Josefa Abiertas: The first Filipino woman Baptist to gain national renown

Abstract

The province of Capiz that has produced such outstanding topnotchers in the Bar examination for lawyers as President Manuel Roxas and Justice Jose Hontiveros, also holds the distinction of having raised the first Filipino woman lawyer and Bar topnotcher, Josefa Abiertas. Abiertas was truly a brilliant lawyer, but more than that, she was a fighting moral crusader and social reformer.

Josefa hailed from the town of Capiz, now Roxas City, where she was born in 1894.1 Hers was a life of hardship and toil from the very start. Her parents were poor and when she was eight years old, she and a younger brother were completely orphaned. Their grandmother took custody of the children but she, too, was hardly able to feed and clothe them.

Young Josefa could not have gone to school had she not been found by two American Baptist missionary couples: Dr. and Mrs. Peter Lerrigo and Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Robbins. The missionaries had her enrolled at the Baptist Home School when this was opened in Capiz in 1904.

It was also in 1904, some time in the month of January, when Josefa accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.From that day “her whole heart was captured by the spirit of Christ and her whole life was devoted to His service.”