EDITORIAL | MARCH 2025
By Ana de Villa – Singson
It’s time to say good-bye. My term as a Trustee of the AAA Board ended in December 2024. And what a beautiful 6 years they were! There are so many people to be grateful for: the alumnae who are so quintessentially Assumption: vocal, passionate, driven, courageous, ambitious, generous, open-hearted, able to move mountains, women warriors in zest and determination! What can I say…we, the Assumption Old Girls..are just lovable! And I fell in love with each and everyone that I met and worked with, most especially my colleagues in the Board. My journey was peppered with so many remarkable people: my San Juan Nepomuceno Malibay students in AAA Club-bing’s Outreach program who welcome us, the teachers, with hugs; and melt my heart with each message they send me (sometimes scolding me when I miss a class and then telling me that they miss me! What’s not to love?). The RA nuns who are the souls of goodness and gentility, they remind me to be child-like again, to continue to dream and dream big and hope and hope big. My 6 years were replete and I just needed to say thank you and thank you again for allowing me to give meaning…and to find so much meaning for myself as well! Also ending their terms are outgoing AAA President Carmella Gana – Araullo, AAA Secretary Marnie Roman Torres and Sabrina Bautista Panlilio.
It’s time to say goodbye! Sr. Regivic. Departed. Beloved. How does one measure the worth of a woman’s life? “In the end it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.” (Abraham Lincoln). Sr Regivic’s life was overflowing with the many lives she touched, the many students she honed, the learnings of St. Marie Eugenie that she lived by and amplified. And in her passing, so many words of love and remembrance. Read the many tributes in our special section for our very special Sr. Regivic. We remember. We will always remember.
It’s also time to say hello! Hello 2025, a Jubillee Year! After 25 years, the 4 doors of the major Basilicas in Rome were opened, symbollic of walking in and finding spiritual renewal and in that renewal, finding hope. Hope, we need it in droves in these uncertain times. But hope is eternal and Sr. Mary Ignatius Vedua , our youthful Provincial Superior, says it best in her message of hope and call for renewal. Hope can be found in these Assumpta pages. Tinnette Nisce’s story uplifts the heart and the miracle of Risa Bondoc’s life was the final miracle to cement St. Marie Eugenie’s sainthood. Both stories are pinnacles of hope, stories of insurmountable challenges met with the largest and most hopeful of hearts.
It’s time to say hello! We have a new youthful Provincial Superior, Sr. Mary Ignatius “Sr. Migs” Verdura. We have a new AAA board of trustees who elected new officers and formed new committees. The winds of change bring not only continuity of leadership and continuity to Assumption service, but also much hope. We know that no matter the uncertainty, violence and brutality which cloud our world, there will always be beacons of hope, repositories of inextinguishable light. They are our leaders and all of us Assumptionists too. We must burn brighter, work harder even more now.
It’s time to say hello! Batch 1986, most generously sponsored this quarter’s edition of Assumpta by providing us with their stories. Meet them… vibrant, beautiful, impactful! Thank you Batch 1986 and most particularly, Carmella Gana- Araullo, for collating your stories.
A famed quotation, “The only sure things in life are death and taxes.” I would like to add hope. That is certain too. Because a spark of divine is in each and everyone of us, and that spark, no matter how diminished or how bedeviled it becomes at times, reminds us that for every struggle, every challenge, every wrong turn…there is resurrection!
HOPE. May you have an abundance always.
All Hail!
SIGNING OFF….
ANA DE VILLA – SINGSON
Assumpta Editor in Chief, September 2021 – March 2025
Proud to Be! HS 1983!
