One of Baguio’s ‘3 Witches’ is gone

She made history and earned the distinction of being the country’s first woman chemical engineer. But Leonora Paraan San Agustin would be remembered by a Baguio community, which she loved so much, that she wouldn’t tolerate what she called its “uglification.”

And she was not only referring to some officials’ penchant for allowing concrete to swallow the city’s open green spaces; she was also referring to the degradation of the souls of those in charge of local governance.

At one point, San Agustin, former Baguio Mayor Virginia de Guia and Baguio Midland Courier editor Cecile Afable hugged a century-old “agoho” tree to dramatize a protest against a proposed flyover on Kennon Road and Marcos Highway. From that day on, they earned the moniker “Three Witches,” who would pester city officials to shape up and act to preserve what is left of the summer capital’s natural environment.

Still, for the three elders, “it did not matter if they were the last persons standing,” wrote Stella Maria de Guia in a recent Midland Courier editorial. “What mattered most,” she said, “was their love for Baguio—to keep its beauty and ambiance, to prevent its concretization, and the community and government officials into action.”

San Agustin succumbed to liver cancer on Nov. 29, a month after she was diagnosed of the disease while on vacation in her daughter’s house in Davao. She was 96.

Born to poor parents from Pangasinan, San Agustin practically worked her way through school. She earned extra money washing other people’s clothes, but this did not prevent her from graduating valedictorian in elementary and high school.

A scholarship enabled her to pursue a chemical engineering course at Adamson University in Manila and graduated cum laude. She passed the board exams and became the first woman chemical engineer in the country in 1939.

She did not pursue a career in chemical engineering though, after she found that she was allergic to chemicals.

After World War II, San Agustin shifted to teaching Humanities at Baguio Colleges Foundation (now University of the Cordilleras until she retired in the 1980s. From instructor, she rose to become full professor and head of the school’s public information and alumni relations office.

Her students would not forget how she hammered into their heads the pursuit of excellence. She abhorred what she described as the “OK lang” attitude of many of them or how they were satisfied with mediocre class performances, even scolding and calling them “tokong” (roughly translated as dimwit).

But calling the students names was actually not intended to demean them. They now appreciate that hard-earned grades would be their ticket to better options.

Many of them found their way in government. San Agustin would work with them later when, after retiring from the academe, she became the curator of the Baguio-Mountain Provinces Museum in 1985.

San Agustin integrated the museum with the city’s educational system. She made sure that the Cordillera’s diversified culture would help reinforce classroom instructions through the museum’s monthly exhibits.

Like other structures, the museum was damaged after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake devastated the city in 1990. But the strong-willed San Agustin initiated the facility’s reconstruction, soliciting funds from government officials and other donors.

“The funding she was able to solicit from the government was used to the last centavo, owing to her compulsion to monitor its construction even to the point of collecting nails that have fallen to the ground,” wrote J. Paul Manzanilla in the Philippine Yearbook 2005 that the Fookien Times published.

“That’s why those who want to commit graft didn’t like me,” Manzanilla quoted San Agustin as saying in Filipino. “They have nothing to take from me as kickbacks.”

Lorie Ann Damasco, San Agustin’s daughter, summed up two of the most important legacies from her mother—“integrity and social graces.”