MANILA, Philippines - Marking 60 years of life, love and learning as a family and community through interesting times is an auspicious occasion for celebrants Cesar ?Iba? Villariba and Flotilda ?Nene? Collantes to take their enduring partnership to the next level: Leaving a legacy.

After 13 children, their 12 spouses, 44 grandchildren (including 2 partners) and 5 great grandchildren, Tatay Iba and Nanay Nene has built a community rooted in Lucena City, Quezon, dispersed throughout the world as students, migrants and overseas workers.

On July 5, 70 household members (remarkable for coming from one set of parents) came home to pay tribute to their Tatay and Nanay?s 60 years of enduring love and six decades as teachers.

Sixth child and third son Carmelo flew home from San José, California to co-celebrate his and wife Maebel?s silver anniversary.

In their wedding best, the double celebrants literally marched down the street from the family residence to the altar of Mt. Carmel of St. Joseph Church of the Carmelite Sisters for their anniversary Mass concelebrated by longtime family friends Bishops Emilio Z. Marquez and Ruben T. Profugo.

In fulfillment of their parents? legacy, the family composed a book entitled ?Life and Love in a Learning City: The Villariba Clan of Lucena City,? culled from the patriarch?s essays on education and historical vignettes in celebration of the theme (which Stephen Covey says is what we all wish for): To love. To live. To learn. To leave a legacy.

In the book, second child Girlie Villariba de la Torre, a social psychologist, recalls: ?Intimacy and commitment are at the core of our parents? love. We see them waking up early at 4 a.m. and preparing for a 6 a.m. Mass. Both go to work at 7 a.m. After my mother recovered from a stroke in 2003, she still accompanied my father to Enverga University where he has been teaching for 60 years.?

Lifelong loving

Young Cesar first saw his future wife when she was only 14, studying in Tayabas high school.

He was then selling bibingka and found Nene very beautiful.

When war broke out, Nene had to hide in Tagbakin hills with her parents Mariano and Beatriz Collantes to escape the Japanese soldiers.

While a college junior in UP Los Baños, Cesar was recruited and commissioned in the USSAFE as 2nd lieutenant serving and surviving Bataan.

During Liberation, he was tasked to defend the towns from Pagbilao to Atimonan.

As a guerrilla lieutenant, he led his unit in conducting enemy surveillance and engagements in the Tagbakin hills. There Cesar saw Nene again.

After the war, Cesar courted and married Nene on May 8, 1948 in simple rites with only his 50-peso salary to spend. Nene had been orphaned by the war and Cesar became her only family. Cesar and Nene would dream of raising a bigger family (a portent of the post-war baby boom).

Cesar and Nene?s journey of 60 years continues to the next generation.

Clan profile

An inventory of the clan?s educational profile today shows that there are 8 educators, 7 entrepreneurs, a doctor, 2 nurses, 4 engineers, a government auditor, 6 artists, 2 chemists, one mathematician, one communications officer, one hospital administrator, 4 in management/finance, and 39 students in the three levels (including one summa cum laude graduate from the University of Arizona.)

There are enough talents in the family of 74 in the house of Cesar and Nene to fill a book that I am content with being an awestruck daughter-in-law (an only child like my mother-in-law) holding the distinction of being first to marry into their good genes.