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Written by Ana de Villa Singson

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MADAME CHAIRMAN!!!!!
PPCRV Chairperson Henrietta Tambunting de Villa turns 73!!!!

Happy birthday, Madame Chairman! 

On October 21, our PPCRV  Chairperson, the much beloved Ambassador Henrietta “Tita” de Villa, turns 73.  In her 73 years, our co-founder and Chairman has added many titles to her name.  She is a Dame courtesy of her two Papal Awards. She is a Doctor via a Doctorate on Humanities awarded to her by the Adamson University and another honorary degree bestowed on her by a university in Taiwan.  She is a Komandante courtesy of an Order of Lakandula Award from Malacanang. She is called Excellency as tribute to her 5 years as Ambassador to the Vatican. She was invited to be a Cabinet Secretary (which she vehemently declined), has been a Philippine Delegate to international forums many times over. She sits in the equivalent of the Cabinet of Pope Benedict XVI and of Pope John Paul II before him.  I can call her by many titles but the one I cherish most is Mom.

I have witnessed my Mom’s life in the unraveling of my own 45 years.  As a young child, I remember traveling with her to many places in the country hearing mass and meeting many women dressed as she was.  Mom was always wearing a beige uniform with a Gregorian-like black cross pinned on it.  She would pin this same cross on the uniforms of many women around the country.  After this ceremony of pinning medals, she would give me a little spade which I would use to scrape off wax drippings from the altar, working side by side with the women in beige. I guess that made me one of her earliest volunteers.  She founded the Mother Butler Guild in the Philippines, whose beige uniform is now a familiar sight throughout the country and whose members can be seen maintaining order during the mass, keeping the church clean and pretty, attending to the logistical  needs of the church and the priests.  I witnessed it grow from a handful of women in Immaculate Conception Parish in Cubao to the nationwide movement that it is today.

Many years later in 1992, as a brand manager in Unilever, I was on the way to my office in United Nations Avenue with Mom who had an office of her own in nearby Pope Pius XII Building.  She had just established PPCRV, a brainchild of the late Cardinal Sin, Haydee Yorac and Mom. In that car ride to my office, she was talking about an informed citizenry voting into office leaders of ability and above all , good and strong morality. Moved by her discourse, I presented myself as a PPCRV volunteer and asked her for a small role.  I specifically asked for a small role telling her that I was busy in the office and wouldn’t have too much spare time. She smilingly said her secretary would call me to explain my small role. She was true to her word. A few hours after, I received a call about my newly minted PPCRV designation. I was made Head of Operation Quick Count of the entire Metro Manila for the May 1992 elections.  Aghast, I called Mom telling her I wanted only a small role. Her very serious response: “That’s just Metro Manila, not the entire country.  It is small!”  Even more aghast, I asked her where I would get the funds and the recruits. And yet another serious response: “You are a bright girl, my Ana. You will figure it out!” Happily, it worked out. I had an army of friends who volunteered and Couples for Christ and several parishes and seminarians helped me find recruits whose job was to record and relay the votes tabulated in Metro Manila precincts. This information was passed on to an affiliate radio station and TV station which broadcast those tabulations.  I still remember praying fervently to God that night.  Some of my very best friends were assigned to the “hot spots” in Makati and I was praying so hard that no harm would come to them.  The night of that election, I was ferrying pizza to volunteers in different precincts, taking photos, picking up reports and relaying them accompanied by a friend who later became my husband.  When it was over, I promised myself never to ask my mom for a small assignment again.  A testament to the vastness of her vision and perspective, her idea of small was leaps and bounds greater than mine.

Fast forward a few more years.  I was a married woman with a child of my own.  My darling  Dad called a family meeting.  Cardinal Sin had nominated my mother as Ambassador to the Holy See.  What did we all think? I had many thoughts I did not say then. I did not say how much I would miss her if she was in Rome.  I did not say how much I needed a mom to tell me how to mother my own child. I did not tell her how worried I was about how my dad would bear the separation, even if he planned to travel back and forth between Italy and Manila. You see, Mom was and is the sun, the moon and the stars to my Dad and the bedrock of  us all. But how could I tell her that?  Mom‘s light was never meant to be “hidden under a bushel.” There was and there is much greatness stamped all over her. How selfish it would be to want her only to be my mom, when she was already pseudo mother to many priests and volunteers in the Philippines and could now be mother to many others on an international scale. I looked at my brothers and sisters and as one we unanimously said “Yes.”  A few months later her appointment was confirmed. We all flew to Rome to be with her when she presented her credentials to Pope John Paul II.  Because of mom, I was able to see him in person, look into his blue-blue eyes and be cocooned in so much love, so much goodness, so much radiance .  After the Papal audience, we were led to St Peter’s Cathedral which was crowded with people.  The Swiss Guards parted the crowd for Mom and her entourage to walk through the center aisle.  It was like the parting of the Red Sea, with the crowds making way as mom, head bowed was led to the altar where a lone pew was placed.  There, in front of  hundreds of people, she knelt to pray.  She prayed long and deeply and it seemed like she was alone conversing with God.  The crowd was hushed and wondering and one of them asked me who she was.  I was proud to say that she was the newly appointed Ambassador of the Philippines to the Holy See.  But I was prouder yet to say that the woman kneeling at the altar was my Mom.

