ALL IN THE FAMILY The Carpios reveal the story of their lives in a 216-page coffee table book titled “The Carpios of Paoay,” which was launched on Jan. 7. Present during the event were (from left): Leticia Evangelista Palomar, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, Merilu Carpio-Caludio, Bobby Carpio and Maretta Carpio. JILSON SECKLER TIU
A BOOK of and by the Carpios.
After three years of compiling recollections, the clan to which Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales belong launched on Thursday a book chronicling its proud ancestry.
During the event at the Manila Hotel, Marietta Baccay, a third generation Carpio, described the coffee table book “The Carpios of Paoay” as “very inexperienced but intimate and personal,” referring to its being untouched by neither a professional writer nor editor.
“We have varied professions in the family but sadly, no journalist or biographer,” Baccay said in her speech, admitting that the book was written by members of the Carpio clan, which hails from Paoay town in Ilocos Norte, without the benefit of an editor.
“We did not edit actually. If you edited anything, the spirit will be lost. We just edited a little tense and pluralities,” she said.
The minimal editing resulted to a lot of missing punctuation marks, she said.
According to Baccay, “The Carpios of Paoay” is about generations composed of some 360 offsprings from the union of Florentino Exevea Carpio with Genera Dumlao-Carpio.
It was conceptualized by third generation cousins Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, Leticia Palomar, Mary Lou Claudio and Baccay.
“This book focuses on how generations of descendants of our grandparents were brought up. How they were as parents and as grandparents,” she said.
They also had to catch up with the remaining second generation Carpios who were starting to dwindle in number.
“We were starting to get worried that there would be nobody to tell the stories,” Baccay said.
In time they were able to dedicate a chapter for each of the eight offsprings of their ancestor Florentino and Genera, “and a ninth chapter to put everything together.”
She said it took three years to actually sit down and work on the coffee table book because of delays caused by the inclusion of family milestones—births, weddings and deaths—as well as differences in writing style and approach.
But the preparations for the coffee table book started as early as 1999 and decided on a cover in 2011, a year after the soft launch at the Valle Verde Sports Club, Baccay said.
The first unedited copy of the coffee table book was presented to the Carpio clan in their 2012 reunion in Paoay.
Publisher Mila Arzadon, a family friend and town mate, described the book in her foreword as a “collective memory” of the clan of Florentino Exevea and Genera Dumlao-Carpio.
It is a follow-up to the 43-page softbound book, “Our Memories are made of These (the Carpios in the 20th century)” released in 2000.
“As the reader moves from one chapter to the next, one sees a strong family bond of shared values and a distinct character in spite of different personalities, professions, social preferences and bloodlines,” she said.
Baccay said getting involved in the book was a labor of love aimed at further strengthening the Carpio family bond.