By: Norberto Betita
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| ALDA C. ALIPAYO |
One of the few privileged young woman in our high school
batch of 1969 is SNNHS ‘69er ALDA C.
ALIPAYO. Her parents Mr. & Mrs. Rodulfo F. Alipayo were both teachers, with
Mr. Alipayo then being already the Principal of Claver National High School. As
teachers and school principal, both parents were earning the highest salary in
government service during those times. As a matter of fact, they were richly
favored to have built a modest apartment house with a commercial space in an
expensive piece of lot---an inheritance of Mrs. Alipayo from her parents---located
at Borromeo Street in the center of Surigao City, which earned for the family
additional income. The property is part of the commercial district and by most
recent actual market value, it is already a very expensive estate.
Alda, as she is fondly called by her first name, probably
because of it being short, was one of the tallest female student in our class.
She’d got her body build and height from her father, so are her siblings. What
made her so distinctive and singular from among the young women in our class was
her deep-toned voice which would mistake her to be a recently grown young man.
But she was not even boyish, but a fair young lady with white fair complexion
being a city girl. She was one of those blessed few who were best provided with
school gears and academic tools.
While in high school she had not dreamed of any ambitious
college degree or a superior future career. Yet she prepared herself best by
developing her intellectual capacity with enthusiasm, looking forward with
brilliant optimism to a more challenging academic battles ahead. She had been earlier groomed to follow the
footsteps of her parent’s teaching career, such being a very inviting and
highly paid work opportunity at that time. Hence, it was only during the very
moment that she left the portals of her Alma Matter that she finally decided to
enroll at San Carlos University in Cebu City for a course leading to a degree
of Bachelor of Science in Commerce, major in Accounting. While the course may
have been most common then, but it was and is even at this time, a tough and
demanding degree course. However, with progressive perspective, worthier goals
and firmly fixed determination to succeed, she finally graduated in 1974.
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| With two of her nieces she once mothered |
She returned home in Surigao City with her graduation
documents fixed in her achievement portfolio. She then applied at the
Marinduque Mining and Industrial Corporation-Surigao Nickel Refinery (MMIC-SNP),
a then thriving nickel refinery in the island of Nonoc. She was employed as
accounting clerk. But the work was short-lived, because while in such
employment, she applied at the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC),
which branch was located within the company premises of the MMIC-SNP. With her
inherent competitiveness and brilliance and being a graduate from one of the
best universities in Cebu City, she immediately qualified and was employed in
May 1974. Such was the start of her work as a banker, a career that always
pays.
She worked for two years at the RCBC branch in Nonoc Island
as Accounting/Remittance Clerk. Then in 1976 she transferred to RCBC Surigao
Branch and stayed until 1982. Promotions in the provincial branches were before
aloof and remote, so with her parent’s suggestion for her to help watch over
her younger brother who was still in college, she decided to request for
transfer to branches in Metro Manila. Fortunately, her request was granted and
she was given the position of Loans Clerk at the Caloocan Branch.
Her transfer to Metro Manila turned out to be a blessing and
a success, like hitting two birds with one stone---she was able to support her rather
spoiled younger brother to finish college and she gained the most needed
promotions. Since then and until her retirement in the year 2000, she rose from
the ranks to become a Cash Supervisor, Cashier, Operations Head-Assistant
Manager, Senior Assistant Manager, Head-Loans Documentation-Manager at RCBC
Metro Manila, and Operations Head back to Caloocan Branch; her last and final
assignment.
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| With brother Diego, sister-in-law Louella, and niece and grandniece and grandnephew |
Nevertheless, despite her very successful career growth and
development as a banker, she still found the twinge and discomfort of life’s
emptiness in solitude, such as are common to single women. But being a strong
woman, she tried to fill the vacuum and endeavored to overcome her share of
life’s vicissitudes, convincingly believing that each person has its own
particular destiny. On her part, she said, “I am not sad being single” and admits,
“I guess it’s the will of God.” She had provided the best things for herself
from the abundant fruits of her labors, and enjoyed with gusto the fatness of
its kernel.
In the depths of her commitments and dedication to her
banking career, she seemed to have missed the opportunity to find or to have
been found by a possible life time partner and to create a family of her own,
which is one common desire of women. Her beauty and charm were hidden within
the dark precincts of a very busy career that winds up always at night. Indeed,
she strived to be as attractive and gorgeous as she should be with her
appealing bank uniform and slim frame. But fate consigned her to a life of a single
woman. Consequently, she accepted the verity
that like several other single women, “…marriage and parenthood are the fabric
of their dreams and the deepest desires of their hearts! But for some, there is
no suitable opportunity, or they are single for other reasons beyond their
control” (Happiness—There’s Not a Single Barrier, Ensign, March 1988, By Mayola
Miltenberger.)
In her singleness and solitude, she found strength in the
knowledge that “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to
be” (Abraham Lincoln). Therefore she admits that she is single, but not feeble.
She exercises her faith and courage to give her strength to wait for what God
has in store for her. Thus, she eventually found greater joy and gladness in helping
to support two of her nieces, the daughters of her younger sister who died of
Leukenmia at age 38, while the children were still young. Before her sister
died, it was already arranged that the children will be supported in their
needs by the family until high school graduation. Her commitment was to help
and assist them in their quest for college education in Manila. While in her
custody, she treated and cared for her nieces as her own daughters, thus
molding a mother-daughter kind of bond which now remained unshaken. She was
honored as to be their second mother. The two are now on their own, the one
working in Dubai and the other in Virginia, USA. To them and their children,
she was an angel of mercy.
Upon retirement, she lived in Valenzuela, Bulacan on a house
she owned, enjoying the company and visits of some extended family and
relatives. She was only 48 years old, physically vigorous and healthy, when she
retired from being a banker, a career that always pays. To fill life’s voids as
a result of a very early retirement and to cover the permanent loss of
necessary income from regular employment, she engaged herself in an aquaculture
business in a rented fishpond in Hagonoy, Bulacan; raising prawns, tilapia and
bangus. The business was purely her way of physical exercise and maintaining an
active life, which is an antidote to solitude. It was an hour trip from her
residence in Valenzuela, which she frequented only during harvest season.
It was a thriving business which provided for her productive
yields and satisfactory return of investment. In fact, it helped her acquire a
400 sq. m. lot with a one-storey house in Fairview, Quezon City, which she
termed as her “preparation to getting old” when her knees and limbs no longer
could climb the second floor. Yet she
understood that, “The secret of happiness consists not of having but of being;
not of possessing but of enjoying. It is a warm glow of the heart that is at
peace with itself” (David O. McKay, The Instructor, Nov. 1960, p. 422). She
finally closed her aquaculture business in the later part of 2007. She was
invited to partner with the owner of the fishpond, but she declined for obvious
reasons.
Eventually she sold her two-storey house and lot in
Valenzuela and now lives in Fairview, Quezon City with her first cousin, relishing
her single life in company with and visits of some of her nieces and grandniece and grandnephew and other relatives. She believes that God will not deprive her
of the blessings that are in store for her beyond this life for as long a she
remains faithful to Him. Should she, from her friends and batch mates, again bump
the age-old question, “Why are you still single?” she now have a ready answer:
“Because I’m too strong, too smart and too fabulous to settle” (Mandy Hale). Then
she wrote in gist, “nothing much, just waiting for the final flight.”
