Last Seen:

November 30, 1975

Manila
In late November of 1975, she is supposed to have met with some comrades around the Paco Church in Manila. The group all disappeared. Parents and friends have looked for her at the defense and constabulary headquarters, but their efforts have been fruitless.

Leticia Pascual came from an intellectual family. Her father was once director of the Philippine General Hospital, and her mother a professor in graduate school.

 

The young girl was "laman ng bookstore," and by sixth grade, she was reading the works of Santayana. Texts by various philosophers were common fare to her. 

 

Leticia, called Tish by friends, excelled as a student at the University of the Philippines in Los Banos. She co-founded the UP Cultural Society. She was in her third year when she became the first woman editor of the Aggie Green and Gold, a student paper at the UP College of Agriculture. She also became active in the College Editors' Guild of the Philippines and the League of Editors for a Democratic Society. 

 

She was a candidate for magna cum laude if political events had not intervened in 1971. Tish's political awareness grew very quickly when she joined the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan. Her writings began to show this deepening understanding of her country's politics. She actually started living in farmers' communities, engaging the residents in political discussions, trying to impart her own growing grasp of the situation.  Her worried parents took Tish to task but realized that "we have lost her." At the same time, they not only respected her decision; they understood it and admired her courage.

 

Tish eventually had to leave the university when Marcos suspended the writ of habeas corpus in 1971. Despite the bigger dangers she now faced, she continued to work among the peasant farmers in Laguna and Quezon provinces. She also married fellow activist Vicente Ladlad and had given birth to a baby daughter.