‘What she leaves behind is not simply a legacy but a way of being: to serve without seeking applause, to give without counting the cost, to stand as strength in silence.’
I write reflections and think pieces every week, but today I set aside the usual rhythms of commentary to dwell on a life that deserves more than passing mention. Allow me to share about a lady whose greatness was not in grandeur, but in grace, a woman who lived so fully, so humbly, that she is worthy to be thought about, remembered, and honored.
Some lives shine like firecrackers, brilliant for a moment, dazzling the crowd, and then fading into the night. And some lives burn like oil lamps, steady, unwavering, illuminating not with noise but with constancy. The life of Teresa S. Raymundo, fondly called Tita Laching, belonged to the latter.
The wife of the late Mayor Mario Raymundo of Pasig, Teresa carried her roles with quiet dignity. She was a civic leader, a Papal Awardee, an Outstanding Pasigueña, a woman of faith who helped lay the foundations of the Diocese of Pasig. Yet her greatness was not in titles, but in her steadfast humility. She worked at the sidelines, but her silence was never weakness; it was strength. Her humility was not a retreat; it was a resolve. In her gentleness, she carried the weight of commitment that others could lean on.
Her service was not only wide, but deep. Tita Laching founded the Soup Kitchen of the Immaculate Conception Cathedral of Pasig, a work of mercy that has nourished both body and spirit for more than two decades. She was also an anchor of the Parish Renewal Experience (PREX) movement, guiding countless parishioners into deeper encounters with faith. Through these enduring ministries, she showed that service, when rooted in love, becomes a legacy that continues to bear fruit long after the giver has departed.
Those who knew her speak of a presence both anchoring and reassuring.
In community and Church, she was a strength unspoken yet deeply felt. She molded many, mentored more, and gave beyond measure. She showed us that one can serve not by standing at the center but by holding the center together.
Yet her story is also inseparable from that of her husband, Mayor Mario Raymundo, himself a giant in the city’s history and remembered as one of the heroes of EDSA 1986. They say that behind every successful man is a woman, but for every successful woman, there is often an astonished man. Such was the case for Tita Laching. And while we honor her today, we also give reverence to him, for there would be no Teresa Raymundo without Mr. Raymundo, just as there would be no Mr. Raymundo without Teresa. Together they formed a partnership whose strength helped shape Pasig’s civic and spiritual life.
But Tita Laching’s strength was not confined to public service. She also opened the doors of her home and her heart. Church workers, friends, politicians, and leaders of the land found welcome in her household. When they entered, they left their titles at the door, for what they sought was not power but wisdom. Once a teacher, she remained a teacher to the very end. In teaching students, she sowed knowledge, but in her latter years, she taught generations. She taught not just lessons but values, guiding the city itself toward honesty, integrity, and the hard but noble task of nation-building.
Her death, as all deaths, summons us to reflect on the paradox it holds. To lose someone beloved is to walk through sorrow’s valley, but it is also to step through an entryway: an entry into loving without seeing, remembering with faith, grieving yet believing that the bonds of the spirit cannot be broken by the grave. Death is the paradox itself: we must wound the soil to plant the seed, and yet from that hurt comes the harvest, the bounty, the hope. In the same way, grief breaks us open so that the fruits of love and memory may take root.
In Spanish, the word for memory is recuerdo. Contained within it is wisdom: recordar to recall, and corazón, the heart. To remember is not just to think back; it is to carry within the heart. Memory is a bridge: across its span, love flows from past to present, and presence lingers though unseen. To recall Teresa Raymundo is to bring her back into the heart, to smile at her example, and to feel once again the strength of her quiet fidelity.
What she leaves behind is not simply a legacy but a way of being: to serve without seeking applause, to give without counting the cost, to stand as strength in silence. Her life teaches us that the most enduring echoes are often born of the gentlest voices.
And now, Tita Laching belongs to us in the way the river belongs to Pasig. Like waters that flow infinitely between the lake and the bay, she is a crossing, ever present, ever moving, steadfast despite the tides of progress and change. The river reminds us of constancy, of truth, of a life that nourishes without end. So too does her memory flow within us: steady, enduring, eternal.
For in truth, those who lived greatly never truly depart. They remain in the virtues they sowed, in the faith they nurtured, in the hearts that remember. And in remembering Teresa S. Raymundo, our Tita Laching, we honor not only a woman of Pasig, but a woman whose quiet life revealed the loudest truth: that love, given fully and humbly, never dies.
