Eulogy of Bienvenido "Donnie" V. Tantoco III during the funeral mass of Ms. Zenida R. Tantoco on 16 February 2024 at the Santuario de San Antonio, Forbes Park, Makati City

Good morning dearest friends.

I would like to talk about Ninay Nedy first as my godmother and secondly, as the boss that I served for seven years.

Growing up, I felt that Ninay Nedy was one of the busiest people in the world. And thus I always wondered, where did she have the time to perform such loving and generous acts and gestures for me in epic proportions?

She once visited me when I was a college student living on my own in the USA. She asked me "Donnie, what on earth do you eat now that you are living on your own?" I did not know how to cook, so I said I was eating ground beef every day. Her eyes grew wide as she exclaimed "Ground beef 3 times a day! Que Horror! " Before flying back to Manila, she was able to somehow have dishes like "pochero," "kare kare" and "gata" delivered to my dorm room in Connecticut every week for an entire semester.

A couple of years later I asked her to be the Ninang at my wedding. I told her it was going to be very small and simple, as I was paying for it from my savings. Before addressing my question to become my sponsor, she wanted to know about our wedding preparations. She asked, "Who is going to do your music?" I said, "A string quartet." "What kind of wine are you serving?" Needless to say, she was horrified by my answers. She got rid of my string quartet and replaced it with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra. She substituted the sparkling wine I was planning to serve our guests with Dom Perignon. As if that wasn't enough, she made PPO play festive music while fireworks were blazing in the sky as Crickette and I walked into the garden reception (prepared by my mom) to meet our guests for the first time as a married couple.

I share these stories on behalf of the third generation of our family. I am sure others have similar stories of Ninay Nedy's epic generosity.

At Rustan's, we respectfully, and endearingly refer to our boss as ZRT.

ZRT was a living legend to us even if she was not the least bit interested in becoming legendary. She was the toughest boss any of us had ever experienced. However, amidst all that willpower, and ferocious determination, she was also a strong leader who had no ego nor any sense of self-concern. She was tough on us, but only because she wanted to inspire us to love Rustan's even half as much as she did.