Determined to educate herself at a time when majority of girls like her had just earned the right to, not even an impending typhoon could stop Josefa Llanes Escoda from attending her classes in elementary.
“I'll not let the weather keep me away from school,” the young girl from Dingras town, Ilocos Norte had told her mother, as quoted by Google in 2018 upon its release of a doodle depicting her legacy for her 128th birthday: a life in service of others, especially women.
Escoda, who appears in the P1,000 peso bill alongside Gen. Vicente Lim and Jose Abad Santos, is now feared to fade into irrelevance, after Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas came up with a new design of the banknote that no longer bore their faces.
They were replaced by the critically endangered Philippine Eagle, a decision the central bank said was meant to unite Filipinos in response to criticisms saying it was an attempt to revise history.
One renowned historian called it a "slap in the face" of the World War II Filipino martyrs, as their appearance on currency was one way of honoring them and making sure that future generations do not forget not just the persons they were, but more importantly, what they stood for.
Escoda's erasure in particular raised concerns among women's rights advocates, as apart from her martyrdom in the war, she is after all, one of two Filipino women whose legacy is imprinted on money.
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The Life of Josefa Llanes Escoda
Born on Sep. 20, 1898 as Josefa Llanes y Madamba, Pepa, as she was fondly called, was the eldest among seven children of Mercedes Madamba and Gabriel Llanes. She exhibited strong committment to education early on, having graduated elementary and high school as valedictorian and salutatorian.
She also finished with honors from the Philippine Normal School in Manila in 1919, before becoming a social worker for the Philippine chapter of the American Red Cross, which eventually sent her on scholarship to the Columbia University in New York, where she earned her Master’s Degree in Sociology in 1925.
While in the U.S., Escoda was said to have participated in civic activities where she would be seen wearing a Filipiniana dress, helping spark foreigner's interest in Filipino culture.
It was in the U.S. where she met Philippine Press Bureau reporter Antonio Escoda, whom she would marry and have two children with.
In 1923, Escoda served as the executive secretary of the National Federation of Women's Clubs (NFWC), fighting for women's involvement in the Philippine government.
As a suffragette, she is famously quoted saying, "The modern woman is no longer the wife that clings; she now helps the husband. The women’s demand for independence is motivated by their desire to help their husbands in governmental affairs which always required the moderation and wisdom of women.”
In 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II, she underwent training in Girl Scouting in the U.S. Upon her return to the Philippines, she began training young women teachers of public and private schools to become Girl Scout leaders, who then proceeded to organize Girl Scout troops.
As first National Executive of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines, Escoda is most revered in the Girl Scouting movement, having helped millions of young Filipino girls realize their role in nation-building.
She also founded the Boy’s Town for the underprivileged youth in Manila in 1937.
Together with her husband, Escoda aided Filipino war prisoners and American internees in concentration camps during World War II by supplying them medicines, foods, clothes, and even acting as messenger.
Because of this, she was later captured and taken by Japanese forces to Fort Santiago in Intramuros, joining her late husband Antonio Escoda and the late Gen. Vicente Lim in detention. She reportedly was last seen alive but severely beaten on Jan. 6, 1945, after which she was transferred into a Japanese transport truck, never to be seen again.
The Philippines' Florence Nightingale "for her untiring and genuine commitment for the poor and the needy", as a 1998 presidential proclamation so recognized, Escoda was a civic leader, a social worker, a suffragate, and a feminist through and through.
Having sensed it was only a matter of time before she herself would be detained, Escoda delivered to a war commander words that would be known today as her last:
"If you happen to survive, and I fail, tell our people that the women of the Philippines did their part also in making the ember sparks of truth and liberty alive till the last moment."
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