Six Fil-Ams named ‘Grand Agers’ for decades of public service

Six Filipino Americans who embrace age with grace and active engagement will be honored as “Grand Agers” at an event to promote elder care and prevent elder abuse in South San Francisco.

For their decades-long community service in diverse fields, Californians Aurea Ocampo Cruz, Conrad Gamboa, Cynthia Arnaldo Bonta, Perla Gange Ibarrientos, Peter and Estrelle Chan will receive the commendation June 17 at the 14th annual “Our Family, Our Future” education program and resource fair organized by ALLICE Alliance for Community Empowerment.

“Grand Agers”: Peter Chan, Estrelle Chan and Perla Barrientos. CONTRIBUTED

“Grand Agers” from left: Cynthia Bonta, Area Cruz and Conrad Gamboa. CONTRIBUTED

“We celebrate longevity and the meaningful ways our six pioneers continue working for the greater good even after they conclude their professional careers,” announced Bettina Santos Yap, founding president of the all-volunteer nonprofit founded in 2003.

“We are all living longer, but unfortunately ageism is escalating,” she added.  “Recognizing our Grand Agers is our way of rejecting age discrimination because, as our honorees prove, we get better with age.”

Better with age

Retirement seems to have no place in the vocabulary of the six longtime volunteers who model the Filipino value of “bayanihan” or communal cooperation.

After completing 12 years advising the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors on issues facing older adults as a member of the County Commission on Aging, Aurea Ocampo Cruz, 91, continues to lead the Legion of Mary at Holy Angels Catholic Church in Colma, California.  She oversees planning meetings, parishioner visits particularly to the sick, and responding to the spiritual needs of the congregation.

The Cavite native effectively provides service 24/7, being in charge of the wellness and health program of her housing complex.  She’s the epitome of “charity begins at home” for she religiously visits her husband Ross Ocampo, 93, as he recovers at a rehab center for an accident that ended his own longtime volunteer work as a peer counselor.

Tessie Madrinan, Filipino peer counseling program coordinator at Peninsula Family Services, will present simple ways to empower older adults. INQUIRER/CMQuerolMoreno

Conrad Gamboa, 81, found his vocation at St. Augustine Catholic Church in South San Francisco, his parish since 1986.  He had attained his doctor of dentistry degree from the University of the East in Manila when he brought his wife Linda and their daughter to this country in 1972.  After briefly practicing his profession, he joined California Pacific Medical Center, where he worked for nearly three decades.

Through the years, the Gamboas have become pillars of the parish Small Christian Community and FilAm Society.  He serves as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion and a commissioned member of the parish hospitality ministry. Recently La Union-born Conrad was lauded for his ongoing 35 years as a Knight of Columbus, including a year as Grand Knight.

Activist, organizer and mobilizer Cynthia Arnaldo Bonta, 85, keeps on going since the 1960s, marching alongside icons of Filipino American empowerment in the California heartland. She founded the Philippine National Day Association kindling Filipinos’ quest for higher education with scholarships.

Ever mindful of her beginnings, she laid the proverbial foundation for the City Sistership between her adopted home city Alameda and Dumaguete City, where she was born, raised and began her ministry.

Two years ago she organized Filipino American Progressives to consolidate state then national efforts to support progressive Filipino and Asian American electoral candidates.

Recently she collaborated with Latinx leaders to build the Larry Itliong Resource Center as a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Valley Empowerment Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the legacy of Larry Itliong Jr., who believed that working in solidarity with Cesar Chavez, Mexican and Yemeni farmworkers was the only way the strike for collective bargaining and an agricultural union could be possible. CVEA works with the Mexican, Filipino, and Yemeni communities to address food and water scarcity, housing, drug dependence and more to transform the valley one county at a time.

Above her accomplishments Bonta is best known as the mother of achiever children: mental health/sports performance specialist Lisa B. Sumii, diversity, equity and inclusion blogger Marcelo Bonta, and California’s first FilAm elected to the State Legislature, now the first male Asian American Attorney General in California history, Rob Bonta.

Everyone’s “Ninang” or godmother Perla Gange Ibarrientos, 88, is a co-founder of the Filipino Democratic Club of San Mateo County, Pilipino Bayanihan Resource Center and Filipino Mental Health Initiative – cornerstones of her home city’s empowerment efforts.

She is PBRC board chair, Daly City Personnel Commissioner and founding member of the Daly City Task Force on Age Friendly Communities formed in 2019 to ensure the independence and wellbeing of older adults wherever they decide to reside.

The former pharmacist from Iloilo and her husband of 58 years Mig Ibarrientos are proudest of their children Glenn, recently retired US Air Force Major and Director of Public Health Nurses of San Mateo County; Joy Ann Daffern, Executive Vice President of John Wells Production Hollywood, and Gladys Smith, Assistant CEO of San Mateo County Employees Retirement Association.

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Parishioners of Star of the Sea in San Francisco expect to see Peter and Estrelle Chan at every activity in the church where they have been ministering since the 1980s.

The couple’s service began when their twin sons Palmer and Petrel attended the parish school.  Estrelle, who will be 80 next year, has been presiding over the FAASTAR or Filipino American Association of Star of the Sea Church for 15 years.  They raise funds  and “motivate parishioners to participate in building a friendly and stewardship community” while “introducing Filipino culture,” says Peter, 88.

The Chans have honored their church commitment through their unimaginable grief in 1994 when Petrel was killed in a hit-and-run on 19th Avenue in San Francisco. The tragedy drew an outpouring of support from their parish and beyond, intensifying the couple’s devotion to serve.

Safety tips, resources

Set for the week commemorating World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, the event will also address the unabated hate crimes against Asians as a result of being scapegoated for the spread of COVID 19.  Dr. Jei Africa, Behavioral Health and Recovery Services Director of San Mateo County Health System, will recommend safety tips for people who witness or experience hate attacks.

In collaboration the City of South San Francisco, Positively Filipino, Philippine News Today and San Mateo Behavioral Health & Recovery Services, ALLICE is presenting the free and open to the public event in person for the first time since the pandemic shelter in place mandate.

The event takes place 2-4 pm, Saturday, June 17, at the South San Francisco Municipal Services Building. San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa will give the keynote remarks.  Former Philippine Vice President Leni Robredo, founder of Angat Buhay, a PH-based nonprofit volunteer movement to uplift Filipinos, will deliver a message encouraging the bayanihan system.

Tessie Madrinan, coordinator of Peninsula Family Service Filipino Peer Counseling program, will present the 9 Acts of Kindness to Empower Older Adults.

Twenty-five family resource providers will be present to consult on their programs and services.  The A-List, ALLICE’s free resource directory underwritten by the Town of Colma, will be distributed.

Refreshments will be served and free raffle will be drawn immediately at the end of the program compliments of donor allies led by Lucky Chances, Moonstar, Duggan’s Serra Mortuary, Classic Bowl, FilAm Cuisine 2 and Serramonte Center.

For more information visit www.ALLICE Kumares.com.