Remembering Vicky Quirino

An article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer recalls Victoria Quirino Delgado, although Lito Zulueta’s piece gets some things wrong: Vicky Quirino’s was not the first debut in the presidential palace (the first was in 1937) nor the first wedding, although it was the first wedding of a president’s daughter held at the Palace.

Vicky Quirino’s wedding in the Ceremonial Room (now Rizal Hall) of the Palace.

The article does well, though, in focusing on what a first lady was traditionally expected to be: the official hostess of the chief executive. In the early 1960s, Yay Marking interviewed Manuel Zamora, protocol officer of the Palace for over 40 years. Here’s part of Yay’s profile of Zamora (father of Rep. Ronaldo Zamora):

“One of my problems,” he says, “is this not answering ‘R.S.V.P.’ It’s French for ‘Answer If You Please.”  On the invitation, it is stated very clearly: R.S.V.P. Now, for some functions, it is a discourtesy not to answer — a Head of State’s invitation is supposed to be a command — but it is not of critical importance, not like for a State Dinner, where every guest is seated according to his rank.

“Imagine it for yourself. Right up to the day of the dinner sometimes, sometimes only hours before, if one hasn’t answered, we don’t know if he’s coming or not coming. Now, not answering is common among Filipino officials. So we cannot make the seating arrangements, and this must be made in advance because it is submitted for final approval of the President or First Lady before the place cards can be arranged.

“So we exert every effort to get the answer. We write again. We telephone. We send personal messengers. In 25 years, many of our public officials have not yet learned the importance and the courtesy of answering promptly.

“May I tell you a little story? It’s about a British Lord. He was invited by his King. On his deathbed, the nobleman replied, ‘I regret that I cannot attend due to a previous engagement with God,’ something like that, but he answered!

“The formalities are not really too complicated. You’re supposed to arrive 15 minutes before the time, present your card at the entrance, be escorted to the reception hall where the guests wait together until all the guests are present, then I notify the President and the First Lady.

“Nothing is served until the President arrives, the guests either follow a reception line, or the President and the First Lady follow around the circle of guests, greeting and shaking hands. Then cocktails are served.

“Going in to dinner, it’s always the President who leads with the wife of the guest of honor, followed by the guest of honor and the First Lady, and the rest follow as much as possible in a procession by twos according to rank, this to the music of an orchestra playing a stately march.

“But even here, even in this — You know?, there are a few who do it every time! It’s like this. As a gentleman comes in, he is given a small envelope with a card inside. On the card is the name of the lady he is to take in to dinner. Some gentlemen, they just keep the envelope in their pocket, then the ladies they’re supposed to take in, they’re left behind.

“The five or six of us on duty, the aides and I, we quietly rescue the ladies, escort each to a seat next to the man who didn’t know what he was supposed to do, or didn’t know how to find the lady whose name was on the card — in spite of our introducing guests to each other.

“We’re never at ease until everybody is seated. I’m always afraid that — It has never happened in 25 years, but — Anyway, we keep checking on the guest list, the guests present, the table diagram, checking and checking. We have to do this so it won’t be noticeable, but we must check to make sure nobody will be left out. Imagine the embarrassment if one is left standing, no place at the table. We always worry, and check, check, check.”

“In all administrations,” he says, “there are many, many social climbers, all the time, for any occasion but especially during receptions.

“They go to a Congressman or a Senator or to relatives of the President or First Lady to try to get invited to functions where there is not even a remote reason for them to be. But we are firm in this. We give all kinds of excuses, such as lack of space, or that the guest list was furnished by the guest of honor. If they’re very insistent, we promise that we’ll see or we’ll send if we can, anything to keep them at bay.

“I know all the old ones, but every year there are new ones. Many even go to the extent of picking up invitations, mislaid maybe — I don’t know how they get them, but they erase names, write in their own, sometimes get past the plainclothesmen at the doors, but usually we detect them the minute we see them. The cards change color, did you know?, show yellow underneath when erased. That’s one way we can tell, besides knowing most of the people to whom the invitations were issued.

