Juliana Ylagan Orosa

This amazing woman is revered as one of the country’s greatest mothers, as she was left a widow to eight children at their tender ages. Her husband was Simplicio Orosa. Despite all the years of toil and hardship, she instilled great discipline, love, modesty, and religion in her children that eventually blessed them with bright futures. This gave her the title as Mother of the Year 1948 by the National Federation of Women’s Clubs. Of her eight children, all achieved success and four of them grew to national prominence. Among these four are, Vicente, Sixto, Maria, and Jose.

Arguably the most notable is Maria, who has a street named after her in Ermita. In 1922, she founded the Home Extension Service. This service taught housewives in towns and barrios throughout the Philippines skills of home management, child care, meal planning, food preparation, poultry-raising, and gardening. Her famous Palayok Oven enables baking with out electricity. Maria courageously died in the line of duty as a guerilla during the Japanese occupation.

Vicente was the Secretary of Public Works and Communications, where he helped paved many national roads as well as the improvement of postal and telephone services. Sixto was formerly chief different provincial hospitals of the Bureau of Health and was recognized for his renowned literary works in Spanish and English. Jose, a government pensionado, became the first president of the American firm, H.E. Heacock and Co., at a time when company executive Filipino roles were rare in the United States.