a little story about FVR

The Real Last name of the Ramos Clan in Poblacion West Asingan ( and why Fidel Ramos born in Lingayen) -by Arsenio Macanas

The FOLLOWING story is related by my mom  Andrea C. Macanas.  She said she also heard it from my grand father Ilas Cisnero the great storyteller. Laki Ilas was a very close friend of Narciso Ramos. They were like brothers.

The Ramos clan in Asingan have politics is in their blood from the time of ex-Mayor Placido Apellido..(1901-1905). After he was elected as  Mayor of Asingan, his last name was not still not  Ramos until the government officials from Lingayen visited our town.

During that time traveling was the most difficult task to everybody except the government officials. They had their own service : a 4 - Horse Wagon. The officials were Spanish-Pangasinanese "mistisong pang-galatok" . They noticed the last name of the Mayor was confusing in our dialect and in the other  language too, so they decided  to change it. From that day,  the "governador de Pangasinan " officially changed Apellido. into  Ramos.

(If your last name is Apellido. and you’re from Asingan or anywhere in Pangasinan, maybe you are a very close relative of the Ramos clan in Asingan)

Placido Apellido. had four sons, one was  Narciso Ramos who married  Angela Valdez Ramos (the aunt of the late President Marcos). They have two children:  Ex-President Fidel V. Ramos and Ex-Senator Leticia Ramos Shajani,  both were born in Lingayen. Narciso graduated as "Abogado de Campanella" and he practiced his profession in Lingayen Pangasinan, where he resided since it was too far from Asingan and it was hard for him to commute back and forth . He won the a congressman seat three times as (1934-?) and served as a Minister of the Philippines to Washington D.C. U.S.A. (1945-?). After his service in Washington D.C. he come back home to the Philippines and he became ambassador to Taipei (1960-?). The last position he had was the Secretary of Foreign Affairs. He died around the '70s His remains were displayed in the Catholic Church to be seen by the people of Asingan.

Although Fidel Ramos was born in Lingayen (1928) his heart is in Asingan every now and then. When he was a kid he loved his relatives and happy with his playmates back in Asingan. He can’t wait until  his parents visited our hometown. He attended elementary School in Lingayen.