I am a Pensionado Descendant (And Proud of It!)

I do not know how many of my fellow Filipinos are familiar with, nor care about the Pensionado Program of the American Government early in their occupation and colonization of the Philippines. But it turned out that I am a great grandnephew of one of them, Hipolito Hernando, who left for the US in 1904.

Here I am with a fellow descendant Mr. Mario E. Orosa, who is as old and still as productive and strong as my civil and geodetic engineer father, James Pichay Hernando. Mr. Orosa, now a proud retiree, is on vacation from the US so we decided to meet over dinner, the bill of which he footed!

I may have learned nothing new about Lolo-Uncle-sa-Tuhod Hipolito except what I have gathered before from sir Mario E. Orosa’ essay, the Pensionado Story on his website, Orosa.org:

Hipolito Hernando (Ilocos Norte), Cincinnati Technical School (High School), Iowa State University (College)

and from my dad: he became a civil engineer, he was the youngest of four boys (and two girls), lived in either Marilao or Mecauayan, Bulacan, may have gotten married young, had only one daughter (and a male grandchild) and died even before the war.

but knowing part of ones origin to a hundred years back is actually liberating!