WHEN Lea Angelica ”LA” Yosalina-Brito steps out of the airplane cockpit, many think she’s one of the typical flight attendants. Until she introduces herself to be one of the pilots, which, in the 21st century, is still a shocker.
“There are still those people who are still thinking back in the dark ages,” Brito told in an interview with the Varsitarian.
“There are times you would hear a comment, ‘Is it safe to fly on that plane that there are two female pilots?’ or ‘Oh no, magdi-divert ba tayo’ or ‘Are we gonna be able to land to our destination kasi babae ‘yong pilot?’”
Brito has safely navigated the intricate mechanisms of an aircraft, landed it on the runway with ease and definitely never crashed it on the ground – just as how passengers expect of male pilots.
The 32-year-old alumna from the College of Nursing is now licensed under the United States Federal Aviation Administration, undergoing lengthy training and flight simulations 27 weeks into her pregnancy and in the middle of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic.
After her maternity leave, Brito applied for a job at Delta Air Lines, where working conditions are far more “liberal” than in the Philippines.
“I feel like there’s more respect and freedom of self-expression and when you’re done with your work, you get to be who you are,” she said. “In the Philippines, there’s still the hierarchy of position and power, knowing your place.”
Brito’s love for medicine sapped just two years into her undergraduate studies. “Two years pa lang, pagod na kami,” she quipped.
Another Nursing graduate, Angela “Anj” Cajator Ko, got weary with nursing over time, telling the Varsitarian in an interview that she eventually yearned for a “chill” environment.
“Tinapos ko lang siya for the sake na matapos ko ‘yong course,” Ko told the Varsitarian, adding, “parang habang nagdu-duty ako, okay lang ‘yong trabaho, pero it felt like work with me.”
“Whereas now, iniisip ko na lang, ‘Ano kaya bibilhin ko sa Japan? Ano kaya pasalubong ko?’ Very light ‘yong atmosphere.”
The 31-year-old alumna traced her roots to her mother’s friend whom she bumped into a decade ago. That friend worked as a seasoned captain at Philippine Airlines (PAL).
“Sabi niya, ‘Try mo kaya magpiloto,’” she recalled. “Tapos napaisip ako, ‘Oo nga, bakit hindi ko i-try?’ On the whim lang.”
After graduation, Ko entered PAL’s military-style aviation school, where she underwent rigorous training for two years. At first, some instructors were adamant about training women about the nuts and bolts of an aircraft.
“May few captains talaga na ayaw magbigay ng takeoff and landing sa amin,” she recalled. “’Yong defense ko naman, ‘Paano ako gagaling, sir, kung ‘di mo ko bibigyan ng opportunity to do so.’”
Asia got its first female commercial pilot in 1989 with Filipina Maria Aurora Carandang-Gloria, who graduated with a degree in economics at the University of the Philippines and trained and worked with PAL. Four years later, in 1993, she earned the title of first female airline captain in Southeast Asia.
Gloria, who retired in 1998, didn’t mind subjecting herself to the arduous training especially since women were empowered at the time following the installment of the first female president, Corazon Aquino.
“It was really trying to immerse myself and study it; I did enjoy the process [and] I enjoyed the camaraderie we had, and with the people I had worked with,” she stressed in an interview with News5 in March.
Blending in
Brito found residency exhaustive after hearing stories from friends, one of which forwent his dream of becoming a pilot. After making up her mind to leave hospital duties and enter aviation school, the Nursing alumna had to do a lot of convincing with his father, who was a pilot himself.
“Minention niya sa’kin casually ‘yong PAL aviation school [na] it’s hard to get in because they only get 12 students per class,” Brito said. “Eventually, after graduating college and [taking] the board exams, he was like, ‘You know what, mag-nurse ka na lang sa United States kasi parang mahirap makapasok sa aviation school.’”
“The fact that he discouraged me kasi mahirap makapasok doon, the more I wanted to make sure I could go in.”
Brito got in, where she was part of the Bravo 2012 batch that started at PAL’s aviation school in June 2012.
Describing herself as a “girly girl,” she initially expressed shock that she had to shed a part of her womanhood to avoid “extra attention.” No make-up. No eyelash extensions. No loose hair. Far from the conditions at her first work as an assistant beauty editor at a magazine.
Brito, a former football player at UST, had to exert “extra effort” to blend in a class of 12 students where all but two were men. “I felt like I had to walk on eggshells and be more careful especially [since] hindi pa sila sanay noon with a female pilot, more so someone [na] kikay and, I would say, a more assertive person like me,” she said.
There came a point where she turned into a “people-pleaser” to protect her status in the aviation school akin to a fraternity.
“The best you can do is to absorb as much as you can but also want to tie and please everyone,” Brito recalled. “We have to protect ourselves, so we want to make sure we don’t step on anyone’s toes because I feel like ‘pag hindi ka nagustuhan ng isa, magsasabi ng kwento sa isa, [and] it can make your life difficult.”
For Ko, who by then had passed the nursing licensure exams, she was immersed in the arduousness of PAL’s aviation school on the day of her enrollment in 2013.
“Magbabayad ka na nga, pagkapirma mo ng contract, bubugbugin ka na with exercise,” she recalled. “May mga physical training kami na military style – 1,000 jumping jacks, 500 sit-ups, mga 15-minute straight squats.”
Ko realized something else during her two-year grind: She felt above, not beneath, her male colleagues.
They were five women in the class, she recounted, and the men who they were with never launched threats or took swipes. “Parang nag-work pa to our advantage na babae kami kasi sinasabi nila, ‘Pagpahingahin natin sila,’” she said.
All five of them topped in their class.
Brito flew for PAL for seven years, from 2015 to 2022, before deciding to stay in the United States for good when she became pregnant. Ko has been with the country’s flag carrier for eight years now.
Ko is focused on providing a “smooth and safe flight” to passengers, one that is not only measured when the aircraft lands smoothly on the runway. “We did our jobs as a pilot kaya ka nakapag-relax and nakarating ka sa destination mo safely,” she stressed.
At the end of the day, Brito believes that surviving in the aviation industry is all about skills.
“Whether you’re a man or a woman, if you are qualified and skilled and have the right attitude and knowledge in your field, then you will get it,” she said. “There’s no need to be intimidated, threatened, insecure or to bash or put women down just because they are trying to do their own thing – soar and spread their wings in whatever industry that is.”
