MANILA, Philippines?A friend loves to recount a famous line?one of many?by Chito Madrigal-Collantes. Asked how old she was?and there are those who are wont to ask a woman her age?she said nonchalantly, ?The freedom of age.?

Such was the woman?s wit, spunk, and distinction.

The death of Chito Madrigal-Collantes on Monday at age 86, many say, marks the passing of an era, and a generation. It?s an era that began in the postwar years of the late 1940s and 1950s?an age of elegance and graciousness to make up for the horrors of war?and rode and survived the tumultuous change of the ?60s and ?70s, and the generational shift of the ?80s onward.

It was a generation raised on decorum, fine taste and ?delicadeza? but which proved pliant enough to shape the interesting times it lived through.

It was a survivor generation, but which did its surviving with elan.

She was the last of Manila?s original ?400.?

One of the country?s wealthiest women, Consuelo Alejandra ?Chito? Madrigal-Collantes, was of that ?50s generation, and yet was ahead of it. She preceded women?s liberation by being independent, pursuing a career and business, long before many women did.

It is said that while she was born to the Madrigal fortune (shipping, real estate), she didn?t just live on it, she built it and expanded it into other industries (cement, banking, among others).

At the time of her death, she was the matriarch of one of the biggest industrial clans in the country.

Touching lives

At a time when there was a distinct line between the old rich and the new, a line between High Society and everyone else, Chito crossed the line effortlessly. The line has since been obliterated.

She had an impact on almost every sector of society?from high society to culture and the arts, fashion, education.

Given her stature, she was privileged to have gained access to all kinds of people, from the powerful and the wealthy to the ordinary?and it was a privilege she, apparently, turned into a blessing. She touched disparate lives, including those of fashion designers, artists and hairdressers.

It was said that Ms Madrigal-Collantes didn?t really belong to a single era or generation. ?She was always on to the next big thing. She never dwelt on the past. Au courant, as the French say,? said a friend.

A trailblazer

That was why she was many things to many people. In her biography ?Picture Me,? she wrote in the prologue:

?I have been a colegiala in a convent school, a rich man?s heiress, a law student, a housewife, a socialite, also a columnist, stage actress and very briefly, a television talk show host. I have worked in a hotel as a social directress, and many times over, as a political election campaigner. I once had a job in the US Department of the Interior. At another time, I was a fashion model. Some years ago, I became a banker and real estate developer and many people think of me as an art patron and philanthropist. I am also an ardent golfer. Others think of me as a liberated woman, a career-oriented Filipina who has been a trailblazer and trendsetter. They probably give me more credit than I deserve.?

Like no other woman

She was the fifth child of businessman-industrialist and former Sen. Vicente Madrigal and Susana Paterno.

Her siblings Macaria, Josefina, Antonio, Jose (Belec) have died. Pacita and Maria Luisa (Ising) are her remaining siblings. Sen. Jamby Madrigal is a niece, the daughter of her brother Antonio.

Whether in business or in lifestyle, it could be said she blazed the trail.

She became a lawyer when women her generation stayed at home. She chaired board meetings even in her twilight years. She wore the haute couture fashion of Paris and was said to have been among the regular clients of Balenciaga.

She was one of the first Filipinas to have worn Ramon Valera?s elegant gowns. Yet, she would also be confident and stylish enough to try today?s retail stuff.

A love story

A society watcher also remembered how she was one of the first Filipinas to have smoked in public. (Smoking took its toll on her health. She suffered emphysema in the years preceding her death.)

In their mid-life, she married Foreign Undersecretary Manuel Collantes. It was said that theirs was a most romantic love story, with Collantes writing her poems and singing her songs.

He held her hand as she breathed her last in their home in Forbes Park, Makati City.

Simple, time-honored rules

The couple didn?t have children, but she treated her nieces and nephews like they were her own.

?She seems to know most of what transpires in our lives,? wrote her niece Gizela Montinola in the book.

Montinola wrote: ?The rules she observes in her commercial dealings are simple and time-honored ... be straightforward, keep your word, and always leave something on the table.?

Asked by the Philippine Daily Inquirer to remember her close friend, foremost writer Chitang Guerrero Nakpil said of Ms Madrigal-Collantes: ?She was a very intelligent, virtuous and kind person and the greatest friend anyone can have.?

Her remains lie in state in her home in Forbes Park. On Thursday morning, there will be a funeral Mass at the Santuario de San Antonio followed by interment rites at the Madrigal mausoleum in Ayala, Alabang.