Helena Benitez, Filipino politician and educator, Died at 102

Helena Zoila Tirona Benitez was born on June 27, 1914, in Manila and died on July 14, 2016.

She was a Filipina academic and administrator of the Philippine Women’s University.

Helena served in the Senate of the Philippines from 1967 until Congress was closed when martial law was declared in 1972, and at the Batasang Pambansa from 1978 until it was abolished in 1986.

She also founded the Bayanihan Dance Company.

Her father was Conrado Benitez, a pensionado to the United States and a member of the 1935 Constitutional Convention, and her mother Francisca Tirona who was an educator and co-founder of Philippine Women’s College in 1919.

Helena Benitez passed away at 102 years old.