(The outpouring of love and gratitude hasn’t stopped for Margarita Araneta Fores since the announcement of her death, from cardiac arrest, last February 11. She is trending on social media, and mainstream media, including TV and cable, continues to hail her contribution as culinary icon of the Philippines, who went beyond our shores to bring the Filipino culinary expertise to the global stage, in her case a tireless development and exploration of Italian-inspired cuisine inspired by her Filipino roots. In fact she had even mined the indigenous ingredients of her native Visayas. However, beyond her profession and business (as restaurateur/founder of Cibo chain and other restaurants), Margarita was loved and continues to be loved for her kindness, humility and ability to reach out and even love all kinds of people, across cross-sections of society. She didn’t live the insular life of an heiress, which she was. Her heart simply had room for everyone—rich and poor, the powerful and the ordinary, indeed, humans and cats.
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Reaching out to the world, big and small, was innate to the character of Margarita “Gaita” Fores. Here we are re-running an interview and cover story we wrote about her in 2006 for Metro Society.)
Elegant foyer with Margarita’s portrait is what greets mourners at the wake in the family’s ancestral home
Margarita Fores: ‘When life gives you a curve ball, you just gotta know how to make it work’
2006
Margarita Araneta Fores walks into our office wearing a permanent “necklace.” The scar from a fairly recent surgery lines her neck, and she wears it like a badge of courage.
“This is my fashion accessory,” she beams with a smile so bright that it outshines the noon sun outside. On her way to us, she greets everybody. It’s not only her lilting “Hi!” that radiates cheer. It’s also her happy eyes. Those aren’t supposed to be the eyes of a cancer patient.
Margarita, I learn that day, is no ordinary cancer survivor—she’s a happy one who’s ready to live now more than ever. Her zest for living and giving is so infectious that, strange it may seem, you end up feeling envious of her, no matter that she’s in what could be the scariest episode of life for anyone.
A few months ago, Manila society was abuzz with talk that Margarita —the woman who seemed to have almost everything—had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
A mainstay on the best-dressed list, a style icon and Inno Sotto’s muse and close friend, Margarita was born to wealth. Her father, Dr. Raul Fores, was head of Makati Medical Center. Her mother, Baby, was a high-society icon long before people could abuse the use of the term; she still is.
Yet Margarita didn’t stay idle on her perch. She set out to carve her own career and identity. In fact, she didn’t have it easy
Yet Margarita didn’t stay idle on her perch. She set out to carve her own career and identity. In fact, she didn’t have it easy.
I remember the chapter in her life a decade ago as she was just starting, when abruptly, due to business squabbles, she found herself without a café; she lost her first cafe. In our phone chat she sounded dejected because her lifelong dream to have a restaurant was squashed even before she could prove herself. She was at the point of capturing a market; people were starting to come for her pastas, sandwiches, gelato—all Italian-derived recipes culled from her extensive study of Italian cuisine: first in Florence with Masha Innocenti, then Lo Scaldovivande with Jo Bettoja in Rome, and at L’Angolo della Gastronomia Scuola di Cucina di Ada Parasiliti in Milan.
Doing fusion cuisine way before it was trendy, she “Italianized” favorite Filipino dishes, turning Filipino ingredients into popular Italian staple, and vice versa.
In time Margarita put up her own café, backed by her family—Cibo, which grew into a chain. After Cibo’s success, there was no stopping Margarita. She opened the high-end Pepato at Greenbelt, with more cutting-edge recipes (e.g. innovative take on bulalo), Café Bola in the malls, and a catering business that became the choice of Metro Manila’s top parties. She had just ventured into floral arrangements and table styling, and is about to roll out a home line.
Margarita Fores with her son Amado and her mother, the late Baby Fores, after Margarita won Asia’s Best Female Chef in 2016
Indeed, from being a chef and culinary expert, Margarita was turning into a lifestyle designer.
And even while on the fast career lane, she also had a life. Her son Amadito is now a lovable teen.
From all angles, Margarita, at 47, was riding high.
Then, in a routine checkup, the doctor found a suspicious growth in her throat.
“My left eye seemed somewhat smaller. Two years ago the doctor said it could either be a muscle or thyroid malfunction,” Margarita recalls the eventual, if accidental, discovery of her ailment. “And of course, I’ve always had a raspy voice and sore throat. I thought I was just tired from work.”
Last April she went back to the eye doctor who, suspecting an enlarged thyroid gland, sent her to a C.T. Scan. “It was from the chest up, up to my throat. That was where they saw a 3 cm-nodule—one large and two small growths.”
She didn’t show alarm. An ultrasound of the growth was done—which didn’t look good to the doctors at all. They wanted a biopsy.
“I could have freaked out, but my family was around. It calmed me down. I wasn’t overcome by fear the way people are when they’re told they have cancer. My family was a strong cushion.
“But then it was hard, especially for a single mom like me. You feared the possibility of your son being left alone.
“Waiting for what the doctor would say was the longest 15 minutes. The good news was they couldn’t be sure it was cancer. The bad news was that they found Hurtle cells which could either be benign or malignant, so they wanted it removed. So surgery.”
Margarita had thyroidectomy to take out the growth and the thyroid gland. “It helped that we practically grew up in the hospital,” she said, remembering her dad’s profession and looking at the bright side, as usual. “And grew up with doctors as well. (In the operating room) They were so familiar. It makes a difference when you have confidence in your doctors.”
Expectedly Margarita got the best medical opinion, diagnosis and treatment—at Makati Medical Center, and consultations with Singapore hospitals and Stanford.
After surgery at Makati Medical, she flew to Stanford for the radioactive iodic treatment—a unique experience she relishes retelling. Simplistically put, she was turned into a radioactive entity kept isolated in a room lest she contaminated anyone.
“I watched TV the whole time. TFC was what kept me going. That Wowowee…”
Later on, she would catch on the Today Show the story of a woman, also in her prime, who was afflicted with thyroid cancer and underwent a similar treatment. “Her son called her a glow worm because she’d glow in the dark. Soon after she began a Light of Life Foundation to support people with thyroid cancer, and would send them this glow worm.”
We find it incredible how she sees the upside, always. She refers to her cancer as “like a gift from God. It could have been any other cancer, but it was thyroid—which has the highest survival rate. And they caught it at an early stage. God could have given it to me when it couldn’t be cured anymore, but He didn’t.
“I never thought I wouldn’t overcome it.”
She’s lost the chunk of her thyroid so she has to take hormones. “Women don’t realize how important the thyroid is until you lose it. It’s the master gland.”
Again, surprisingly, she didn’t go into depression.
“It changed my perspective. I know what really matters now. It’s the time with your loved ones.
“When life gives you a curve ball, you just gotta know how to make it work,” she says.
All the years we’ve known her, it is not only Margarita’s easy charm that has struck us. It is also her generosity and sincerity. She is no fake, in a glitter set that has no shortage of fakes. Upon realizing that she might have cancer, she thought of the people who have grown dependent on her for their livelihood, and the uncertainty they could be plunged into.
Now that she’s hurdled a life-threatening ailment—the doctors gave her a clean bill of health—she welcomes each new day. “It makes each day more meaningful,” she says.
She cherishes the gift of life. That is the ultimate blessing.
Long after her radioactivity, Margarita remains aglow in the dark.
