Saturday, May 10, 2008 Cebuana who took care of Gloria dies, 100 By Elisabeth P. Baumgart Sun.Star Correspondent
IN her lifetime, Elena Tan Unchuan, fondly called “Tita Elena”, has fed a lot of young and hungry Filipino students who were craving for authentic Filipino dishes in the United States.
And they were not just ordinary students, but promising individuals who would later become political figures and key personalities in the field of business.
Pinoy dishes
The list included no less than President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who found herself tasting Tita Elena’s famed ensaymadas.
Young students, like Thomas Aguiri, who later became the founder of Bangko Filipino, and Sergio Osmeña III, who years later became a senator, also found themselves under Tita Elena’s roof eating sinigang na ulo ng isda and other Filipino dishes.
When President Arroyo was still studying in Georgetown University, it was the president’s mother, Doña Eva Macaraeg-Macapagal, who asked Elena to keep an eye on the future president and be her guardian.
Being “gangmates,” their term for clique or barkada, Elena readily agreed and took the young Gloria under her care.
These are just some of the fond memories family members and friends have of their Tita Elena, who passed away last Tuesday at the age of 100. Her remains were cremated yesterday afternoon.
Elena’s and Doña Eva’s friendship started in 1926, when the latter’s father, being a government official, was assigned in Cebu. He brought his whole family with him.
With Cebu being a small community that time, Doña Eva and Elena quickly hit it off and became close friends.
Diosdado Macapagal was the country’s president when young Gloria set off to study in Georgetown University. Doña Eva asked Elena to be Gloria’s guardian because they were close friends even before she became the country’s first lady.
Visits
Elena worked at the Philippine Embassy that time and would often see Gloria at the embassy on weekends when the future president visited the ambassador.
She spent most of her adult life in the United States, having left the country right after the war sometime in 1946. She first lived in New York and worked at the Philippine Mission to the United Nations when Carlos P. Romulo was the Philippine Ambassador to the United Nations.
In New York, she welcomed Filipino students to her home to partake of the meals she prepared, including the sinigang and ensaymada that she was particularly famous for. In the 57 years that she was there, Filipino students would often go to her house to enjoy Filipino fare.
Even when she moved to Washington D.C., the students would drop by her place and raid her kitchen, her relatives recalled.
Frugal
In an interview with Sun.Star Cebu yesterday, her family members described her as being very frugal.
“She saved a lot when she went out shopping... and she never buys anything that isn’t on sale,” one of them said. Elena believed that anyone can eat well even when spending less, they said.
When she was not busy cooking and filling the students’ stomachs with good food, Elena played mahjong with other Filipinos.
After having served fellow Filipinos who were looking for a taste of home in the United States, Elena returned to Cebu in 2003.
According to her relatives, she had always wished to spend her final years in Cebu and be home when it was time to meet her Creator.
Just a couple of weeks after her 100th birthday last April 29, she went home to her Maker, leaving a lot of good recipes and fond memories that will remind relatives and friends of their Tita Elena.