“Anyway, when we detect gate crashers, they are nicely escorted out, as much as possible without disturbance. One time, at an inaugural ball, we turned out about 30. if there is disturbance, the Malacañan Guards take care of it.

“The real decorum, the dignity of the Palace, is maintained by the waiters and personal attendants. They’re very experienced people. They’re like fixtures in the Palace. They owe their allegiance and loyalty to the position of the President. They serve him and his family in every way to keep them comfortable and happy.

“They’re probably the only professional servants in the country. Some of them have been there since the American Governors General. We have never had to fire a single one for indiscretion, divulging a secret or gossiping. That’s true. I never thought of it before, but now that you ask, yes, I realize it. They have no eyes, no ears. If they see or hear, they say nothing. They are like members of the Presidential family. The President and the First Lady call them by first names or nicknames, and a member of the President’s family can cry on a shoulder, nobody will know.

“There are about 20 of them, inherited. They inherit the jobs and the Presidents inherit them. The son of Magsaysay’s valet, he’s a recent one. He was appointed by President Garcia when his father died with Magsaysay in that plane crash. There’s a sort of ‘succession.’ Certain families, from father to son, serve the Philippine Presidents. They go with the chandeliers… You know, I’ve always known this, but I never thought about it. They are faithful, able… They serve the Presidential families impartially.

“You remember the sequence: Quezon, Laurel, Osmena, Roxas, Quirino, Magsaysay, Garcia…

“While the service continues at the same peak of excellence — What I mean to say is, while the service is the same, the Presidents are not. Quezon and Quirino were the most elegant Presidents. It was during their terms that Palace functions had a stateliness, that entertainment had both, well, both decorum and sparkle.

“It can’t be said that Osmena and Roxas were less discriminating, but their terms came right after the war, and the condition of the country was such that they could not entertain with the splendor of the others.

“But they were better off than Laurel. During the Occupation, they only functions were those that could not be avoided. They were ordered by the Commander of the enemy forces. And the service was good, but there was nothing to serve.

“After Quirino, then came Magsaysay… Magsaysay was by nature not a man for the glittering, impressive function, but he liked company.

“Garcia was a man of protocol with a sense of the proprieties, and Mrs. Garcia, too. Coming right after Magsaysay, they did not abruptly change the informality introduced at the Palace, but little by little Malacañan began to regain its former stature.

“What governs the Guest List? Commonsense, really. The President sends word who is coming and whether it will be a lunch or dinner, or what. I start preparing the list.

“The guest list depends upon the position and professional circumstances of the person. If it’s a General, like MacArthur, we invite the military men he knew and would like to meet again. Surely those will be included, as well as anybody he asks for, and those officials and officers representing our Government in the defense effort.

“If it’s a Statesman, we invite our Cabinetmen, our Senators, our Congressmen and, of course, their ladies. If it’s an outstanding professional, we invite our people prominent in that line, so that doctors meet doctors, educators meet educators, and so forth.

“Always included, as I said, are people that the guest of honor wants present, regardless of the person’s position or profession. Rarely, however, is such a person without prominence. He or she is always distinguished. You might be the No. 1 Society Butterfly, but it’s seldom that the Butterfly who is nothing else is included in the list.

“Thinking about the different periods, I think I can say that President and Mrs. Garcia were, yes, the easiest to serve. President Quezon was the most elegant and fiery. Mrs. Quezon was one of the most reasonable First Ladies, Mrs. Garcia the humblest, Mrs. Magsaysay the most amiable, Vicki the most fun. President Osmeña was very sedate and President Roxas very understanding, and so were their First Ladies.

“Who was that? How to see the Palace? Why, just come. For official functions, guests must be chosen most carefully, limited in number, but everybody is welcome at Malacanan. It’s the people’s Palace, after all, so it’s open from nine to five every day for our people, especially form the provinces, and for foreign tourists. People from the provinces come by the busloads.

