Florence Nightingale of the Philippines: Josefa Llanes Escoda
On September 20, 1898
a great woman was born in Dingras, Ilocos Norte. Josefa Madamba Llanes is the eldest among
seven children of Mercedes Madamba and Gabriel Llanes.
She graduated as
valedictorian of Dingras Elementary School and salutatorian of Laoag Provincial
High School. In 1919 she graduated with her teacher’s degree and with honor in Philippine
Normal College. In 1922 while working, she earned her high school teacher’s certificate
in University of the Philippines. After this, she finished her masteral degree
of Sociology in Columbia University around 1995. While Josefa is in
United States, she joined a group of foreign students who supports the
International House project in New York. And she used it as an opportunity to show
the Filipino Culture by wearing Filipiniana to
arouse foreigner’s interest in the Philippines.
Her first trip to the United States
was a bloom of her love life she met her man, Antonio Escoda a reporter from
the Philippine Press Bureau and later they were married. They had two children
named Maria Theresa and Antonio, Jr.
In 1993 she returned to United States
to undergo training for Girl Scout, afterwards she returned to the Philippines
to train young women. On March 26, 1940 the former president Manuel L. Quezon signed the charter of the Girl Scouts of the
Philippines. Josefa was the founder of Girl’s Scout of the Philippines
When the Philippines was under by the
Japanese regime, Josefa and her husband Antonio helped the Filipino and
American prisoners by they called smuggling activities of sending food, clothes
and medicine.
August 27, 1944 she was arrested by
the Japanese soldiers and they have been sent to interrogation and execution. She
was buried in an unmarked grave, it’s either
in the La Loma Cemetery or Manila Chinese Cemetery, which Japanese forces used as execution and burial grounds
for thousands of Filipinos who resisted Japanese regime
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