Neriza Sarmiento - Saito's
On the Road to:
HIMAWARI
DR. REINARUTH DESIDERIO CARLOS Professor, Ryukoku University
Sunflowers, the harbinger of summer started to bloom at the end of July and now these radiant flowers called “HIMAWARI“ in Japanese, adorn train stations, department stores, offices and recreation areas. I am fond of sunflowers... not only because it is my mother’s favorite flower but also because it exudes warmth and energy. That was exactly how I felt when I met Dr. Reinaruth Desiderio Carlos at a seminar for Filipinos at the Kyoto Pag-asa Filipino Community. She was very
approachable, considerate and with a good sense of humor. She reminds me of another townmate, Consul General Senen Mangalile who is now based at the Philippine Embassy in the UK. Like Congen Senen, our families are not strangers to one another in our town, Baliuag, where one of our national heroes, Mariano Ponce and his Japanese wife, Kiyo Udangawa (or Odagawa) lived. My late grandfather, who was Ponce’s biographer used to tell us stories of how “O-Kiyo-san“ helped save our town from military attacks because the Japanese soldiers respected her. That was how I began to be interested in Japan. In the 1960’s, some Japanese
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JULY - AUGUST 2020
diplomats began to study Filipino at our local college. Some researchers did fieldwork and a Japanese professor began to teach Japanese once a year. Ruth’s grandfather hosted them at their home. It was a big influence on young Reinaruth a few years later. After taking up AB Management at the Ateneo de Manila University, she received a Monbusho undergraduate scholarship in 1987. She studied Japanese at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. After taking up a course in Economics from 1988 - 1992, she went on to finish her M. A. in Economics at Kobe University. In 1994, she went back to the Philippines and was given a position at the Consular Section of the Japanese Embassy as an interpreter at the Assistance to Nationals desk. Her boss was a former prosecutor in Japan. On some occasions, she visited prisons to talk with Japanese detainees. While working at this ATN section, it made her see the other side of the Japanese when it comes to relationships once the family image is tarnished. So, in 1995 she resigned and was
