The Beauty and the Diplomat: How Carlos P. Romulo fell in love with a Carnival Queen

It was February 1922, and Manila was brimming with excitement.

The annual Manila Carnival was about to begin, just as it always had, always before Lent. The Carnival was a two-week revelry held at the Old Wallace Field in Luneta, where people wore masks of different shapes, carried horns, and sprinkled confetti all around. What would be the carnival, without the two icons it had? It had the enormous Meralco Tower that brightens up the entire carnival with its dazzling lights, and the squatted child-like elfin figure, the Billiken, always laughing, and always funny to look at, right beside the carnival gate.

*Manila Carnival in 1926. Photos from John Tewell.

*Manila Carnival at night, in 1926. Photo from Eduardo de Leon

Amidst all this happy fanfare stood an awkward 24-year old guy, in a strange costume, right at the carnival gate. His expression looked conflicted.

Not so long ago, before he became a Pensionado (a Filipino scholar sent to the United States to study), Carlos was just one of those reporters on the beat to catch a scoop in the Senate, then at the building where the National Museum is today. He couldn’t forget how, even when the Carnival was ongoing and his fellow reporters surrendered and gave in to the Carnival, Carlos stayed on in the Senate Hall. Not long after, Carlos was rewarded. Then Senate President Manuel Quezon suddenly gave an impassioned speech that awakened the dull litany of hearings, condemning the newspaper La Vanguardia for writing against his Filipinization efforts. That was a big scoop Carlos caught, and it was printed front-page at Cable-News. It earned Quezon’s praise, and also his trust.

And so, he was asking himself what he was doing in the Carnival.

When he went to the U.S., earning his Master of Arts at Columbia University, Carlos vividly remembered how he fell in love with a blue-eyed American lady. When Carlos was homesick in New York, it was her who got him through–in those four years of constantly being at his side. Even his landlady in his rented room thought that Carlos would end up marrying this girl.

But all came to naught, at the beck and call of the U.S. Chief Justice and former Philippine governor-general William Howard Taft. When Carlos graduated, he was called upon by Taft, who stood as his guardian while he finished his studies there. Taft, that day, was frank with him, asking him if he was serious with the girl. When Carlos answered that he is, Taft told him he needed to go back home to the Philippines and ask for his parents’ permission first and think it over. Right then and there he was given a ticket to go home. Goodbyes and tears were exchanged with the girl, and the brokenhearted Carlos went home.

And now he’s here at the Carnival. A year had already passed. And he was still trying to move on.

Carlos was hesitant to become an escort for a carnival queen, dressed as her prince consort, complete with a laurel crown on his head, mismatched sandals and a Roman toga. Carlos never liked wearing these silly costumes, and worse, he was there for all eyes to see in the carnival.

The contest for the carnival queen was a complicated affair. Each candidate was sponsored by a newspaper. The Philippines Herald, where Carlos worked as Assistant Editor, sponsored a young 16-year old Filipina from Pagsanjan, named Virginia Vidal Llamas. During the campaign, as Carlos rummaged through the photos of the Herald candidate, he recognized her as an acquaintance in a picnic back in his Columbia University days. As fate would have it, Virginia garnered the most votes, and as such, the Herald chose Carlos as the Queen’s escort for the coronation. The Carnival Queen was given the title, Virginia II.

There were a series of nine balls hosted by the Carnival Queen, aside from the numerous parades, with which the Queen Virginia II would head the floral parade, with her court.

*A parade in the Manila Carnival in 1908, from Gabrielle Maud Vassal Collection. Courtesy of John Tewell. 

She was described by a granddaughter as:

…the quintessential lady—informed, impeccably dressed, and quietly dignified—who in her own words chose to “glow faintly in her husband’s shadow. Perectly at ease in Western dress, she preferred to wear the traditional terno, complete with pañuelo. Well-versed in English and Spanish, she preferred to speak Tagalog.

She was a lady of substance and dignity. And so, when Virginia heard that her escort refused to be her escort days before, she never hesitated to show her displeasure. After all, a Filipina would not stoop down and beg for any man’s attention. She knew her value. And in the floral parade, and in those nine balls, the poor guy endured the wrath of the beautiful lady.

“I was staring at her… she was so angry and so much prettier than her pictures that I, usually glib of speech, found myself tongue-tied,” writes Carlos in his autobiography.

As Queen Virginia II showed her irritation, the Prince Consort looked on in fear and wonder.

And Carlos surprised himself, when he found himself in love again.

But love is not just a fleeting feeling. And so began the two and a half years of ligawan (courtship). Commitment had proven itself true, and the two finally married on 1 July 1924 in Pagsanjan. They had four sons, all of whom were born before the war.

When the Second World War came to the Philippines, Carlos and his family went with the officials of the Commonwealth Government in Exile in the U.S. Virginia rarely saw her husband in those three years due to military operations. But she was a strong woman, even in the time of uncertainty and danger.

Virginia showed this resilience when she was diagnosed with leukemia in 1968. Contentment and happiness defined that marriage, something that honed both of them in private and public life. At her deathbed, one of her sons confirmed that Virginia looked at them as though she never feared death. In those final moments, the Queen gave a long look at her Prince Consort, also wrinkled as she was. She gave him orders to take care of the kingdom she would leave behind.

She reassured her dear husband, to be brave, that everything will be alright. Virginia weakly smiled, even in the deepest of pain.

Finally, with tears flowing, the Prince Consort found the courage to let his Queen go.

A Valentine’s Day Post, wishing you a love that endures. 

*Photos from www.CarlosPRomulo.Org.

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