MISS PHILIPPINES IS A BLUESTOCKING
by Ma. Cristina L. Pantoja
TERESA "Gemma" Guerrero Cruz, Miss Philippines of 1964, tosses her superb heard, with its silky,
dark hair, says in her gentle, extraordinarily pleasant voice, devoid of the little girl breathlessness
which Jacqueline Kennedy made fashionable: "I think the sorriest case in the world is the Filipino who
says that we have no culture of our own. What would one call his malaise - colonial mentality?
Bullheadedness? Plain old-fashioned ignorance? At any rate, I pity the poor fellow. He must be pretty sad."
And, as is always the case when this young woman speaks we are moved to a quick, undiluted pleasure.
The most arresting thing about Gemma is not the fact that she stands 5'10" on stockinged feet, nor even
the fact that she plays the nose flute. Hers is a charm which goes far beyond the dark eyes with their
enchanting Oriental slant, or the exquisite complexion, or the dazzling teeth. Hers is the instant charm
of a person who is all of one piece, a person who appears to have a clear idea of her own image,
a person unmistakably signed herself.
She star led the judges and members of the screening committee of the Miss Philippines contest with her
announcement that she pillages old churches in the province, touched them with her impromptu recitation of
José Rizal's El Ultimo Adios, won their flank admiration for her three-minute thumbnail history of the
Philippines. And now, all over the islands, people are exclaiming, some with awe, some with delight, and
other with ill-concealed amusement, "Miss Philippines is a bluestocking!"
It doesn't bother Gemma. She has always been unconventional. She cut her milk teeth on piles of Philippines
history books at her home and, entering her teens decided that she was fascinated by pre-Spanish culture
and wanted to specialize in archeology. Mama Chitang gave a ladylike gasp and said, "Are you crazy?" So
Gemma finished A.B. foreign service, instead of archeology, at Maryknoll College.
Finding out after her graduation that she was too young to take the government examinations, she accepted
a post in the bibliography department of Ateneo's division of history. Her office was on the ground
floor of Bellarmine Hall, the men's dorm. "Can you imagine a more interesting place to work in?" she laughs.
Nonetheless, when she learned there was an opening at the National Museum, she shook the dust of Loyola
Heights from her heels. After a brief period of training at the anthropology department, which included
an excavation tour to the caves of Dipolog, Zamboanga, she could tell Ming from Sung at first glance.
Presently, she holds the position of chief docent (guide)and historical writer.
Her triumph as No. 1 beauty of the land, she takes with the same equanimity that she took the unexpected
trip to Europe and the Middle East some two years ago, and the breakup of her first real romance, and
everything else in life.
"I joined the contest because it seemed an exciting idea. I had never done anything like that before, and
besides, things were getting to be too quiet for comfort. It was a painless process really. I was
nervous, but not hysterical. And when they told me I'd won, I felt like grinning idiotically."
She didn't, though. Gemma is the unlikeliest person to burst into either grins or giggles. And this,
gentlemen find most attractive. They like her smile, which, like her voice, is warm and gentle
and compelling.
At 20, Gemma, like Gigi, seems posed midway between enchanting childhood and ravishingly beautiful
womanhood. That is perhaps what gives her face its charming mobility, the unique blending of gaiety
and calm, the vividness common to persons possessing a blaze of temperament, and a clear, irresistible
sense of humor.
Some people would call her sophisticated. Gemma would disagree. "I'm incorrigibly sentimental. I like
playing Dream of Love on the piano. I can't smoke because smoke makes me dizzy. I don't like black
coffee. I started dating seriously only this year, because in college, I liked being on the dean's list
and too many dates proved distracting. I can't be bored or blase about anything. Mama says I'm always
inordinately excited about something or the other. If that's sophistication, then I must be sophisticated."
But her friends are not inclined to take all this seriously. Gemma is one of the lucky few who found what
her type was early, and learned to dramatize it. And the type is exactly what New York beautiful young
wit, Gloria Steinem, calls, "non-type" - nutty, chameleonic will-o-the-wisp. She likes her music,
sometimes wonderfully wild and throbbing, sometimes sweet and languid; her clothes, trim and tailored to
a T; her jewelry, big and chunky - unpolished turquoises, corals, antique jade, bulky gold bracelets; her
art, impressionistic; her fiction, introspective and slightly depressing, the way Camus and Gide write it.
She is forever doing unexpected things, like wearing dark glasses at night, or learning to dance the
Dugso, a Bukidnon folk dance of worship to the moon, in which the only music is the sound of the bells on
the dancer's feet.
She is morbidly frightened by heights, enclosed places, and getting taller. She enjoys fashion
modelling because dressing up in beautiful things gives her a lot of pleasure, but with her own money she
is almost frugal, preferring to splurge on an antique rather than on an evening bag. She likes men who
treat her as though she were 5'2", but spiked four-inch heels have always been a terrible temptation.
She avers she's not domestic ("Marriage is a wonderful thing, but only when you're around forty, and hence
terribly courageous and enduring and ready for those tremendous responsibilities."), but she took lessons
in cooking, baking, and dressmaking at the same time that she was studying ballet, and painting, and
drama.
MAY 2004