“They just come, you know. Some delegations send telegrams, or write ahead, but most just come, and these, well, most are in bakya and oldtime dresses, and they bring their own baon and they have just enough money for a day’s tour of the City, so we have a trained group of Presidential guides, and the people are taken through all the public rooms—the Ceremonial Hall, where the biggest chandelier is and where foreign Ambassadors and Ministers are received at a formal ceremony, and the Reception Hall, State Dining Room, then downstairs to the Social Hall. That’s the pavilion overlooking the Pasig River.

“Did I mention the First Lady’s receiving room? That’s the Music Room upstairs, next to the Ceremonial Hall. Sometimes student groups ask to see the Cabinet Room, which is in the Executive Building, and they are shown that, too. In the private gardens is the Nipa Guest House, the most beautiful nipa house in the Philippines.

“Unless it is necessary to prevent disturbance of a particularly solemn function, people are shown around. Even Sundays, if there is no function, the President has given instructions that people coming to see the Palace are allowed to.

“The most used room is the Social Hall, the Pavilion. Most of the civic and charitable fund drives launched by the President and First Lady take place in this Social Hall. We also use it for the very big state dinner, such as the ones given for visiting Heads of State, as the State Dining Hall holds only about 60, while the Social Hall can seat up to 150.

“On special request, the Palace Housekeeper has the table set as if for a State Dinner, flowers and all. Requests like this usually come from home science classes in universities and colleges or special civic groups like the “All Nations” ladies.

“You know, there has been a wrong impression that the three chandeliers in the ceremonial hall were buried during the war, which is not true.

“One was not in place. It was at the cleaners. You know, there are about a thousand parts and about 350 bulbs, all crystal prisms, and only one firm has the specification of how it was assembled. They’re the only ones who can clean it.

“All these chandeliers were especially ordered by President Quezon from Czechoslovakia around 1937. at that time, all of them — four huge ones, one weighs more than a ton, and about 30 others in assorted social smaller sizes — were bought for P120,000, and there was a big howl, of course, but do you know how much they’re worth now?

“Experts place the value around P2,000,000 — except that their value has gone now beyond estimation. Czechoslovakia can no longer make them and so their value increases all the time. They’re priceless now. They can’t be duplicated. Foreigners tell us they’ve never seen anything like them in any palace or castle in the world. Well, we still have them, still enjoy them. They are part of the national investment, part of our national treasure.

“This one I’m telling you about, it was at the cleaners, dismantled. The war broke out. When the man in charge heard that the enemy was taking valuables away with them, he buried this one chandelier and didn’t return it until the term of President Roxas.

“But not one chandelier was taken away. That’s one thing you can say: not one thing, not even a curtain or a chair, was taken by the enemy. That’s one thing they did: they respected Malacañan, Palace of the People.”

As Zamora pointed out, the Music Room in the Palace is the First Lady’s official receiving room. Its name dates to the Quirino administration. Prior to it, the room had been the First Lady’s library. It was converted to its present purpose for Vicky Quirino. Her father had decided on refurbishing a badly deteriorated Palace and was much criticized for it in the press. In his Memoirs, President Quirino wrote,

From the mass of furniture listed as having been acquired for the Palace, they spotted an item corresponding to a bed tagged at P5,000. in the same list were furniture to furnish a room assigned to my daughter, who acted as my official hostess, and another room assigned to my married son, both of whom had to stay in the Palace as immediate members of my family. They survived with me the Japanese massacre in Malate during the liberation wherein I lost my wife and three children, besides other close relatives. In the list there also appeared a crib, which was for my grandson.

These items gained wide and unfavourable publicity because Primicias took a fancy to questioning their value and the propriety of their acquisition in the Palace. He also asked why my son and grandson were living in Malacañan (Bulletin, April 20, 1949), thus providing proof in a sense to the charge made by the Daily News, already referred to, that the President, “by following the shameless instincts, has willfully used money outside of his fixed salary not to further the interest of the nation but to enable himself and his daughter and son and grandson to live in grand style that the Constitution has never intended for them.”

