It was only five days before her 100th birthday when Aida Rivera Ford returned to her Creator on January 17, 2026. A pillar of the literary community both locally and nationally, her “literary gems” have continued to inspire generations of students and writers.
In the early 2000s, she would often drop by the Mindanao Times newsroom to visit our publisher, the late Josie San Pedro—herself a formidable figure in journalism. I was frequently invited to join their conversations about recent community events and the city’s prominent personalities. These chats were immensely entertaining; listening to them reminisce about the city of their youth was like having a whole library of history open up before me. Later, I would encounter her at art events and Davao Historical Society meetings, where we threshed out the historical details of Datu Bago, the city’s hero.
In early 2020, just before the pandemic, Queenie Munda of the Davao Historical Society, and I visited her for a video production documenting her life as an artist and educator. The visit, arranged by her close aide Gina Lozada, was kept brief out of deference to her failing health. Even so, we left filled with wonder at her accomplishments—most notably her work editing Sands and Corals at Silliman University, the first literary folio in the country.
During her wake at the Our Lady of the Assumption Chapel at Ateneo de Davao University, the homily served as a moving tribute to a life that touched so many students, artists, and cultural workers. As many shared their experiences with her, it became clear just how well-lived her life was. To honor her memory, we are sharing a “Song of Praise” for Aida Rivera Ford, written by the prominent local writer Don Pagusara.
A SONG OF PRAISE For AIDA RIVERA FORD
by Don Pagusara
Your name rests in comfort and prominence in the Cradle of History which by the weight of its worth and fame constantly swings as a lasting tribute to an extraordinary figure in Philippine Literature.
The branchlets, splendidly loaded with leaves, freshly green colorful blossoms, and ripened fruits of your literary richness, spread full and wide in the pages of books and all other written works copyrighted with praises by your reading audiences and fans.
The layout of narratives in fiction, short and long, and as tracings crafted by of your nimble writing fingers, in scripts of stage plays, either performed or mainly read, and the verse-lines of your songs articulated by player-performers of your drama librettos, have been printed on the heartwalls and memory pages of your students’ interiority in academe as well as in the bedroom tables of out-school-youths and the reading public.
All of us classroom teachers as well as avid non-academic lovers of Literature, all concerned citizens and residents of the Republic, across the archipelago, in the ever-changing seasons and reasons of our societal growth and development, have cast glances of the events and adventures of the Filipino people in their engagements for and against the challenges for a new tomorrow.
The ‘frequent transition from peace times to the rigors of fascist or violent regimes in our Republic have been mirrored in skillful magical ways of playwriting and in extraordinary techniques of fiction writing by your “quill” to present true-to-life replicas
Aida Rivera Ford’s legacy will continue in the stories and poems that she left with us.
