Manang Mani

By Glaiza Bernadeth Pinto

She is a main fixture in campus and many students turn to her for motherly advice or simply for just some friendly chitchat.

Her name is Lolita Lazaro, but we, and several generations of students before us, fondly call her Manang Mani.

Manang Mani, a native of Domalandan in Lingayen, is an epitome of success — though perhaps not exactly within the same terms as some of us would define success — and unarguably a picture of happiness.

Born within underprivileged circumstances, she had to start working at a tender age of five. When her father died when she was 12, she had to work even harder to help provide for her family’s basic needs.

Later on, she started her own family and gave birth to seven children, one of whom unfortunately died.

Experiencing the hardships of her childhood strengthened and pushed her to a determination towards changing her own family’s life.

After migrating to Baguio with her growing family, she and her husband sold peanuts to various schools within the city.

She says they moved to find greener pastures and try out their luck elsewhere. “But what is luck without will and God’s guidance?” she says from the depths of her experienced soul.

Their income from peddling peanuts (she mans a small stall at the main gate of the UP Baguio campus and the rest of the family, including her husband and children work for the business), coupled with judicious management of the family’s finances, has proven to be their means for sending all their children to school, all the way up to a college degree.

One of her sons is now a seaman and another a policeman. Another child is a Communications graduate from UP and one other works in a radio station. The youngest is graduating this school year as an Economics-Psychology major also from UP.

Her eldest did not finish her studies, she narrates, for she got pregnant early. But just like the other life challenges thrown their family’s way, Manang Mani said they took the situation in earnest and the rest of her children learned from their Ate’s lesson by being determined to finish their studies.

Manang Mani also would always remind her children that she did not want them to have the same fate as her of not being able to finish school.  She believed in the value of education and wanted her kids to find a better future.

Now, she can proudly say that her children made it!

“I am very lucky for having six helpful and understanding children,” she says with obvious pride and joy.

And she never tires of telling students who come around to buy snacks and chat with her to “learn from your past and you will survive.”

With most of her children now working and helping with basic needs as well as sending the youngest through university, Manang Mani no longer needs to continue working. But she insists that selling peanuts has become her life.

She truly is our dear Manang Mani.

(Readers may reach columnist at marifijara@gmail.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/roots/
For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)

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