Fil-Am couple marks 60 years together in love and service

Daly City Mayor Juslyn Manalo (left) relates how the couple’s first dance led to a lifetime of love and public service. Photo by Rey Guarin

DALY CITY, Calif. – Top Bay Area officials and this city’s core leadership literally rose to the occasion to hail a Filipino American couple for their devotion to each other and to their community.

Daly City’s favorite “Ninang,” the former Perla Gange and her husband Emidgio “Mig” Ibarrientos proved love simply sweetens over time and grows when seasoned with trust and respect, support and understanding, and a common passion to serve together.  Recently they vowed anew to honor their wedding vows on their 60th anniversary, before 300 closest relatives, friends and acquaintances led by their allies in politics and public service.

San Mateo County Board of Supervisors District 5 representative David Canepa spelled it out in presenting his proclamation on behalf of the Board: “Mig and Perla model how a healthy relationship looks like.” He described his decades-long observation of the celebrants at Daly City’s Pacelli Event Center, noting how they strengthen each other by embracing each one’s individual aspirations while fulfilling their joint responsibilities as spouses and parents.

Canepa then proclaimed March 23 “Mig & Perla Ibarrientos Day” throughout the 25-city county in honor of the couple’s diamond anniversary.

The Ibarrientos children Glenn, Gladys Joy Ann and their families compose the wedding renewal entourage. Photo by Rey Guarin

By then, Daly City Mayor Juslyn Manalo – for whom Perla is a real-life “ninang” or godmother, having stood as sponsor at her wedding to Eluid Palamo – had already proclaimed the same in her city, where the Ibarrientoses have lived and dedicated themselves while raising their children Glenn, Gladys and Joy Ann.

In fact it was in their children’s Garden Village Elementary School where Perla first poured her energies as a new American.

Public service

Volunteering replaced pharmacy as Perla’s passion and her way of watching over her brood. Her lifetime of community service began when she and her children followed Mig to California, where he had immigrated two years earlier in 1971.

In the late 1980s, Perla joined a group of Filipino Americans seeking to empower themselves and their own. Attending the San Mateo Organizing Project inspired them to launch the Daly City Organizing Project, which in turn spawned the Pilipino Bayanihan Resource Center, better known as PBRC.

Today Perla oversees PBRC as chair of the board of directors, just one of her countless activities. In 1992, she was appointed to the Daly City Public Libraries Board of Trustees as its first Fil-Am member.  For her efforts to engage North County Fil-Ams in civic work, she received the Assembly 19 Woman of the Year award.

San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa (left, with son Piero) commends the celebrants for modeling healthy intimate partnership. Photo by Rey Guarin

In 2019 she completed the brain trust that earned accreditation of her city as an Age-Friendly community.

Last month she was commended as one of Daly City’s Women of Excellence in recognition of her constant clamor to advance Fil-Am socio-political issues – from smoking cessation and legal clinics to voter registration and leadership development – and responding vigorously to humanitarian causes across the Pacific, such as relief efforts in the wake of natural calamities in their birth country.

The grandmother to five and great grandmother to two can outlast younger peers on the Daly City Personnel Commission, her current appointed role in city governance advising the City Council on matters related to Human Resources. Her term ends in 2025, and she shows no sign of slowing down.

At 89 she is probably the most powerful Filipino American never elected – yet.

Perla admits that her accomplishments couldn’t be possible without the support and encouragement of her biggest fan and first adviser.

Early on, Mig, now 91, focused on his engineering career as a project manager in design and construction with Pacific Bell.  Though he retired in 1991, he consulted for a few years in the City of Los Angeles and later established his private consulting.

Blind date

Their love was born in Iloilo City, Philippines, where Perla’s friend Brenda orchestrated a blind date with Mig, then-chief engineer with the Bureau of Public Works.  He had asked Brenda to find him the ideal partner for the Iloilo Maritime Academy graduation ball aboard a ship.

Perla, who was at the event for the Ring Hop for a relative, was unaware of the plan.  When the dashing mechanical engineer asked her to dance, she declined, saying she didn’t know how.  But then the song “This Love of Mine” played and suddenly Mig grabbed her hand, swept her off her feet and the dance floor became their stage.

“And that started everything,” the co-celebrant wrote in the love story she had penned and narrated twice on the same day 60 years later.

The bride and groom’s family made up the bridal renewal entourage.  Guests included protagonists in the couple’s colorful journey from central Philippines to Northern California, their contributions to their community extending beyond their chosen hometown as new Americans.

Reunion of allies

From Fil-Am collaborators and diverse elected officials from three levels of government, attendees renewed ties and reminisced the beginnings of Fil-Am empowerment kindled by the event honorees.

Wearing a Barong Tagalog gifted by the woman he calls “Tita Perla,” City Manager Tom Piccolotti shared candle-lighting duties with Marie Villarosa, marketing director of Serramonte Center. Department of Recreation Director Denise Brown and Recreation Supervisor Romeo Benson, HR Director Natalie Sakal, Department of Water Resources Manager Joshua Cosgrove, Fire Chief Ron Myers and Deputy Chief of Police Cameron Christensen traded well wishes.

Four-time Daly City Mayor now Lake County Chief Public Defender Ray Buenaventura smiled as his surrogate mother walked gracefully down the aisle in her resplendent Filipina dress with the love of her life and Council Member Glenn Sylvester heartily applauded the celebrants. Just weeks before her appointment as the newest City council member, Theresa Proaño and her longtime employers Dan and Karen Duggan cheered for the honorees.

Earliest arrivals were California Assembly Member Dianne Pappan and Millbrae Mayor Gina Pappan whose father, the late Assembly Member Lou Pappan, confided in Perla. City Clerk staff Becky Ayson welcomed guests like retired San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ron Quidachay and wife Kathy, former BART Board Member Rodel Rodis and wife Edna, and retired Deputy City Attorney Ernie Llorente and wife Mila.

Meanwhile at their table, community advocates and PBRC pillars Jojo and Noime Liangco and Rolly and Tessie Recio proudly took in the scenario of Filipino Americans literally seated at the table with the city establishment, the outcome of their grassroots efforts not too long ago.