This is a photograph from the Time Magazine photo archive of President Quirino with his daughter, Vicky Quirino. It was taken in the Presidential Study.

Salvador Lopez recounts the Quirino era in some detail in his biography of the president, The Judgment of History:

Throughout its long history, Malacañang Palace, home of Spanish and American Governor Generals, has undergone a series of alterations and innovations usually announcing the arrival of a new Chief Executive and portraying a distinct character. President Manuel Quezon, for instance, the first Filipino leader to reside in the palace, created a five-hectare park across the Pasig river which, since its establishment, has well served the need of harassed political leaders for recreation and renewal. It gave Quezon a spacious field for horse-riding, a nine-hole golf course for President Roxas, a swimming pool for President Qurino’s afternoon relaxation, and a habitat for various pets and fowls offered as gifts by friends and state visitors of the successive Malacañan residents: goats from India, horses from America, cocks from Texas, pigs from New Guinea, birds from China, and kangaroos from Australia which the Australian philanthropist, E. J. Hallstrom gave to Quirino.

When Quirino becamse President of the Republic, he did not move into Malacañang until the palace was refurbished, its draperies changed and the furniture replaced. His occupancy of the official residence coincided with the visit that year of Francis Cardinal Spellman, archbishop of New York. A dramatic blending of red and black formal robes worn by high Filipino and American church officials and the presence of celebrities listening quietly to soft background music marked Quirino’s official entry into his new home.

Malacañan Palace had received its periodic facelift. Its new occupants apparently had different tastes and its grandeur therefore had to be refashioned. The palace had a fresh coat of paint or varnish and new furniture as needed, clean columns and sparkling chandeliers. Some of the rooms were redecorated with paintings – of a sunset for the ante-sala or a woman’s face for the living room – in pastels. In the dining room a table stood which Mrs. Aurora Quezon had ordered made of several varieties of Philippine hardwood.

Quirino’s daughter, Vicky, recalls that a mestiza by the name of Amalia Pastor was hired to assist in refurbishing Malacañang. In an interview, Vicky relates:

…the chandeliers were taken down during the [Japanese] occupation and were hidden. No, [the palace] was not destroyed but it [was] not in tip-top shape because it had not been fixed since Quezon moved in. that was in the 1930s.

…what happened was the linen for example was fraying, the curtains also needed fixing… the China was broken… And the only rooms that he [Quirino] really ordered to be refurbished were my bedroom which had also served as Ruby Roxas’ bedroom and where they brought President Roxas’ body from Clark airfield – and his [Quirino’s] official bedroom, which was an old room… I don’t know who occupied it previously if it had ever been occupied… There was also a two-bedroom suite, varnished and quite dreary… And the cost of all the furniture in the President’s bedroom came to about 5,000 pesos…

Quirino’s initial tour of the palace grounds revived long-suppressed feelings about the brutality of the Japanese occupation. Noticing an exquisite Japanese tea house built at the southwest corner of the river bank, he immediately ordered the dainty little hut torn down, relacing it with a fashionable bahay kubo of native sawali and fine hard wood, with a nipa roof and a bamboo floor, adorned with rattan furniture, local pottery and salakot lampshades. Here he would relax as often as he could get away from the pressures of the presidency.

Quirino, however, usually never finished a whole movie as he would retire to bed early. But there was a movie each night since it was a part of the standard operating procedure in Malacañang. According to Vicky Quirino:

The state dining room would be converted into a projection room; they [Malacañan personnel] would just bring in sofas and chairs and we would sit there and watch. After the showing the chairs would be taken out and the area converted back into the state dining room. It was SOP for the President to have some form of relaxation and that’s when he would invite family and friends to join him watch a movie.

Parties formed part of Quirino’s standard routing at Malacañan. Official dinners were usually catered and attended to by the Palace chef. Vicky Quirino describes the Malacañan parties:

There was no particular form of entertainment… Once in a while it would be a dance, not too often though. He [Quirino] would hold a diplomatic ball once a year. That was a big thing and would start may be with a rigodon… Then there would be a New Year’s day reception which would be a sort of open house for government officials, the diplomatic people, personal friends. Who came to the parties? It all depended on the occasion.

