HER NAME MEANS “EXALTED ONE”

By: Norberto Betita

She accidentally dropped her ball pen during our English class. Then she requested the young man at her back to pick it up, but she was refused. He was the boy who had been teased and kidded as her teenage crush although there was no truth about it. Like most teenagers he was afraid to be booed and jeered by friends, so he said, “You dropped it, you have to take it back.” And all the more that our classmates applauded and cheered. Those were some of the happy memoirs of her high school life.

She is SNNHS ‘69er DELIA CORTES a white complexioned; long-haired; fair and beautiful small young woman. At first glance one would suspect her to be of Chinese descent. However, her looks was attributed to the prominent Cortes clan in Surigao City although she denied having any closer bloodline with the family. Her name Delia is a feminine for Delius and has its origin from the Greek moon goddess Artemis whose known birthplace was in the tiny island of Delos or Delius. Delia was also used as an English rendering of an Irish name Brighid or Brid which means “exalted one” (www.Google.com.) The dignified, glorious and noble meaning of her name had perhaps given her the enthusiasm to remain in the elite class and having a lofty goal to achieve. Like all others she left the threshold of the Surigao del Norte National High School with deep gratitude to find her way up the challenging journey to success.

She took the first lap of her race through life by enrolling at the San Nicolas College (now St. Paul University-Surigao) for a course leading to a degree of Bachelor of Science in Commerce, major in Accounting. During those times this is one of the most popular courses aside from teaching, considering that the only easy chance for employment in Surigao is with the government. Considering her talents, she must have other plans, but family circumstances might have deprived her of other options. Yet she is prepared to take whatever is the only available route to be able to reach the door of opportunities. She knew as George S. Clason has said that, “Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those who are unprepared.” Therefore, having no other choice she diligently took the challenge and pains of enduring the four years of college schooling. Like Abraham Lincoln she pledged: “I will prepare and someday my chance will come.” Indeed her chance did come and her eventual collegiate triumph slowly opened doors for career development and progress.

She started as a secretary at Eduhome Enterprises, a private Motorcycle dealership in Surigao City. After a year and a half, she transferred to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to be able to fully utilize her theoretical knowledge in accounting. She was appointed as Internal Audit Clerk for four years. Aiming to find better avenues for career growth, she took with her the five and a half years of preparation to take a crack at greater opportunities in Metropolitan Manila. “Not knowing when the dawn will come [she open[ed] every door (Emily Dickinson)” and with her talents and beauty was met with another opportunity to be employed as Confidential Secretary at the Department of Health. But she found no satisfaction and contentment which her youthful energy and vigour ever desired. Her vision of the future opens even brighter as she looks forward with greater anticipation for an ameliorated and exalted [which her name implies] career break . She wished and prayed that a wider door of opportunity will be opened. Then the break dawned upon her when she was requested to accompany her friend for an overseas employment interview, after which she was introduced to the interviewer as an accountant. She was met by the hospital owner himself--- Dr. Fakeeh---who then required her to fill up the necessary papers. Never in her wildest dreams neither in her youthful fantasies that she would one day be heading for overseas employment. What she ever desired was simply for her to find career advancement in her homeland. But the door of development and progression was wide opened before her view. Henceforward, she joined the throng of the Filipino Diaspora and took her chance of being employed overseas. She faced every difficulty and challenge required of overseas employment believing that obstacles and impediments will eventually provide better opportunity. Indeed, her positivity and preparations were met with good fortune and she was employed as an Accountant at the Dr. Soliman Fakeeh's Hospital in Jedddah, Saudi Arabia. She was still single then and she felt that her chance had finally come and complete satisfaction and exaltation filled her heart. She stayed in such position for 20 years unto retirement.

Alongside her career path she almost had forgotten one most important component of her life---love and marriage. Her youthful attractiveness and beauty was hidden and obscured behind her career concentration and absorption. Her eyes were blurred by the excitement she got out of her wondrous opportunities that she failed to see the men which were within her view and reach. Yet she could not hide her attractiveness from the multitude of men surrounding her. One day her gleaming beauty was caught by the eyes of an honest searching man---LUCIANO S. MARTICIO---also an Accounting Analyst of an International Airport Project in Jeddah. Their common interest in accounting became the link that hold their feelings together. Then she seemed to hear the words of Socrates: “By all means marry; if you get a good [husband], you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.” After three years in a relationship they decided to tie the knot together in solemn matrimonial vows.

She married on October 5, 1987 at about age 35 to the same man that opened her heart---Luciano S. Marticio. Her marriage was likely a very happy one as may be evidenced by the fact that she got 3 children within the remaining short safe period of conception and pregnancy which is from 35 to 40 years old. Her eldest son Mark Gerard was born in 1989, followed by her only daughter Laida Isabel in 1991, and finally the youngest son Marc Adrian in 1993, when she was about 41 years old. All children were born in Jeddah. Within the marital union she found a much better perspective and purpose of her career even with her paramount responsibility as a wife and mother. But married life is not all joy. Together with the union come happiness and disappointments, serenity and storms, sunshine and shadows. Marriage is no Garden of Eden but in all the telestial experiences are drawn real joy and gladness, and satisfying contentment. This is best expressed by Mark Twain when he said: “After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.” (The Diaries of Adam & Eve.) She realized that she had to be adjusted to her married life and to enjoy whatever it brings. She believed that, “A great marriage is not when the 'perfect couple' comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.” (Dave Meurer.)

As her eldest child was aged 5 years, she and her husband made a very crucial decision to transfer their children to Surigao City while still young for them to be nurtured the Filipino way. To both spouses that was such a heartrending choice, living their three little angels under the care of their grandparents, uncles and aunts with only a month each year for them to visit. Delia was turned between two very imperative preferences---her husband and three children. Yet after prayerful considerations, she and her husband decided to continue their labors in Jeddah with hopes to best prepare the future of their children. Technology somehow filled the voids of being away from her beloved children, and their contacts and yearly visits made the family feel that they were in one shelter of home. However, the heart of a mother is ever overpoweringly occupied with deep concern especially as children are exposed to the the vulnerability of youth. Se eventually retired in 2004 as her eldest child enters college. Family bond was even strengthened and the future of each child assured. Her eldest son earned a college degree in nursing at St,. Paul University in 2010; her daughter graduated from the Cebu Doctor's University with a BS in Radiologic Technology degree in 2011; and the youngest is now a BS in Business Administration student at San Carlos University.

As life reached her highest level of maturity, even at retirement, she discovered that atop the many years of vast experiences in life she still encountered blunders in her decisions. Like Delia, I myself, and many others, we learned and are taught that failures and mistakes are not sheltered and filtered by underlying successes we attained. Trials and tribulations follow even at the nearest step to the end of our life’s race. More than all the she has labored for, her best consolation in the coming years of twilight lies not in the hope of added abundance but in the most glorious and exalted experiences of family life. Her real happiness and glory is now centered on her three righteous children and a good and loving husband.

She will surely be attending the SNNHS ‘69ers golden jubilee reunion comes the year 2019.