Nelia Sancho: The Last Conversations
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A composite of Nelia Sancho’s journey from fashion model, beauty queen, student activist, women’s rights advocate, Mother and grandmother (artwork by LAVillariba)
As August was also her birthday month, I thought of texting her, anticipating that she would always spend her birthday with her children in Quezon City.
I met Nelia, then a Mass Comm sophomore at the University of the Philippines Diliman, when we joined the sorority Sigma Delta Phi, whose Greek letters stand for the Society of Dramatics and Fine Arts. As a neophyte, she was a physical standout for her 5’6 tall beauty, notwithstanding a batchmate’s much taller 5’10” height (BS Chem student Ruby Umali a.k.a. fashion model Dayang-Dayang).
Having these twin towers in our batch worked fairly well for us shorter, less physically gifted ones, where we felt safe from the undue attention of our “masters” by staying anonymous in their shadow. Or so we thought. But Inday Nelia was the natural queen of the pack, she whose looks and gentle Ilonggo ways (she hailed from Davao but was born in Pandan, Antique, Panay Island) worked like a charm on both the nerdy ones and the snooty cosmopolitans in our group of 18.
We nurtured a close bond of sisterhood that held up beyond graduation and to this day, despite the different career paths and divergent life choices we made.
Second family
1971: As Sigma Delta Phi Grand Archon, Nelia initiated the founding of the Sigma Delta Phi Alumnae Association in 1971 in which Celia Diaz Laurel was elected first president. (Photo courtesy of SDPAA)
Fifty years gone by, Nelia would acknowledge the sorority, in her words, as “like my second family” that she could come home to sans baggage, where she could be at ease speaking of how “so much had happened to my life after being a Sigma Deltan.” She had credited the sorority’s social network for opening doors for her, and was thankful to her mentors in the Upsilon Sigma Phi, director Behn Cervantes and fashion czar Pitoy Moreno.
She had described herself as “a shy girl out of high school in Davao” who went from sorority member to playing a chorus girl in the musical Guys and Dolls, to Corps Sponsor, Lantern Queen, Fraternity Sweetheart, then Binibining Pilipinas runner-up -- all within the harvest year of 1969.
1969: Nelia as U.P. Corps Sponsor with sorority sisters Evelyn Alvarez (left) and Baby Salmingo (right)
Nelia would lead Sigma Delta Phi as Grand Archon the following year and begin her awakening into student activism during the historic 1971 Diliman Commune. Still, her good looks could not be denied: she was hailed Queen of the Pacific in the same year in Australia, besting 22 other international candidates.
1971: On her triumphant homecoming as Queen of the Pacific, Nelia was met by 1969 Miss Universe Gloria Diaz (photo from her family album)
And then martial law intervened and turned her life around when she chose to be an underground activist.
50-year-old question
1978: Nelia gave birth to her first born AK upon her release in 1978 from a two-and-a-half year detention in Bicutan with husband Tony Liao
That August, with time to reflect on her journey thus far, she wrote a careful rejoinder to the 50-year-old question: Why?
“Becoming an activist was not really a decision for me,” she said. “It was more like the historical circumstances of the period led me to it. My values led me to embrace it.” Boom.
1987: Nelia continued her activism in the 1980s (Photo from Lito Ocampo’s facebook account)
My text messages found her in the same U.P. Bliss unit where she had stayed whenever she was in the city and where she raised two young children - Anthony Karlo (or AK) and Anna Louise – 30 something years ago. She had arrived in Manila by Ro-Ro bus from Antique a week before, adding that she was already sick when she left the province and thus proceeded to have her medical check-up. From then on I would intermittently check in on her by text.
I’d catch her in lucid moments between rest and sleep and she’d oblige with her thoughts on the current project she was preoccupied with, as if to put her mind firmly on healing mode.
When our conversation veered towards leaving a legacy, she turned upbeat on the advocacy closest to her heart: “There is a memorial that I set up in Pandan, Antique of two women who were both sex slaves [during the Japanese occupation]—one, Lola Rosa Henson, the first Filipino comfort woman survivor, and the other, my sister Agnes Sancho who was a victim of rape during martial law.” (The younger Agnes’ death in 2013 preceded that of another sister, Raquel who passed on in 2021 due to diabetes complications, a family issue.) “They are from two generations who were victims of rape but both in armed conflict situations—[World War II] Japanese military sex slavery and … Marcos’ martial rule.”
2000s: Nelia actively campaigned for justice for Comfort Women victims of Japanese Occupation (cover of a CD “Songs for the Lolas”)
In a previous text the month before, Nelia excitedly informed me of the memorial’s successful transfer from its original site in Caticlan, Aklan to its new home in Pandan, Antique. She had given up her business in Caticlan due to a slack in tourism brought about by the pandemic lockdown.
