Philippine Consul General to New York Elmer Cato recently met with the deputy mayor of New York City, exchanging notes on their common heritage as Kapampangans.
In his Facebook February 9 post, Cato said he has met with “one of the most powerful Filipino-Americans in New York” as the Angeles City-based highest ranking Filipino diplomat paid a visit to Maria Torres-Springer at the Governors Room at New York City Hall recently, together with deputy consul Tanya Ramiro.
Torres-Springer, the Deputy Mayor for Economic and Workforce Development of New York City, traces her paternal roots in Guagua, Pampanga while her mother is from Batangas. She was appointed in December last year at the assumption of Mayor Eric Adams as the new mayor of one of the most visited cities in the world.
“My father is from Pampanga,” Torres-Springer told Cato, who was delighted to know she is a cabalen. “We are from Guagua,” Cato quoted her as saying in their meeting.
They exchanged pleasantries that also traces back their school days in Pampanga where the city official was surprised to have guessed where she went for few years in elementary in Pampanga.
Cato’s post states: “I think I know which school you went to in Guagua,” I told her. “Sacred Heart Academy!” She laughed and asked why I knew and I said a college classmate went to high school there. “You went to Don Bosco?” she asked. I said I went to Chevalier School, the rival boy’s school also in Pampanga.
Cato said that Torres-Springer was born in Los Angeles, California. Moved to Betis, Guagua when she was nine and stayed there for five years.
In their meeting, they talked about Kapampangan food and Christmas lanterns, both of which the province of Pampanga is famous for.
The journalist-turned-diplomat said that Torres-Springer still knows Kapampangan although she “has not been able to speak a lot of it lately. But it’s better than her Tagalog…”
Cato’s post furthered: Maria Torres-Springer’s story is one of hope and perseverance. Shortly after Mayor Adams announced her appointment in December, Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer described during a news conference how it was growing up as a child of immigrants.
She said her family struggled financially and her parents, who both have passed on, had to work multiple jobs. She said the family had to rely on Section 8 vouchers and food stamps but she went on to study in Yale where she earned her bachelors degree and then in Harvard where she obtained her master’s in public policy.
She had previously served in various capacities in New York City, including as Commissioner of Small Business Services and later of Housing Preservation and Development. Prior to her appointment as Deputy Mayor, she was Vice President of the Ford Foundation.
“We all carry echoes of the choices that led our families to leave their homes and strike out a better future,” she said at the December news conference. “My ancestors, like many of yours, were strivers and survivors, generation after generation, and so I stand here today because of their strength and resilience.”
Saying she has been away for a long time, Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer expressed her desire to visit the Philippines again soon with her husband and their two daughters. Our cabalens from Pampanga are surely proud of what the Filipino-American from Guagua has accomplished and should be looking forward to her visit.
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Photos from Elmer Cato FB Page
