Google honors the 142nd birthday of Rose Sevilla de Alvero, a Filipina journalist, educator, and activist, who is known as one of the most influential suffragists in the Philippines.

Google celebrates the journalist’s birthday by showing a doodle art posted on Google’s search bar on Thursday, March 4, 2021. The illustration profiled her wearing a Filipiniana dress, holding a piece of ballot placed inside a box –recognition of her campaign of the right for suffrage of Filipino women in 1937.

According to Google’s profile of Sevilla, she was born on March 4, 1879, in Manila. During her childhood, Sevilla was sent to live with her aunt, an educator who hosted Filipino patriots and intellectuals. Growing up surrounded by intellectuals is said to likely affect her advocacy.

At the age of 21, Sevilla founded one of the first schools for women, the Instituto de Mujeres in Manila, which today is known as the Rosa Sevilla Memorial School, and also founded the National League of Filipino Women.

“The institute became a hotbed for progress under Sevilla’s leadership—educating women on topics such as suffrage, vocation, and Tagalog,” Google stated on her profile.

Also, Sevilla is just one of the two female editorial staffers of La Independencia, a Philippine newspaper published by General Antonio Luna.

Sevilla capable of growth has also become part of a movement to fight for ‘Tagalog’ to be the Philippines national language. Sevilla then went around the country to rally for women’s right to vote.

“Thanks in part to Sevilla’s tremendous call to action, voting rights were granted to Filipino women in 1937,” added on Google reads.

Source: https://www.google.com/doodles/rosa-sevilla-de-alveros-142nd-birthday