Filipina Professor & Timor Leste’s First Lady Jacqueline Aquino Siapno-De Araojo

(Photo Courtesy of Philstar)

I am very impressed with Timor’s First Lady & Professor Jacqueline Aquino Siapno-De Araojo. Like a typical balikbayan, she together with 5-year-old son Hadomi in tow, arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport more than a week or so ago and was met by her mother. After exchanging greetings, they took a cab and headed to a bus terminal in Pasay City where they boarded a bus bound for her native Dagupan.

Now that is very humbling. No airs! No pretensions or feelings of entitlement! I am absolutely charmed by her humility. I would rather focus on her as a person.

More than being a first lady, Jacqueline Aquino Siapno-De Araojo would like to be known here as a successful professor.

“People here are so messed up, in a way,” she observed. “In other countries, they would value a professor more because you search for truth, you share knowledge, you produce new scholars.”

But here, she said, “nobody asked [me] about [my academic life]. They are only interested in me being the interim first lady. It’s ridiculous. I don’t understand this kind of culture.”

According to Siapno’s curriculum vitae posted in the University of Melbourne website, she has held professorial positions in universities in London, Australia, East Timor, Indonesia and California.

Starting August, she will teach at the Seoul National University in South Korea.

Siapno has worked in East Timor as a consultant to international organizations, as a political advisor, and as a workshop facilitator on gender and development in government departments and rural women’s groups.

She is likewise a published author.

‘In 2002, she published her book “Gender, Islam, Nationalism and the State in Aceh: The Paradox of Power, Co-optation and Resistance,” a revised version of her dissertation at the University of California in Berkeley.

She is also the associate editor of the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures and co-editor of “Between Knowledge and Commitment: Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Peace-building in Regional Contexts.”

“That part of my life is so much more fascinating and challenging,” Siapno said.

Jacqueline is not actually the official First Lady, the title should be attached to her because the incumbent president , Jose Ramos-Horta is single. Since Dr. Fernando La Sama de Araojo, Jacqueline’s husband is the second top man, she is the First Lady.

Michael Tan in his column, A Pinay In Timor Leste further adds:

Siapno grew up in the Philippines but did part of her high school in the United States, moving on to Wellesley for her undergraduate work. She earned her master’s from the School of Oriental and Asian Studies at the University of London and her Ph.D. from the University of California in Berkeley. If we want to pursue this Filipino fixation with titles, she’s a Doctor First Lady.

I think newspapers should be talking more about her work. She has been a consultant with the United Nations Development Programme, Oxfam and other development agencies. The Inquirer did report that she was working with Amnesty International, an organization working for the release of political prisoners. Fernando Lasama was one of those political prisoners and Siapno, who was doing research in Indonesia, visited him in Jakarta, where he was serving a nine-year sentence for subversion.

Love blossomed and they kept in touch by correspondence. International pressure and Amnesty International do get results. Lasama was released in 1998 before finishing his sentence, and married Siapno in his home village in Timor Leste in 2001.

Beyond the First Lady title then, Siapno’s is quite accomplished. Her doctoral research in Indonesia produced a book, “Gender, Islam, Nationalism and the State in Aceh.” She was also associate editor of the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures. She teaches at the Universidade da Paz in Dili.

She tells her students that with all the Filipina nannies raising children of the world, we’re quietly “colonizing” the world. It won’t be a surprise if a few years from now, leaders of countries talk about their Filipina yaya.