Vicky Quirino would be politically active all her life, most so, during the two People Power efforts. Nick Joaquin, using the nom-de-plume of Quijano de Manila, captures a vivid snapshot of the Liberal Party Old Guard in November, 1961 (when Macapagal won the vice-presidency):

Also sleepless during the tense days before and after the balloting was the grande dame of the Liberal Party, Dona Trining Roxas, who sought bed only when victory was certain. The sleeping dowager was thus unable to attend the first public expression of Liberal triumph: the rites in honor of Elpidio Quirino on November 16, his 71st birthday.

The rites began with mass at the San Marcelino church, where Vicky Quirino Gonzalez found the Old Guard massed around her but nary a sign of the United Opposition. The Macapagals could not come, Manny Pelaez was still in Mindanao, the erstwhile rah-rah boys who had caused Mr. Quirino so much pain were at Comelec or Camp Crame, exultantly counting, or in bed, hungrily sleeping.

Nevertheless, the Old Guard Liberals were in festive mood. After mass, the gay hubbub on the patio seemed a single refrain: “We’re back! We’re back! We’re back!” Sunshine glinted from faces once so current in Malacañang, notably of the ladies who were the Apo’s favorite partners at Palace balls: Nila Syquia Mendoza, Chedeng Araneta, Angela Butte, Carmen Planas. Ever the holy terror, Mameng Planas mockingly distributed cabinet portfolios among the Old Guard: this one was to be finance secretary, that one secretary of foreign affairs. Moving from one merry group to another, causing astonished pauses, like a ghost at a party, was Ambassador Romulo, come to attend this reunion of old friend. His offer to resign before the elections had, say the Liberals been a good omen for them: it had meant Mr. Romulo smelled a change coming.

From the church the Old Guard repaired to the South Cemetery, where the Man of the Hour, Macapagal, laid a wreath on the grave of the Apo. That noon, there was a banquet at a restaurant in Quezon City, and gathered for this happiest hour of the Liberals in a decade were more of the old familiar faces; Vicente Albano Pacis, Johnny Collas, Fred Mangahas. But when a speaker addressed the gathering as “Fellow Liberals,” there were objections: this was a gathering of the Friends of Quirino, not all of whom were Liberals. Unspoken was a parallel thought: that not all of today’s Liberals, especially the very new ones, had been Friends of Quirino.

From my Today newspaper column, November 11, 2000:

It was not a happy occasion, in comparison to previous rallies, although a certain grim humor could be seen in the signs held aloft by the crowd and stenciled on t-shirts and in the speeches made by the Cardinal and Cory Aquino; it was an angry occasion. You could see anger in Vicky Quirino Delgado’s face as she clutched her rosary; you could even detect a certain steely set to Jun Magsaysay’s jaw; there was sadness in the eyes of Ruby Roxas even as she graciously smiled at all and sundry; the bonhomie usually displayed by the Zobel brothers during previous rallies was absent; they sat, as their father and mother Jaime and Bea Zobel de Ayala sat, and in-law Paxi Elizalde stood, grimly and even angrily. Jose Concepcion looked dazed and bored; Ramon del Rosario was practically the only big businessman who showed good humor. It is during times like these, when you see so many of Manila’s alta sociedad alternately broiling in the same heat and soaking in the same rain as the many others across the barriers that separated the VIP’s from the masses, that you feel less inclined to write off the elite as the enemy. For these people, at least, have made themselves firmly part of the solution.

She was at the Batasan Pambansa when the House of Representatives decided to impeach President Estrada. And I remember thinking to myself, as I watched her cheer with the rest, how far the country had traveled since the first effort to impeach a President had failed. That president, the first Congress tried to impeach, was, of course, her father. But then she knew he’d been vindicated.

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