51. 1926, MISS LUZON, MISS VISAYAS, MISS MINDANAO

ROSARIO GENATO, Miss Manila

1926 MISS LUZON

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AURORA REYES, Miss Samar

1926 MISS VISAYAS

Aurora Reyes of Samar was the daughter of Ricardo Fuentes Reyes, a mestizo, whose father, Don Andres Reyes came from Cadiz, Spain. She will always be remembered as the 2nd wife of the great Filipino statesman, jurist, parliamentarian, politician Claro Mayo Recto (divorced from 1st wife was Angeles Silos). Aurora and Claro had two sons, Rafael and Clarito. Rafael is the father of former senator Ralph Recto.

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BALA AMAI MIRING, Miss Lanao

1926 MISS MINDANAO

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24. 1912, Reina de Mindanao, REMEDIOS FERNANDEZ REYES

1912 REINA DE MINDANAO, Remedios Reyes y Fernandez of Camiguin Island. 3rd princess to the 1912 Carnival Queen, Paz Marquez.

It was said that the most beautiful girls from Mindanao came from Mambajao, in the island of Camiguin. It was here that Remedios Reyes was “discovered”, when Gov. Gen. W. Cameron Forbes, accompanied by Bureau of Health director Dr. Felipe Arenas, went on an inspection tour of Mindanao. In Mambajao, the group was feted by Don Rafael Reyes whose late wife Rafaela Fernandez, was a relative of Dr. Arenas. The Reyes daughters, noted beauties of the town, were all in attendance.

SU MAJESTAD, ZORAIDA DE MINDANAW. Srta. Remedios Reyes, handpicked for the Mindanao queenship by W. Cameron Forbes.

As it was also Carnival season at that time, Gov. Gen. Forbes handpicked Remedios—the youngest of the Reyes children—to reign as Queen or Sultana of Mindanao. Rafaela died while Meding was only 9 years old, so she was left in the care of her aunt in Manila, Dna. Candida Wright. She was sent to study at the Italian Convent in Hong Kong where she learned to speak British English.

THE MINDANAO COURT, in authentic Muslim royal regalia.

GRAND SULTAN, Sr. Baldomero Pelaez was the official King Consort of Mindanao Queen, Remedios Reyes. He comes from a family that includes the statesman and politician Emmanuel Pelaez.

As Sultana Zoraida de Mindanaw, Remedios assembled her court which consisted of her sisters (sister Rosario was Princesa Zenza de Mindanaw) and cousins. She was escorted by the Grand Sultan, Sr. Baldomero Pelaez. She was a lifelong friend of Amparo Noel, Queen of the Visayas, whom she knew long before the Carnival.

QUEEN OF MINDANAO, Remedios Reyes in her Filipiniana finery.

Unlike previous queens, Remedios did not marry after her reign. It was only 10 years after that she wed Capt. Jesus Medina, a ship officer from Isabela but with Spanish ancestry. Married in Manila, they settled in Vermont St. in Malate. The union resulted four children: Guillermina, Gloria, Mario and Rene.

During World War II, the family was suffered ed when Remedios was hit by shrapnel at the height of the siege of Manila which caused her to be hospitalized for 7 months. A decade after, in 1955, she died of cancer, ahead of her husband.

23. 1912, Reina de Visayas, AMPARO BENITEZ NOEL

1912 REINA DE VISAYAS, Amparo Noel y Benitez of Carcar, Cebu, 2nd princess of the 1912 Carnival Queen, Paz Marquez.

Amparo Noel y Benitez, was the undisputed Reina de Visayas in the court of Paz Marquez, who reigned as the 1912 Matrona de Filipinas in that year’s Carnival. It is interesting to note that Paz Marquez also married a Benitez later in her life. Amparing, as she was called, had a renowned beauty which she inherited from her mother, Maria Benitez. She was a famous Espanola beauty in her time, who had married Vicente Noel of Carcar, an idyllic town less than an hour’s drive from Cebu.

BISAYA BEAUTY. Amparing in her official corontaion portrait, resplendent in authentic Visayan garb.

Nyora Amparing came second in a brood of 13 children.Her beauty has been described as “almost perfect”, with a patrician nose, dreamy (“mapungay”) eyes, delicately-shaped mouth, fine cheekbones and very fair skin.

VISAYAN QUEEN, with her prince consort Juan Orbeta and her 6 court attendants.

At the coronation night, Amparo had Juan Orbeta, a dashing Spanish mestizo. also of Cebu as her escort. Three years later, Amparo married Dr. Jose Ma. Borromeo, (d. 1959), who was 8 years her senior. Dr. Borromeo apparently had the vote of Amparing’s parents. Of this union, 7 children were born: Milagros, Rosario Josefina, Dolores, Ramon, Jose Jr., Manuel and Luis.

WEDDED BLISS. Amparing and husband, Dr. Jose Ma. Borromeo, with two daughters, Milagros and Rosario Josefina.

Ramon, the eldest son, also became a doctor, an orthopedist of repute, and married another national beauty, Myrna Sese Panlilio, the 1st Bb. Pilipinas-Universe 1964, of San Fernando, Pampanga. (Two other brothers also married Kapampangans). In her later years, she would suffer from diabetes and survived several surgeries performed no less than by his son, who has also since passed away.

22. 1912, Reina de Luzon: PACITA BANTUG DE GUZMAN

1912 REINA DE LUZON, Pacita De Guzman y Bantug of San Isidro, Nueva Ecija. 1st princess of Manila Carnival Queen, Paz Marquez.

The Reina de Luzon who ranked next after Paz Marquez was, by some amazing circumstance, also nicknamed Paz—and also one of the products of the Philippine Normal School, in the same circle of “Dormitory Girls”. Born in San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, she was the daughter of Santiago de Guzman and Feliciano Bantug.

LADY OF LUZON. Crowned Luzon Queen, Pacita de Guzman was also a member of the "Dormitory Girls", who were educated under the American system and who were favored to attend Malacanang functions.

Pacita finished her Education course at the University of the Philippines in 1912 and thereafter taught at the Manila North High School, the future Arellano High School. She handled a Biology class, but because of her musical background (she studied voice under Maestra Jovita Fuentes), she was appointed directress of the glee club. She directed operettas, presented musical numbers for school events and even had a number of future celebrity-students under her: actors Fernando Poe Sr., Carmen Rosales, Rogelio de la Rosa and radio/broadcast personalities Koko Trinidad and Luz Baluyot.

PACITA IN HER PRIME. Taken in the 1920s, when Pacita was a teacher at the Manila North High School. There, she made her mark as the director of the glee club.

In the early ‘30s, Pacita took a leave from teaching and traveled to Europe for further musical and language studies. It was in Marseille, France that she married Ramon Silos (the younger brother of Claro M. Recto’s first wife). The couple were childless. She continued teaching at Arellano High until the war, when she and other Maryknoll sisters were taken and incarcerated in Fort Santiago for 3 months. She was never the same after the war.

She lived with her widowed sister, Matilde in the late ‘40s and it was there that she was felled by a stroke. She never recovered and passed away in June 1956.