By Jayson B. Arcamo

The author, who is based in Bacolod City, works full-time with the Columban Mission Office.

Victoria Malacapay Andas was born on 30 September 1929 in Binalbagan, Negros Occidental, and died on 11 August 2012. She was eighth among the ten children of Justina Rojas Malacapay and Remegio Libo-on Andas who were both public school teachers during the time of Maestro Emong (Geronimo Abada Sr.), the first district supervisor of Kabankalan.

Victoria, while still in high school, started helping her sister Milagros to teach catechism in the Flores de Mayo after World War II. Padre Juan Garcia was the parish priest at that time. She wanted to become a religious sister and joined the Sisters of Charity. After a year as a novice she had to leave for health reasons.

Through the help of the late Columban Fr Thomas Cronin, Victoria enrolled at the University of Negros Occidental and took the two-year Junior Normal General Course leading to the title of Elementary Teacher’s Certificate (ETC) and graduated in March 1962. (The Order of Augustinian Recollects bought UNO in 1962 and changed its name to ‘University of Negros Occidental – Recoletos’ or ‘UNO-R’.) In 1963 Victoria became a Kindergarten teacher and later a Grade One teacher at Kabankalan College (now Kabankalan Catholic College). Three years later she decided to be a full-time catechist in St Francis Xavier Parish.

When her sister Milagros died giving birth, Victoria, together with Flora, their youngest sister, took good care of her orphaned nieces, Ana Mae, Aileen, and Milagros Aurea, and of their sister’s stepson Edmundo. Despite the financial difficulties that she and Flora had to face, she never saw looking for ‘greener pastures’ to have a better income for the family as an option. Instead, she took more people in need under her care. Her nieces would often describe their home as the extension house of the parish convent. They recalled that every month, she would offer her home to the ‘novios y novias’ from far flung areas of the parish who had no place to stay the night before the pre-marriage seminar they were required to attend the following day. Her nieces recalled that they had to share their bedrooms on the second floor with the ‘novias’ while all the ‘novios’ slept on the ground floor. Her family remembered that there were even parishioners from Hinoba-an in the far south of the province, victims of land-grabbing, who stayed with them the night before their hearing at the Municipal Trial Court.

Aside from those who spent a night or two with them, there were those whom Victoria took under her wing for months and some even for years. Some were sent to school or were introduced to the Columban priests and became their scholars.

As a catechist, she taught the ‘Hosannistas’ to sing and trained ‘angels’ (little girls) to reciting the Viva La Virgen Easter Sunday morning. Her ‘Hosannistas’ and ‘angels’ always looked forward to their treat of sorbetes (ice cream) and cake, which she solicited from friends, after the ‘Sugat’ and the first Easter Sunday Mass. She did not only catechize the children within the municipality proper of Kabankalan but also young and old parishioners living in the mountainous areas of the parish. She would accompany the Columban priests who celebrated the Holy Eucharist in the far-flung and mountainous areas of the diocese. Carol-an, Basak, Bugtong, Tan-Awan, Saisi, Oringao, Mansumbil were only some of the places she went to with the Columban priests and other catechists during those times. When the diocesan priests took over, Victoria stayed and continued serving the Church. Even in her old age, she would look for sponsors for meals for the catechists, some of whom came on foot under the heat of the sun or in rain for their monthly meetings.

Victoria had been a very loving aunt and grandaunt to her nieces, grand- and great-grandnieces and grandnephews, particularly to her beloved Godfree Anthony, her special grandnephew. Despite her meager pension and allowance, she had never stopped taking care of them to the end. She kept her health problems to herself, never wanting to worry or burden them. She was a very selfless person especially in her desire to serve God. Because of this, she touched the lives of many and even inspired quite a number to help spread God’s goodness.

To her family and friends she is a great loss. Her niece shared that it is very difficult for them to accept that she has departed from this world but they also know that their Tyay Vic, as they fondly called her, would never want them or her friends to mourn for her, even less to be sorry for her because death for her wasn’t something to be feared but something to be embraced, for it is the only way to God.

You may contact the author by email at jayson_light@yahoo.com and on Facebook.