Going full circle
2019: Nelia had erected a memorial to Comfort Women in Caticlan which she transferred to Pandan, Antique in 2022: a statue of two women who were both sex slaves—Rosa Henson, the first Filipina comfort woman survivor, and Agnes Sancho, Nelia’s sister, who was a victim of rape during martial law. (Photo from Nelia Sancho Facebook account)
The memorial’s transfer to Nelia’s birthplace seemed to be written in the stars. “The memorial is meaningful to the people of Antique who know about the comfort women issue,” she said. “There is a comfort woman survivor who is from Pandan. In fact, there are several who are from the same island region. Lola Rosa is more like a representative of all the survivors as she was the first to come out to tell her story.”
Nelia had embarked on putting up a memorial statue for comfort women on her family property after similar statues on Roxas Boulevard in Manila and in San Pedro City in Laguna province were removed, amid supposed protests from the Japanese government.
Using her personal funds—reparations she received as a victim of human rights violations during martial law—she contracted sculptor Carlos Anorico of Angono, Rizal, to erect the statues in Caticlan in 2019.
She was clear on her vision: “Am still in the process of organizing it. …the entire memorial place is not ready yet. Am still constructing an …area for cooking and washing the dishes which visitors can use. Also, a parking area. And a nipa rest area. And I still need to set up the pictures of other lolas especially those from Antique, Capiz and Iloilo or Panay area. I hope students from universities in Panay can regularly tour the [place] to learn about martial law and WWII history or impact of any armed conflict situation on the civilian population especially women and children.”
As early as November 2021, she had arranged to transfer her books and paintings from her former base in Caticlan and to include her collection of “500 books on women and other subjects from 30 years work with the women's NGOs and the UN in Geneva.”
In a letter to her siblings, Nelia spoke of plans to build a reading center for local residents, students of Antique and Iloilo and international visitors, which she said, “I will dedicate to Daddy Rogelio Canimo Sancho Sr. and maybe also to the Canimo clan of Daddy's parents and his siblings. I hope Daddy Sancho will be remembered as a teacher in Pandan and a proud citizen of Pandan, Antique.”
Pain and loss
2020: Nelia enjoying a hearty dinner with Upsilon brods Babes Francisco, Louis Kierulf and Sigma Deltan sis Marife Zamora during her last known social gathering before the pandemic lockdown commenced on March 2020.
I thought it was Nelia’s feverish effort to realize her vision under the strain of a pandemic lockdown that took a heavy toll on her fragile health.
As she flitted in and out of text messaging, I asked her if she was now dense to pain and loss—or was it just part of her healing ways to not dwell on the past in order to move forward, that sort of thing.
She was quick to dismiss the irreverent question, saying: “I don't think I will ever be able to be dense to pain and loss ... for example, hearing the stories of the Filipino comfort women about rape or sexual enslavement has given me more sensitivity to their pain ... and it is due to my own political and personal experience of pain and suffering under martial law.”
When Nelia’s birthday came on August 30, I sent her loving thoughts in behalf of our sorority sisters, in my mind wishing, “Long Life to the Queen.”
Her reply was brief but hopeful. “Thank you, Nette. I am still bedridden. Grateful to reach 71.” Adding, “Will contact you when I have gained my strength!”
Her daughter Anna’s family brought their Nanay Nelle a cake, a favorite food, a bouquet of flowers, a sash and a tiara fit for a queen. She was most likely to say quite propitiously, “I feel great to be alive and able to join my family!”
Destiny’s Child
I thought we had always been ready to lose her, given the heroic path she had chosen. But when the end finally came, the heartache from losing someone like her was still deep.
Most heroes live short lives. Nelia, however, survived all the challenges thrown her way, staring death in the face, enduring the loss of her comrades, withstanding torture, imprisonment, a hunger strike, and raising her young brood despite financial woes.
Nelia Sancho went through her journey with grace, not despair, moved by something greater than life. She surrendered only to her illness on September 1, 2022, a debilitating diabetes she fought for 20 years. She reckoned even that was a small price to pay in a lifetime of advocacies.
2021: Daughter Anna Louise’ facebook tribute to her Nanay on their last outing in Boracay, December 2021
This is an updated version of “Nelia Sancho: The Last Conversations” by Lynett Advincula-Villariba posted in CoverStory.ph on September 13, 2022: https://coverstory.ph/nelia-sancho-the-last-conversations/
Lynett Advincula-Villariba was Design Director for Philippine Daily Inquirer from 1994-2017 under Editor in Chief Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc, producing agenda-setting Front Pages that became the newspaper’s trademark of editorial independence. Currently, Lynett does book design and occasionally writes for CoverStory.Ph, a newsmagazine site founded by former Inquirer colleagues.
