Maria Gloria Caparas Faigal

Maria Gloria “Goyi” Caparas Faigal

June 12, 1961 – January 21, 2019

Goyi’s excellent academic and extracurricular activities in religious, artistic, and extracurricular activities started in elementary school. She and her sister were regular pianists or organists during daily and Sunday masses in their hometown. Goyi was one of the most valuable instrumentalists in their high school Glee Club, the only batch who had the special privilege to have full concert performances in their town. They even went into a competition outside of their province.

She became the president of the Student Catholic Action (SCA) and Catholic Youth Organization (CYO). She was the only delegate of their school to the Girl Scouts National Jamboree in Tumauini, Isabela. She graduated as a salutatorian and was awarded several service medals for her outstanding efforts.

She enrolled at the UP Diliman College of Mass Communications in 1978 and was soon involved in campus politics to fight for students’ rights and national issues. She became a member of several organizations where she eagerly helped in the recruitment and education of members of the anti-dictatorship movement.

Later, Goyi chose to return to her province to serve as a president of their alumni organization where she organized fundraising drives to help poor and deserving scholars finish high school and college education. She solicited from other alumni members who were based in the USA, Canada, and other parts of the world.

Without any fanfare, she helped a lot of poor and sick kababayan and paid for their medical expenses. She used her leadership skills to organize various fundraising events, concerts, fun runs, and medical missions for many years.

Later, she was diagnosed with stage 3 metastatic colon cancer. Despite her poor health, she drove back and forth from Metro Manila to her hometown to organize church events and alumni activities. She silently provided so much financial assistance to needy classmates, friends, and church congregations despite the failure of many of them to pay her back.

Goyi continued to serve in the church and alumni organization until she passed away.

Historical timeline and milestones

Studied BA Broadcast Communication
Association:
- UP Government Scholars’ Association
- UP Pi Sigma Delta

As remembered by family and friends

From Goyi’s classmate and friend since grade school:

“Goyi was my classmate since first grade. Her father, a police officer in our town, was my mother’s classmate in high school. One of my favorite memories of her is etched in an old photograph of our parents’ alumni homecoming. In that picture, her father drove a jeep decorated with balloons. My mother was with them as the class representatives of their batch. Goyi was in that picture riding on the jeep, sporting short hair. She was tall, slim, and mestiza-looking.

I became very close to her, not only because I saw her almost every day in church and in the classroom. She played the piano and the organ during masses while I was the song leader. Our school was our big playground where we played a lot of games.

Aside from the daily and Sunday masses, we went to the barrios with lay ministers during Sundays where she played the guitar and led community singing. We enjoyed the free brunch that the barrio faithful believers served us after mass.

She was the only honor student I have known who had so many extracurricular activities, leadership roles, wore different hats, and got many medals for it.

I was always Goyi’s sidekick in different extracurricular activities. When she became our school’s delegate to the National Jamboree of Girl Scouts in 1973, instead of sour-graping because I did not pass the qualifying practical knot-tying exams, I helped her knock on doors around the town to raise funds for her participation in the Jamboree.

I was her vice president in the Student Catholic Action (SCA) and in the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) where we both got educated on human rights and the national situation under Martial Law. At that time, many progressive priests and nuns participated in raising people’s awareness against the dictatorship.

On days that we were not busy with extracurricular activities, we played “spirit of the glass” and fortune telling with her cousin in their home on weekends.

Through Goyi, I was introduced to and trained by the likes of Lean Alejandro, Sonia Soto, JV Bautista, and other prominent student leaders. I became the only woman mass leader in PUP representing the Young Women’s League during a lightning rally at the Folk Arts Theater against the Miss Young International Beauty Pageant.

In September 2018, Goyi organized a prayer service during the vigil for my mother. As early as 8 in the morning, I heard her voice singing at the church belfry when we ushered in my mother’s coffin inside the church. I learned that she drove at 3 o’clock in the morning from Manila to our town to sing at my mother’s funeral. She, her husband, and their son took me to a special dinner before I flew back to Los Angeles after my mother’s funeral.

Every time a classmate is in Manila and has to fly back to the USA, Goyi always had pasalubong for all of us here in Los Angeles. Every time a classmate comes home as balikbayan, she organized dinners and trips to their properties in Tagaytay and Batangas to create memories and deeper bonding and kinship among us, her high school classmates.

Goyi is a true leader and servant of the people. She chose to be buried in her father’s graveyard.”

Back to Gallery of Heroes

Email
[email protected]

Address
902 Filgarcia Tower
140 Kalayaan Avenue
Diliman, Quezon City
Address Line 03