Jose Rizal? Andres Bonifacio? Ninoy Aquino?
HEROES right?
Well, here in Bulan.. we have our own hero, a mother, a wife and an admirable woman.
VYTIACO, Ma. Antonia Teresa "Nannette"
DEATH: November 10, 1972
PLACE OF BIRTH: Bulan, Sorsogon
"She
loved our country very much! For a cause she believed was best for Moherland,
she sacrificed all: comfort, wealth, home and finally – life itself!”
Nannette grow up in Bulan Sorsogon and in Metro Manila as
the eldest in a brood of seven. Her siblings were Jose, Antonio jr., Socorro,
Sandra , Arlene and Paulino III. Her mother Maria was a high school teacher and
college instructor, and her father Antonio was a landowning family in Bulan.
She loved
animals and learned whenever she could about raising them from birth and
rearing them. Her serious attitude about learning and tracing the source of
sickness and poor health, made her interested in veterinary science.
She started her elementary studies in Bulan but finished at Centro
Escolar University when the family transferred to Manila in 1962. She went on
the U.P. Preparatory School for her high school. She loved music and played the
guitar. Like most high students, she enjoyed dancing and choreography . Later
on college, she wrote her brother Jojo. “Isn't it wonderful to dance? I could
not believe that you can dance now. I am glad about this! I guess you will now
long for parties. Enjoy yourself.” For her, the physical expression in dance
was closely connected to mind when in one of her letters she said. “It is, I
think, a matter of precise carefulness.”
In college,
She took up veterinary medicine following the footsteps of her grandfather. The
year she was given a government scholarship which entitled her monthly stipend,
free tuition, and books. Her father said. “These she gave up later, plus a
bright future for the ideal of serving and improving the lot of the poor, the
deprived the downtrodden.
Yet, it was
in U.P. that she became gradually involved in student activism. During the
July-August floods in 1970. Nannete wrote her father, “We were in the
relocation center run by all student volunteers from the different colleges and
universities in the relocation centers. We helped in surveying the flood areas;
giving foods, clothes and medical assistance, relocating the flood victims…”She
goes on”…this is a part of experience and a part of growing up and education.”
By that September, she was joining the Free Nilo Tayag Rally, having before
that day gone to congress on the issue of political prisoners. She was clearly
beginning to plan pro-actively when she wrote. “ If I was not very busy today,
I should have gone to the picket at Retelco(a co-workers’ action) in Pasig.”
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