Aug 6 2014 – My name is Marcelino Pimentel, a nephew of Margarita Kelly Pimentel, or my tita Margot. I am reading this eulogy on behalf of tita Margot’s sister Mila and her brother Jimmy, my dad.
Margot was born on October 17, 1946, at San Juan Clinic on Blumentritt Boulevard, San Juan, Rizal, and delivered by her mother’s childhood friend Doctora Nora Diokno.
At the age of six, Margot was already reading the monthly Reader’s Digest. She exuded enough confidence and competence as a child to stand at the door to greet and welcome guests ~ including congressmen, senators, and movie stars ~ at her father’s dinner parties.
While in high school, she won an exchange student award to the city of Copenhagen, Sweden, for six months.
Margot went to grade school, high school and college at Maryknoll College, where she excelled in writing and dramatics. She played a leading role in the stage play Fantastics where she sang the play’s theme song ‘In My Loneliness’, an upbeat tune which had become a pop hit worldwide.
On graduation, Margot was quickly snatched by national television network Channel 2 to become the network’s Weather Girl. Shortly after, Channel 2 developed the first music video show for Margot to host.
Margot married Gilbert Flores at the Immaculate Heart Catholic parish church, Cubao, Quezon City, in 1967, and she gave birth to three children: Anna, Gilbert or ‘Betbet’, and Manuel or ‘Pim’.
Margot became a journalist for the Manila daily newspaper Today, and continued her television, stage and movie work around her heavy news and feature writing schedule.
In 1986, Margot emigrated to Sydney with her three children, whom she raised to adulthood on her own.
While working for a small public relations firm in Sydney’s north shore, Margot took time to enter a short story competition and won. Work commitment wouldn’t allow her to receive her $2,000 prize in Melboroune, so the prize was sent to her Sydney address by post. Although she continued to dabble in writing short stories, Margot didn’t have any published.
Margot moved to the NSW Department of Education as a publicity and promotions journalist. She was later joined Anna, Betbet, and Pim at the same Education Department office but at different sections.
Although robbed by cancer of a happy future with her growing brood of grandchildren, Margot appeared most happy around Nicholas, Natalie, Katara, and Caede.
Tita Margot, I will miss you. Our family will miss you dearly.