Late bloomer
Late bloomer
Updated 01:59am (Mla time) Dec 17, 2004
By Lilia P. de Vera
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 17, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
COMING from a court hearing in Bulacan, I made a side trip to buy plants in Guiguinto. Content with having made some good bargains, I told the woman who sold me the plants how lucky she was to have a hobby for a business. She certainly looked older than me with her face heavily lined with wrinkles and some of her teeth missing. Which prompted me to ask how old she was. "64 years old," she replied. I was dumbfounded. "Why, that's my age," I thought to myself.
Anyway, I'm a late bloomer, sort of -- a “probinsyana” from Bulacan who got married at 31, moved to Metro Manila, helped in the family business and went shuttling between the Philippines and the United States for about eight years to keep an immigrant visa active before finally deciding to settle for good in our dear country.
At the age of 54, with my children having finished college and with more than enough free time in my hands to spend doing some accounting, crocheting, sewing, cooking and reading, I decided to take up law -- "to exercise my mind," I thought. I chose one of the country's three top law schools based on information that its passing average in the bar was quite high; and, sure I wanted the best.
After finishing college as a working student and scholar, then passing the accountancy board immediately after graduation, I had the wrong notion law school would be a breeze. I never imagined the law school teeming with so-called "terror" professors. There simply was no lawyer in our family who could have warned me.
Studying law in that school made me more religious. Every day before the start of classes, I made sure to pass by a church and to pray that I be spared from class recitations, vowing before God that I would study harder the next day, while making all kinds of promises. When I was not well prepared for the recitations, I'd go to school with goose bumps.
I didn't mind the stares of classmates who must have wondered (at the start of the first semester of my first year in law) what I was doing in their midst; or, if I was a professor, why I was in jeans! To steel myself against their questioning, if piercing, looks, I told myself it was I who was paying for my tuition, it was my life, I am responsible only to myself.
My husband had told me, also at the start of the first semester, to pay my tuition in installment, as he did not believe I'd be able to finish it. He seemed to have forgotten that I have always been a go-getter. By the way, I am a certified public accountant; that's why I find law interesting.
To make a long story short, I made friends in school. I became "Tita" or "Mommy" to everyone. They turned to me when they felt hungry, and it became a usual thing for me to bake and bring them their favorite oatmeal cookies. They also confided to me problems of the heart, perhaps because they looked up to me as someone who has weathered the storms of life. I enjoyed being in school, I even joined a sorority, the League of Lady Barristers, of which I remain a member.
I commuted either by jeep or by bus, later by FX from our office, as it was costly to bring my driver.
I finished law when I was 59, taking the bar right after graduating in 1999 -- after attending summer classes and review classes for minor subjects I was not allowed to overload. I remember a note the dean attached to my registration slip when I was asking to take 23 units, during my last semester in 1999. On it was this question, "Why are you in a hurry to flunk the bar?" printed in bold, red ink, mind you! I cried in the ladies' room, I just wanted to be with my batch mates in taking the bar.
During the testimonials the school gave us for passing the bar, I teased the dean about that note, without rancor. I knew that he just wanted to make sure I would not be one of those in the statistics of flunkers. Fortunately, after studying and praying hard to my favorite patron saints, going as far as Manaoag, Pangasinan, I was among the 16-something percent would-be lawyers who made it that year.
When the results of the bar were released, I personally went to look at the list of successful examinees, doing it after almost all the other examinees and onlookers who had gone there earlier had left. I did not want people to see me cry just in case I found the list without my name on it. But when I saw my name, I couldn't help but throw a fist in the air and, with the feeling of exhilaration all over me, told the person next to me I passed the bar.
To my surprise, the very next day, somebody was requesting me for an interview. I was sort of puzzled for I couldn't imagine how they even came to know my name. Some media people are simply resourceful.
Three days later, I was featured in the "World Tonight"; then later in "Balitang K." And so it came to pass that the secret I have kept from my classmates for so long -- my age -- became public knowledge. Even my friends abroad were calling me.
I am a practicing lawyer now. A daughter who had a master's degree in marketing from an American school passed the 2003 bar. My second son took the 2004 bar with his Dad who is now 64 years "young." I am now keeping my fingers crossed and praying hard for them, for who could doubt the power of prayers?
As for that old plant vendor of my age whom I met in Guiginto, Bulacan, she may be exposed to the sun most time of the day-not caring at all about sun block creams, moisturizers and the like. But just the same, she must be happy with her life surrounded by beautiful flowers and plants; and the way she looks is no more important to her than making a living.
Lilia P. de Vera, 64, is a senior partner at the Pilares-De Vera & Associates Law Offices.
