About Mary Concepcion, Filipina Lola of MJ Cincotta

My dad said my Lola was a Muslim. My mom said my Lola was an attorney.

I only remember that I revered my Lola. And though I don't remember anything she ever told us when she would visit us in the US around Fall to see the changing leaves, I do remember her singing a song.

Let There Be Peace on Earth

Mary Concepcion with grandchildren of daughter Josephine Cincotta

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MaryCon dies, 73

Mary Concepcion Bautista, chairman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), died of a heart attack at the Medical City in Pasig last Sunday. She was 73 years old.

Sculptor Tomas Bautista said her sister had been in the hospital the past two weeks and had been operated on. He said her family was at her bedside when she died. She is survived by her four children: Alex, 50, Marilou, 48, Josephine Cincotta, 46, and Arturo, 44.

Bautista was married to the late Enrique D. Bautista, a consul at the Department of Foreign Affairs once assigned in Washington, D.C.

Her body lies in state at the Magallanes Village Chapel in Makati. Internment is on Thursday, Sept. 24, at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque.

Bautista vigorously campaigned against the Marcos dictatorship and supported former President Corazon Aquino in her bid for the presidency.

After the EDSA Revolt in 1986, she was appointed commissioner of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) where she ordered the sequestration of assets of known Marcos cronies. This earned her the monikers “Mary the Sequestor” and “Bloody Mary.”

As Jose W. Diokno’s successor in the human rights body, Bautista came under attack from senators and congressmen in the Commission on Appointments who blocked her appointment as CHR chairman. She brought the case to the Supreme Court which upheld her stand that the CA had nothing to do with constitutional bodies like the CHR.

Bautista was born on April 22, 1919, in Dansalan (now Marawi City) in Lanao del Sur where both her parents were teaching. Together with her three sisters and two brothers, she grew up and studied in Lanao, finishing her secondary education at the Lanao Provincial High School with honors.

She took up liberal arts at the University of the Philippines where she also finished law in 1941, magna cum laude. She passed the bar in the same year with a rating of 86.9 percent.

In her long career, Bautista was member or officer of nearly 40 civic, social, professional and political organizations, from the Integrated Bar of the Philippines to Gabriela.

As CHR chairman, Bautista was behind the “marked decrease in human rights among military and law enforcement agencies.”

She convinced then Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos and other generals in the Armed Forces to sign a covenant respecting human rights. She also worked for the welfare of squatters, defending their right to shelter.

Bautista was a successful law practitioner. She grabbed the limelight as the lawyer for rape victim actress Maggie de la Riva. The court found the four accused guilty and sentenced them to die in the electric chair.

She was Vice President and legal counsel of Kilusan ng mag Mamimili mg Filipina’s, Inc. and spearheaded consumer causes as in exposing lead in milk powder, opposing the high cost of electricity, and promoting breast feeding.

KMPI president Juliie Amargo described Bautista’s death as a great loss to the consumerist movement.

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Atty. Mary Concepcion Bautista was elected president of the National Council of the Philippines Soroptimist International for 1978 to 1980 at the Soroptimist biennial convention in Malls, Bulacan recently. The incumbent national president is Virginia Oteyza de Guia. The Soroptimist Club is one of the largest and oldest clubs of professional and career women in the world.

*Articles republished by anonymous.