The Elios and Jubilans of Antique
This is really intriguing .
I remember Tatay talking about the Elios of Antique and how close our roots are connected with them. I don’t remember how close, but I know that he and Mrs. Flores (one of the his Elio contacts from Antique) used to talk about the connection. We are supposedly that close that George Flores, the son of Mrs. Flores, used to stay in our house in UP. (If they weren’t relatives, why would he stay in our house?) Unfortunately, we lost contact with them and I learned a few years ago that George (and his twin brother, Julius) passed away sometime ago.
Back in 1995 or so, I bumped into a Dr. Dong Elio at the American Urological Association (AUA) meeting in San Francisco. How and why we bumped into each other in the halls of the Moscone Center, I have no clue. You have to remember, there were over 30,000 people at the AUA convention – and somehow – in a fleeting moment, I was able to glance at his name tag while a group of Filipino doctors were heading form one seminar room to another, while I was also doing the same thing in the opposite direction.
So I stopped them briefly, introduced myself to the group as a kababayan and said that I noticed that his and my name are similar but spelled differently. I also remarked that we may actually be relatives, that is, if he was from Antique. Well, it turned out that he was. We actually posed for a picture … I have to dig it up somewhere and post here another time – and promised to contact each other … but you know how things go.
Fast forward to today, January 9. 2010. I was chatting on Facebook with my friend – Dr. Boyce Jubilan – who was my colleague at UP and now is based in Pennsylvania. Somehow, our chat drifted towards the family name Ilio and he mentioned that they are relatives with the Elios … and that George and Julius were not only his classmates/barkada in high school in Antique and part of their college life together in Iloilo but also, they were his cousins! That in fact they had an Elio-Jubilan reunion reently … and he has a picture of Dr. Dong Elio in his photo album.
OMG.
I just finished chatting with him and couldn’t wait to tell all of you about this …
So, here you are, the Elios and Jubilans of Antique, our relatives from across the cordillera of Panay. Dr. Elio is at the back, in plaid, while Boyce is seated in front.
Please, if anyone can piece the Elio-Ilio connection together … leave a comment.
Photo courtesy of Dr. Boyce Jubilan.
