IT IS that time of the year when the City of San Fernando prepares for the celebration of a unique observance, the San Fernando Women’s Week.
While the rest of the country celebrate Women’s Month on March of each year and International Women’s Day every March 8th, Fernandinos pay homage to revolutionary heroine Nicolasa Dayrit Panlilio on September 10.
In recent years, the practice has evolved into a week-long commemoration that aims to honor the legacy of Nicolasa Dayrit and uphold the rights and welfare of women in today’s society.
According to the annals of our local history, Nicolasa Pamintuan Dayrit Panlilio was born on September 10, 1874 to Don Florentino Dayrit, a cabeza de barangay in San Fernando, and Dona Antonina Pamintuan.
Dona Nicolasa was renowned in her lifetime as an accomplished pianist and a well-educated woman. This genteel upbringing would have been forgotten in history were it not for Nicolasa’s contirbutions during the Philippine revolution.
In the company of other Kapampangan ladies such as Felisa Dayrit, Felisa Hizon, Consuelo Singian and Encarnacion Singian, Nicolasa Dayrit sewed and embroidered the flag of the revolutionary forces’ battallion in Pampanga.
She also ministered to sick and wounded revolutionary soldiers at that time, as part of the Junta Patriotica de San Fernando. According to the National Historical Institute, the stories of these brave women of San Fernando were documented in the revolutionary newspaper El Heraldo de Revolucion.
Another incidence which made it to the history books was the role of Nicolasa as a peacemaker. It was at that dark point of our revolutionary history when the revolutionary leaders General Antonio Luna and General Tomas Mascardo were feuding and then Pampanga Governor Tiburcio Hilario asked a group of Kapampangan beauties that included Praxedes Fajardo and Nicolasa Dayrit to appease General Luna.
These ladies were said to have brought flowers to the irate general and knelt before him. Otherwise, it would have been an earlier death for the Philippine revolution with the internal factions that threatened it.
Today, a heritage house and its grounds serve as the final resting place for this patriotic and brave Kapampangan heroine at the City of San Fernando’s heritage district. The Henson – Hizon House, also dubbed as Casa Nicolasa, hosts the heroine’s monument and tomb.
The descendants of Nicolasa Dayrit Panlilio, the present day torchbearers of this illustrious family, keep the legacy of their matriarch alive through the monthly medical and dental missions held at the Casa Nicolasa.
The City of San Fernando through its Gender and Development Focal Point System and the Panlilio Family have also launched its Natatanging Fernandina search for women in the community who are seemingly ordinary and yet do extraordinary labors in their daily lives, benefiting not only their families but the community and city at large.
I join the women of San Fernando in honoring Nicolasa Dayrit Panlilio and the women heroes of our times.