Purificacion "Pura" Villanueva Kalaw (27 August 1886 – 21 March 1954) was a Filipina

beauty queen A beauty pageant is a competition that has traditionally focused on judging and ranking the physical attributes of the contestants. Pageants have now evolved to include inner beauty, with criteria covering judging of personality, intelligence, ...

, feminist, journalist, and writer.

Early life

Purificacion Garcia Villanueva was born in the town of Arevalo,

Iloilo Iloilo (), officially the Province of Iloilo ( hil, Kapuoran sang Iloilo; krj, Kapuoran kang Iloilo; tl, Lalawigan ng Iloilo), is a province in the Philippines located in the Western Visayas region. Its capital is the City of Iloilo, the ...

to Emilio Villanueva and Emilia Garcia. Her mother was born in

Palencia, Spain Palencia () is a city of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Palencia. Located in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, in the northern half ...

. At age 22, Pura Villanueva became the first "Queen of the

Manila Carnival Manila Carnival was an annual carnival festival held in Manila during the early American colonial period up to the time before the Second World War. It was organized by the American colonial administration to celebrate harmonious US and Philip ...

Career

In 1906 Pura Villanueva organized a suffrage group, the Asociacion Feminista Ilongga.Artemio R. Guillermo, ed.
''Historical Dictionary of the Philippines''
(Scarecrow Press 2012): 223. Her efforts led to the first suffrage bill reaching the Philippine Assembly in 1907. Pura Villanueva wrote a column for the weekly newspaper ''El Tiempo'', and edited the woman's page. Later she edited the Spanish-language section of ''Woman's Outlook'', a pro-suffrage publication (

Trinidad Fernandez Legarda Trinidad Fernandez Legarda (March 28, 1899 – February 2, 1998) was a Filipina suffragist, clubwoman, philanthropist, and editor. She was the first woman ambassador from the Philippines, when she was appointed in 1958. Early life Trinidad Fernand ...

was the English-language editor). She was also president of the Women's Club of Manila. Books by Pura Villanueva Kalaw included ''Osmeña From Newspaperman to President'' (1946), ''How the Filipina Got the Vote'', ''Outstanding Filipino Women'', ''Anthology of Filipino Women Writers'', ''The Consumer Cooperatives in the Philippines'', ''The Filipino Cookbook'', and ''A Brief History of the Filipino Flag''. Her 1918 booklet ''Condimentos Indigenas'' was "one of the earliest cookbooks" published in the Philippines. In 1951, Pura Villanueva Kalaw was honored with a Presidential Medal, presented by President

Elpidio Quirino Elpidio Rivera Quirino (born Elpidio Quirino y Rivera; ; November 16, 1890 – February 29, 1956) was a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the sixth president of the Philippines from 1948 to 1953. A lawyer by profession, Quirino enter ...

, for her work on behalf of women's rights in the Philippines.

Personal life

Pura Villanueva married lawyer and editor Teodoro Maniguiat Kalaw in 1910. Their children included

Maria Kalaw Katigbak Maria Villanueva Katigbak ( Kalaw; February 14, 1912 – December 10, 1992) was a Filipina politician, journalist and beauty queen. She served as a Senator of the Philippines from 1961 to 1967 during the Fifth Congress. Early life and educatio ...

, a senator, and

Purita Kalaw Ledesma Purita Kalaw Ledesma (February 2, 1914 – April 29, 2005) was a writer and art critic and founder of the Art Association of the Philippines in 1948. Early life Purita Villanueva Kalaw was born in Manila on February 2, 1914, to government offic ...

, an art critic. Their daughter-in-law

Eva Estrada Kalaw Eva Kalaw ( Evangelina Reynada Estrada; June 16, 1920 – May 25, 2017) was a Filipina politician who served as a senator in the Senate of the Philippines from 1965 to 1972 during the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos. She was one of the key opp ...

was also a senator. Pura Villanueva Kalaw became a widow in 1940. She died on 21 March 1954 at the age of 67. Her daughter Maria Kalaw Katigbak published a biography, ''Legacy: Pura Villanueva Kalaw: Her Times, Life, and Works 1886–1954'' in 1983. Pura V. Kalaw was one of the suffragists featured in a 2016 exhibit at the

Philippine Embassy The Republic of the Philippines has a network of diplomatic missions in major cities around the world, under the purview of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), to forward Philippine interests in the areas that they serve, as well as to se ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

There is a school in

Quezon City Quezon City (, ; fil, Lungsod Quezon ), also known as the City of Quezon and Q.C. (read in Filipino as Kyusi), is the List of cities in the Philippines, most populous city in the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a populatio ...

named for Pura V. Kalaw.Pura V. Kalaw Elementary School
Milagrosa, Quezon City.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kalaw, Pura Villanueva 1886 births 1954 deaths Filipino women writers Filipino beauty pageant winners Filipino columnists Filipino women's rights activists Filipino people of Spanish descent People from Iloilo City Writers from Iloilo Visayan people Filipino women columnists