Goodbye to an Icon: Why Rina Jimenez David Was the Op Ed Warrior We Never Knew We Needed

(SPOT.ph) She’s considered an icon. An admirably committed feminist. Hers was a unique, influential voice in the exuberant post-EDSA media landscape. For over three decades, Rina Jimenez David penned her observations and passionate musings about life and politics in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, in her popular column called At Large. She used her pen to advance her causes, foremost among them women’s rights.

Her colleague, the writer Pennie Azarcon-Dela Cruz, recently described her as having a deep sense of empathy—“which would make Rina such a sympathetic figure in the women’s movement, despite a comfortable background that put her worlds apart from the poor, often battered women she regularly wrote about…Rina knew that the personal is political and lived by it.” Rina passed away last November 12. She was 68.

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Karina Bolasco's tribute to Rina Jimenez David

“At large” was the title of Rina’s column in the PDI, where she wrote for 30 years. Though at large means in general, or as wide as possible, Rina was quite particular and detailed. It was like we were always in conversation with her, talking about people we knew, unpacking together issues which bothered us, and being just as passionate as we often were about causes. She wrote daily so that she had become a home companion, a family member unlike many of our own, because we were aware of what was going on in her head as she was aware of what went on in ours—the daily issues, the woman question, at home, at work, at any site it was contested.

In 1994, we at Anvil published a selection of the best of these columns in a volume called, what else, but Woman at Large. We launched it at the old PETA Theater, at the ruins in Intramuros. If I recall right, it was co-hosted by Pilipina or the Women Crisis Center.

A review in Goodreads says: “Rina writes like she has snooped into our diaries and read all the questions, anxieties and doubts that we've always thought were too personal and trivial to voice out, much less discuss in public.”

She consistently assured us that our concerns as women, whether of the body, mind or heart, were as valid and as important as the men’s. For her, as clear as day, and I quote from the review: “Raging political issues of the moment are too important to be left to wily politicians, academic jargon, and amorphous ideological battles.”

Breathless, true, and funny were the many stories she told—we always recognized ourselves, our weaknesses, our strengths. She showed us possible solutions, new ways of looking at things, and how women’s options are certainly not limited. Never.

She wrote of founding mothers and women leaders like Remy Rikken, Ging Deles, Irene Santiago, and Sr. Mary John, while they held gatherings of women in various sectors, including the media, to gather ideas and strategies to bring the woman question to the forefront of social development. They who made sure women’s voices were heard and heeded, especially in a time of miserable misogynistic leadership.

The review ends with: “‘At Large' set the stage for our personal expansion, and it allowed us the space to grow and to confront ourselves as men and women, and a little of both."

She retired in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. Her last column, on Aug. 26, 2020, was on Leni Robredo. Titled “the speech we needed to hear,” she asked why the vice president’s speech was unusual: “She didn’t rant, she didn’t curse, she spoke in complete sentences, her thoughts were coherent, the steps she outlined were clear, she started on time.”

Even to her last column, she spoke of a woman about to embark on the battle of her life, not knowing how she would capture the imagination of a mighty pink force. Rina worked with us on Zoom in all our TOWNS’ voters registration and education campaigns.

In that same last column at the height of the pandemic, she said she always believed that it wasn’t so much talent that kept her going but stamina.

“One needed energy and persistence and drive to keep meeting those deadlines, chase after sources, verify facts, and dodge the odd complaint or libel suit.”

But Rina Jimenez David, retired journalist and former national chair of the women’s group Pilipina, did not stop contributing to High Blood or the Commentary sections.

In Nov 2021, at the arrest of Sally Ujano of the Women Crisis Center, she feistily came to her defense and wrote “Since when has caring become subversive?”

I quote her: “Has working for the rights of women now become a form of rebellion? What is the basis for the PNP’s punitive action against a woman who has devoted a big chunk of her life to coming to the aid of beleaguered women and children?”

She was a feminist, organically and gracefully, spoke for all of us and helped shape “women of different generations into homegrown feminists with global sensibilities.”

These days, we are never finished with grief.

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Karina Bolasco is a writer, editor, and publisher who has been a cornerstone of the Philippine publishing industry for more than 40 years. Throughout her career, she has published over 3,000 titles—one of them Jimenez-David's “Women At Large.” This tribute to Jimenez-David was read during The Outstanding Women in the Nation's Service (TOWNS) night on November 16, 2023, of which she was also honored as an awardee for her Women's Rights Advocacy in 1995.