City mourns media matriarch’s passing

BAGUIO CITY – The city council on Monday approved a resolution lamenting the passing of media matriarch Cecile C. Afable.

            

Afable, editor-in-chief of the Baguio Midland Courier, died of a lingering illness last June 12 at the age of 95.  She was laid to rest last June 20 at the Baguio City cemetery.

           

 “(We) express deepest sympathies and heartfelt condolences of the City of Baguio to the bereaved family of the late Cecile Carino Afable..,” the city council noted.

               

 “(Mrs. Afable), together with former Vice Mayor Virginia De Guia and the late Engr. Leonora “Leonie” Paraan-San Agustin, were loved for their untiring efforts in establishing advocacies for the social, cultural and moral benefits and developments of the community of the City of Baguio, which no doubt benefited also the neighboring areas of the lowlands and the Cordilleras.”

            

Mayor Mauricio Domogan also condoled with Afable’s family saying that the illustrious newshen was hailed nationally and internationally.

            

The city council resolution recalls Afable’s beginnings thus:

            

“The late CECILE CARINO AFABLE was born in Baguio City on November 11, 1918.  She studied at the Baguio Central University and the Mountain Province High School (now Baguio City National High School).  Then after, she took up Philosophy at the University of the Philippines where was tagged as the first female Ibaloi to be admitted at the country’s state-run premier university;

            

“She then joined her elder siblings, Mr. Sinai and Mr. Oseo Carino Hamada, in founding the Baguio Midland Courier at a time when Baguio was starting to rebuild from the ruins of the World War II;

            

“She was also very active in community services and rendered unconditional passion in helping the women of Baguio and of Indigenous groups.  She served as a punong barangay in her own barangay, further as President and Board Member of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines, the Young Women Christian Association, the Baguio Women’s Club and the first BIBAK assemblies.” – Aileen P. Refuerzo