03 September 2014

Who is Dalia Guerrero-Pastor?

Dalia Guerrero-Pastor
When famous race car driver, Enzo Pastor, was shot and killed by a motorcycle-riding gunman last 12 June 2014 in Quezon City, his family and friends were shocked. They became more numbed to the point of being annoyed upon learning that Enzo's wife, Dalia Guerrero-Pastor, was tagged as one of the suspects.

Aside from what the social elites know of their passion for car racing love and their equally fast-paced story which started when she was 18 and he was 22, not much is known about Dalia.

However, Cathy Yamsuan of the Philippine Daily Inquirer offered a comprehensive background on how prominent the family of Dalia is. She said that the now 28-year old mother of two is actually a great-granddaughter of Don Ramon Roces. Don Ramon belonged to the powerful clan that built a Philippine media empire in the 20th century:
The Roces family owned the Manila Times, the influential and most widely circulated newspaper before martial law, and other newspapers including the TVT group (Tribune-La Vanguardia-Taliba), the Daily Mirror and Liwayway. The Manila Times was a leading newspaper in Asia until President Marcos had it closed down upon the declaration of martial law in 1972.

The Filipino media considers Don Ramon as the original komiks king and the grand old man of Philippine popular publishing. (He founded and ran Atlas Publishing until his death. It published such widest-circulated komiks as Wakasan, Lagim, Hiwaga, Sampaguita, and in the ’70s, Mod magazine.)

His youngest brother, Joaquin "Don Chino" Roces, hailed as a democracy icon, was general manager of the Manila Times and was among the first ones arrested when martial law was declared.

Don Ramon’s daughter Morita, Dalia’s grandmother, married Dr. Mario Guerrero, brother of the country’s leading writer, journalist and historian Carmen “Chitang” Guerrero Nakpil. Mrs. Nakpil’s daughter with her first husband Ismael Cruz is Gemma Cruz, who would become the country’s first Miss International. (Ismael was killed in World War II when retreating Japanese forces massacred the family in Ermita.)

Morita was publisher of the family-owned Women’s Home Companion before son Alfredo inherited the duty.

Morita’s elder son Wahoo, an acclaimed photographer in the ’80s, was once married to fashion designer Helena Carratala of Azabache fame. Azabache was the trailblazing boutique and fashion line in the ’70s.

After they separated, Wahoo married Valerie. Dalia is their daughter."