IN a move to perpetuate the name of Leonor Rivera to the present and future generations of Dagupeños, a comprehensive research on the life of  Leonor Rivera, the former sweetheart of Filipino national hero Dr. Jose Rizal and who once lived in Dagupan, is now underway.

This after Pangasinan Fourth District Rep. Christopher de Venecia, a former child actor and theater director, has accepted the request of the Sangguniang Panlungsod through Resolution No. 7250-2017 of Dagupan to spearhead the research on a national scale.

The young congressman’s commitment to the program was relayed to the National Commission on Culture and Arts (NCAA) through his Political Affairs Officer Atty. Agee Romero-Valdez.

In a letter to Bernan Corpuz, chief of plan/policy formulation and planning division of NCAA, Valdez confirmed that Congressman De Venecia, is eager to work on the project.

Leonor Rivera, a daughter of a clothes merchant from Camiling, Tarlac who migrated to Dagupan, once lived in a house along a street in the Poblacion area that was later renamed as Rivera Street.

Councilor Jeslito Seen, author of the resolution, traced the spot where the house of Leonor and her parents, once stood.

An old three-storey building owned by the Calvero family, believed to be relatives of Rivera’s mother, now stands on that lot on the now called Rivera Street.

Although Rizal courted Rivera, her parents chose to have her marry Henry Kipping, a British railroad engineer who helped build the Caloocan to Dagupan railroad line.

They were married at the Dagupan church.

The Kipping couple’s marriage contract is in the archives of the Dagupan church, now the Dagupan Metropolitan Cathedral, and whose replica was neatly preserved at the Dagupan City Museum.

The resolution of the Dagupan SP was endorsed on March 27, 2017 by the NCAA to the National Historical Commission (NHA) for proper action as gleaned from the letter of Corpuz, to Ludovico Badoy, NHA national executive director.

Councilor Seen, in his limited research on the life of Leonor, said the latter was a great pianist and had one or two pianos of her own. When she was forced by her parents to marry Kipling instead of Rizal, she allegedly vowed never to open and play her pianos again.

When the Kipping couple left Dagupan for Camiling, Tarlac, the pianos were left in the house that they occupied under the care of their relatives.

Councilor Seen said that when the relatives of Leonor moved to Bulacan, they took with them one of Leonor’s pianos and passed this on to their children who, realizing they had no use for this, donated it to the museum in that province.

“I saw one of Leonor’s piano now displayed at the Hiyas ng Bulacan” in Malolos. It may be good for all of us if Dagupan can take that piano back to Dagupan because that one meant a lot for all of us,” he said. (Leonardo Micua)

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