[Obituary] Remembering Susan Dilkes, 1949-2022

Susan Espiritu Dilkes died on March 2, at her home, surrounded by family and friends.  She was 72 years old.  She was a mother, a wife, a grandmother, and a community leader; she had struggled with metastatic colon cancer for seven years.

Susan was born in 1949, in Cebu City, in the Philippines.  Later, the family moved to Loay, a tiny fishing village on the island of Bohol.  Her father died when Susan was 12.  Susan always made her own decisions, so when her mother moved the family to Manila, Susan  insisted on staying in Bohol to finish the school year.  She was the first “working student” in Holy Trinity School, and lived with an aunt, so that she could graduate from elementary school in Bohol.  Only then, did she  move to Manila, to join the rest of her family.

In Manila, she went on to obtain a degree in accounting from the University of the East.  Although she had lived in Cebu or Manila for most of her childhood, she cherished her roots in Bohol, and always regarded herself as a Boholana.

In 1973, Susan came to California. Three days after she arrived, she had a job as a bookkeeper for an insurance company.  She married Antonio Maquindang and raised 3 children. She also discovered she was a natural leader and rose to be the President or Chair of several organizations that served the Filipino immigrant community, including the Boholanos of Southern California, Inc., which specifically helped  immigrants from Bohol.

Susan hated accounting but had discovered that she loved public service, so in 1994, she took a job as Executive Director of the Filipino American Service Group, Inc.(FASGI)  in Historic Filipino Town.  Under her leadership, FASGI built a 26-bed residential facility, and, for the next 21 years, she  provided community food programs, a medical service program , immigration aid, and many other services to the Filipino American community.

She also enrolled in the Executive Leadership Program at CORO Southern California.  That training proved to be the springboard to her future legislative successes.

In the beginning, many of the participants in FASGI’s programs were WWII Veterans from the Philippines.  They had been sworn into and then served in the US Army, during the war, but were denied the post war benefits that were so freely provided to other American GI’s, including some from foreign countries.  Susan was outraged by this injustice.  She joined several existing organizations that had tried to get Congress to redress this problem but had been unsuccessful. Susan helped them work together and, discovered that  she was a legislative tactician of remarkable skill.  In fact, she soon found herself advising Filipino Veterans’ organizations, all over the country.

Susan organized and published the first health study of Filipino Veterans and used the data from that study as the basis for her testimony before Congress. Armed with real data, her testimony was one of the major influences that ultimately secured VA medical services for the Filipino Veterans in the US.

In 1998, she stood next to President Clinton when he signed a Proclamation that recognized the service of the Filipino American WWII Veterans. The VA health program was enacted in 2004, and in 2009, Susan saw President Obama sign legislation that provided compensation to the Filipino American WWII Veterans. The picture above is of a proud Susan Dilkes, sitting in the airport, heading back after the bill was signed into law.

Susan stayed on at FASGI for 6 more years; running a social service network and forming FilVote, to encourage greater political participation by Filipino Americans.  She made the FASGI residential facility available to a group of Thai workers who had been rescued from enslavement in El Monte and took in several “Trafficked Women,” who had been smuggled to the US sex trade.  Despite these successes, she regarded her services to the Filipino American Veterans as her most important accomplishment.

In retirement, Susan learned to scuba dive, with her second husband, Edward Dilkes, and logged more than 60 dives,  all over the world.  Unable to stop being a community leader, in 1918, she became President of Kalayaan, Inc. the organization that sponsors the annual Philippine Independence Day Gala and remained a political advisor and mentor to social activists and elected officials throughout the state.

She is survived by her second husband, Edward Dilkes and by her sons, Romel Maquindang (Maybel), of West Covina and Ronel Maquindang,  of Las Vegas, NV., and by her daughters Jennifer Maquindang and Kiana Dilkes. She is also survived by 3 granddaughters, Jenel Maquindang, Emma Maquindang and Olivia Maquindang, and many nieces and nephews.

A Funeral Mass will be held at Our Mother of Good Counsel Catholic Church, on March 26 at 10:00 a.m. A graveside service, on a later date, will be for family members, only.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to either Our Mother of Good Counsel Catholic School, or The Cheremoya Elementary School Foundation.