Time marched on and this time I was in Ayala Avenue, along with thousands of people, marching in what has been dubbed the Edsa 2 Revolution.  I remember sitting near the platform  when Governor Chavit Singson went on stage to give a rousing speech.  I was listening in rapt attention when I almost fell off my chair.  Governor Singson was thanking Ambassador Tita de Villa in his speech.  He was saying that he wanted to speak with the Cardinal, to disclose what he knew of  anomalies in the government but needed an honest envoy of the highest integrity to bring his story to the Cardinal. And then he was thanking Ambassador de Villa for being that envoy. Say that again? I was so stunned to hear her name being mentioned in the rally that I had to ask my friends if he really said Ambassador de Villa. I called Mom over the cellphone right there and then. She was in Rome at that time.  When I told her what the Governor said, she laughingly said:  “Oh Yes, he needed someone to bring him to the Cardinal. So I listened to his story and felt that it was true, so I talked to the Cardinal about it.”  After that, the chips fell into place and Edsa 2 happened.  This was yet another role Mom played, this time in the history of our nation.

Fast track to 2010 and our  first historic automated elections. I was a volunteer again and was working closely with mom in PPCRV.  We are an organization rich in volunteers but poor in  financial resources.  But that never got in Mom’s way.  When PPCRV was awarded the 4th Election Return and the mandate to do an unofficial count, she quickly conceived of the Command Center. I was aghast again. Where would we get the computers?  Who would man those computers?  How would we get the election returns to Manila and how would we pay for the freight?  Even basic things, like food for the army of people needed to run the count on a 24 hour basis was a nightmare to think of.  Sunk in my computations and in my abject stress over the gargantuan task, Mom smiled at me and said: “God will provide.”  And He did provide.  PPCRV along with our partner, Kapisanan ng mga Brodkasters sa Pilipinas, was the first to relay the first electronically relayed votes just 16 minutes after the precincts closed and voting ended. Our Command Center was home to a multitude of journalists and was a familiar sight on TV and an often quoted source of information on radio and print media. Later on, Mom was awarded the Order of  Lakandula by then President Arroyo who likewise bestowed PPCRV with a Citation for our “invaluable contribution to the conduct of the national elections on May 10, 2010.”  And it all started in Villa San Miguel, at the home of Cardinal Sin, when he dared to dream of a systematic endeavor by the citizenry to vote responsible leaders who would usher in good governance based on the will of the people, for the good of the people.  And Haydee Yorac and Mom shared that dream with him.  And made it happen.

There are many more stories. But they have a common thread. They are the story of a woman who dares to dream big and who loves even bigger; of a woman who remains undaunted by the largest challenges because they are made small when God is on her side; of a woman who touches countless lives and leaves her imprint on them; of a woman who dines with Popes and Presidents and yet remembers the names of priests and volunteers in farflung places and remembers their children as well; of a woman who is mother not just to me and my 3 other sisters and 2 brothers but who is mother to so many who come to her for advise, for solace or even for just a moment of peace and serenity.  It is the story of my mom, of  her 73 years of  extraordinary greatness and incredible grace.

My birthday wish for our Chair? That she continues to fire us with her passion, vision and leadership.

My birthday wish for my Mom? That she finds more time to lavish on herself the same care she lavishes on so many others. That she stays wife to my dad, mother to Maricor, Ginny, Ria, Vitri , Martin and me, “Mamita” to her “apos”  Ting, Vada, Cito, Sofie, Manuel, Gabriel, Tara, Betita and Javo, for a very long time.  May she have many, many more years, many more accomplishments and that “faith on fire” which keeps her eternally youthful and vibrant. May your every birthday wish come true!

Happy birthday, Madame Chairman! PPCRV salutes you!

Happy birthday, Mom! In Dad’s words at a toast he once made to you in Cardinal Sin’s residence, from your entire caboodle, “Molto, molto te amo!”