". In other words, Geni is trying to build one big family tree online with the contribution of users from all over the world. With Geni's ambitious goal, many family trees whose members do not even know one another are now connected via Geni.

Aside from Geni, there is also the online version of Family Tree Builder though MyHeritage. OF course, data stored in MyHeritage will now be accessible though Geni since Geni was bought by MyHeritage in 2012. 

Then there is also TribalPages, which was actually the first online family tree program I used. I still maintain several trees with TribalPages but it isn't really my go-to online genealogy software. At a later date I will try to expound further on these sites. For this writeup, suffice it to say that these online genealogical sites formed the bulk of my source in connecting the family trees of Philippine presidents. 

These sites can also help anyone connect themselves in a big family tree. Simply open an account with all three sites, input your family tree (do not worry about privacy issues. You can set your settings to not display any information to the public for people in your family tree who are living), and watch how your tree gets connected with other trees. It is that simple!

A Caveat: Finding Your Gateway Relative

Okay, so maybe I oversimplified things. It is not that simple, to be honest. You can spend all your life encoding your family tree on Geni and still not see your relationship with famous people. The key to Geni, and all other genealogy software, is having a what I like to call a "gateway" relative. This is simply someone in your family who married into a certain, well connected family. Allow me to illustrate:

My mother's family is fortunate enough to have 2 gateway relatives. The first gateway relative is from more than a hundred years ago when my 3 times great-grandfather's first cousin, Januaria Taguenca-Cabrera, married Don Victoriano Osmeña, who was the brother of Pres. Sergio Osmeña's mother. This relationship connects me to both Presidents Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Rodrigo Roa Duterte.

My second gateway relative is a bit closer to this century. My mom's first cousin, Alfonsita Lucero, was married to Ambassador Narciso Ramos, father of former President Fidel Valdez Ramos. My connection to the Ramos family then connects me to PNoy, among many other prominent families in the Philippines.

Because of these 2 women, I can connect myself genealogically to practically anyone in the Philippines. As will be discussed further in the next article, the more gateway relative one has, the more you can connect to more families.

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Many people have asked me how I connected the family trees of the Presidents, and this time the Vice-Presidents. Some are even skeptical if this is even accurate or factual. I would say that these family trees I am doing are more than factual. They are the product of love and devotion without the possibility of being paid. I do these genealogies because they amuse me, they teach me things, and I have always wanted genealogy to be appreciated by every Filipino. But many need proof. So here are the sources for the Vice-Presidents Family Tree. 

GENI. Many of the family trees are found on Geni. However, you have to make sure that the profiles you look at are the master profiles and that they are being managed by family members or reputable genealogists to guarantee their accuracy. There is a limitation to Geni, however. Those who are living will not have their names displayed, and many of those who are dead are sometimes kept private by the family so they will only display their last names. So while Geni is useful this is just the starting point. I had to go through a lot of sources to get to where I am now.

ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS. As I have already discussed in many previous articles, I have combed through tons of church and other archival documents over the years. So it is not an exaggeration if I say I have bits and pieces of documentation pertaining to this and that famous family. 

BOOKS. There are so many books that can give you data about family trees. For instance, the Osmena family can be seen in the book Life in Old Parian, writted by Concepcion Briones. The Duranos, Pardo de Taveras, Sinsuats, Masturas, and other political dynasties can be discovered in Alfred McCoy's Anarchy of Families. Another great resource is Sheila S. Coronel's The Rulemakers - How the Wealthy and Well-Born Dominate Congress, which has a lot of genealogical information. 

INTERNET. Finally, the internet. When I get stumped on two people's relationship, or when Geni only display's a person's last name, I search old newspapers and old books that have been digitized and you will discover a trove of information. 

I realize that genealogy is something that many Filipinos are familiar with but is at the same time difficult to understand as a discipline. While my articles tend to favor the elite of this nation it is only because they are the one with the records readily available. Sometimes my articles are quite slanted and I do not hide that fact because I always have an opinion. My blog is a genealogical blog but also a personal one. So I am not ashamed to admit that I have biases clearly written all over my articles. I will, however, start to religiously include documentation for all my articles moving forward so that while writing may be biased you will see that they have factual basis. This series will be the test drive for this.

And, P.S. to all readers who may or may not agree with me: do not overthink this. Genealogy is supposed to be fun! I am doing this to tell you all that tracing family trees is a great activity! So just enjoy it. More to the point, start tracing your family. As I have said over and over again we must sing our ancestors' songs. We must speak for the dead.