The Life Bea Zobel de Ayala Lived
"My whole life I don't ever recall my mother not helping someone."
(SPOT.ph) One of the country’s most beloved matriarchs, Beatriz “Bea” Zobel de Ayala, passed away on September 23, 2024 at the age of 88.
Bea is survived by her husband Don Jaime, and their children, Jaime Augusto, Fernando, Bea Junior, Patsy, Cristina, Monica, and Sofia, as well as their respective spouses and grandchildren.
Who is Bea Zobel de Ayala?
Bea Zobel de Ayala was born on February 29, 1936 in Spain.
Her journey into the Zobel de Ayala family came when she married Jaime in 1958. The pair met in Madrid, and the rest, they say, is history. But unlike many wives who stay in the shadows, Bea was always doing things her own way—quietly, without fanfare.
More than anything, though, her life was marked by her philanthropy.
“My whole life I don’t ever recall my mother not helping someone,” Bea Zobel Jr. wrote of her mother in PhilStar for Mother’s Day 2011.
Bea was involved in numerous charitable efforts, from supporting inmates at Bilibid Prison to assisting patients at the Tala Leprosarium. She dedicated her life to serving others, especially the marginalized, through the Catholic Women’s League and other initiatives under the Ayala Foundation. In 1991, she worked on the Iraya-Mangyan program in Oriental Mindoro, where she set up shelter and sustenance for many native families who have been resettled there.
For those closest to her, Bea wasn’t just the matriarch of a powerful family who was heavily involved in social programs. She was a woman who knew how to hold her own. Bea Zobel Jr. even recalled a time when her mother jumped into a lake rather than allow a boatman to extort them:
"I remember her being in the middle of a lake in Kashmir with my sisters. The boatman refused to take us back to shore if my mother did not pay double the price we had already agreed upon. She threatened she would swim to shore if he didn’t take us back. I didn’t have much time to imagine what was in that lake before my mother jumped in fully clothed. Panic-stricken, the boatman, terrified of a possible drowning woman, took us back without a word."
“I think, to sum up her life, the mother of my youth was exacting, driven, demanding, forceful and not very tolerant of idleness, sloth or indistinct values. Now with the passing of time she is more relaxed, inclusive and accepting,” Bea Zobel Jr. wrote in the same PhilStar piece.
Clearly aware of what Doña Bea would have wanted, her family requested monetary donations to be sent to her favorite charities, Friends of Elsie Gaches and Tuloy Foundation, in lieu of flowers.
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