Updated 01:59am (Mla time) Dec 17, 2004
By Lilia P. de Vera
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 17, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
COMING from a court hearing in Bulacan, I made a side trip to buy plants in Guiguinto. Content with having made some good bargains, I told the woman who sold me the plants how lucky she was to have a hobby for a business. She certainly looked older than me with her face heavily lined with wrinkles and some of her teeth missing. Which prompted me to ask how old she was. "64 years old," she replied. I was dumbfounded. "Why, that's my age," I thought to myself.
Anyway, I'm a late bloomer, sort of -- a “probinsyana” from Bulacan who got married at 31, moved to Metro Manila, helped in the family business and went shuttling between the Philippines and the United States for about eight years to keep an immigrant visa active before finally deciding to settle for good in our dear country.
At the age of 54, with my children having finished college and with more than enough free time in my hands to spend doing some accounting, crocheting, sewing, cooking and reading, I decided to take up law -- "to exercise my mind," I thought. I chose one of the country's three top law schools based on information that its passing average in the bar was quite high; and, sure I wanted the best.
After finishing college as a working student and scholar, then passing the accountancy board immediately after graduation, I had the wrong notion law school would be a breeze. I never imagined the law school teeming with so-called "terror" professors. There simply was no lawyer in our family who could have warned me.
Studying law in that school made me more religious. Every day before the start of classes, I made sure to pass by a church and to pray that I be spared from class recitations, vowing before God that I would study harder the next day, while making all kinds of promises. When I was not well prepared for the recitations, I'd go to school with goose bumps.
I didn't mind the stares of classmates who must have wondered (at the start of the first semester of my first year in law) what I was doing in their midst; or, if I was a professor, why I was in jeans! To steel myself against their questioning, if piercing, looks, I told myself it was I who was paying for my tuition, it was my life, I am responsible only to myself.
My husband had told me, also at the start of the first semester, to pay my tuition in installment, as he did not believe I'd be able to finish it. He seemed to have forgotten that I have always been a go-getter. By the way, I am a certified public accountant; that's why I find law interesting.
To make a long story short, I made friends in school. I became "Tita" or "Mommy" to everyone. They turned to me when they felt hungry, and it became a usual thing for me to bake and bring them their favorite oatmeal cookies. They also confided to me problems of the heart, perhaps because they looked up to me as someone who has weathered the storms of life. I enjoyed being in school, I even joined a sorority, the League of Lady Barristers, of which I remain a member.
I commuted either by jeep or by bus, later by FX from our office, as it was costly to bring my driver.
I finished law when I was 59, taking the bar right after graduating in 1999 -- after attending summer classes and review classes for minor subjects I was not allowed to overload. I remember a note the dean attached to my registration slip when I was asking to take 23 units, during my last semester in 1999. On it was this question, "Why are you in a hurry to flunk the bar?" printed in bold, red ink, mind you! I cried in the ladies' room, I just wanted to be with my batch mates in taking the bar.
During the testimonials the school gave us for passing the bar, I teased the dean about that note, without rancor. I knew that he just wanted to make sure I would not be one of those in the statistics of flunkers. Fortunately, after studying and praying hard to my favorite patron saints, going as far as Manaoag, Pangasinan, I was among the 16-something percent would-be lawyers who made it that year.
When the results of the bar were released, I personally went to look at the list of successful examinees, doing it after almost all the other examinees and onlookers who had gone there earlier had left. I did not want people to see me cry just in case I found the list without my name on it. But when I saw my name, I couldn't help but throw a fist in the air and, with the feeling of exhilaration all over me, told the person next to me I passed the bar.
To my surprise, the very next day, somebody was requesting me for an interview. I was sort of puzzled for I couldn't imagine how they even came to know my name. Some media people are simply resourceful.
Three days later, I was featured in the "World Tonight"; then later in "Balitang K." And so it came to pass that the secret I have kept from my classmates for so long -- my age -- became public knowledge. Even my friends abroad were calling me.
I am a practicing lawyer now. A daughter who had a master's degree in marketing from an American school passed the 2003 bar. My second son took the 2004 bar with his Dad who is now 64 years "young." I am now keeping my fingers crossed and praying hard for them, for who could doubt the power of prayers?
As for that old plant vendor of my age whom I met in Guiginto, Bulacan, she may be exposed to the sun most time of the day-not caring at all about sun block creams, moisturizers and the like. But just the same, she must be happy with her life surrounded by beautiful flowers and plants; and the way she looks is no more important to her than making a living.
Lilia P. de Vera, 64, is a senior partner at the Pilares-De Vera & Associates Law Offices.
posted by Dante at 11:40 AM
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