Maningning had the ability to handle different media, adapting her use of materials to suit her ideas.
[ Her Chinese traditional paintings shows ] the intensity of training in Chinese painting. Her lines, like her calligraphic handwriting, are clean and spontaneous.

Maningning : an artist childlike in her ideas. She was passionate about anything and her paintings revealed this attitude towards life. ' Trouble in Paradise' is a big oil on canvas that epitomized her later work. She applied thick paint on the canvas with uneven brushstrokes that seemed to match the intensity of the emotion... Roberto Chabet, her former teacher, recalls how Maningning made a grid-by-grid study of this work by first making those grids using pastel on paper. She applied them in layers of colors and proceeded this careful rendering using oil paint... It won the 1992 Art Association of the Philippines Grand Prize.
                                                                                                              - The Philippine Star
                                                                                                                Anvil, 2001, pp. 55-58
From Joaquin Sy :

Ang totoo, marami tayong pwedeng sabihin tungkol kay Maningning. Pero imposibleng magsalita tayo tungkol sa kanya nang hindi natin naiiisip ang sariling anak na babae, na inagaw ng malupit na karamdaman sa edad na dose. Matatandaan natin na nang nakaratay siya sa higaan, paulit-ulit natin siyang inalo na kahit hindi siya makapag-aral sa eskwela, kahit hindi siya maging guro o doktor..., pwede siyang maging manununlat gaya ni Maningning.

Alam nating kongkreto ang dating sa kanya ng ganoong pag-aaral dahil nakilala niya at narinig bumasa ng tula si Maningning sa isang poetry reading sa maliit na parke sa tabi ng CCP, at nasabi natin sa kanya kung gaano kagaling si Maningning. Ang totoo, mula nang matutong humawak ng lapis ang panganay natin, tinuturuan na natin siyang gumuhit at magkulay. At mula nang natuto siyang magsalita tinuturuan na natin siyang magsalita sa tatlong wika. At nang lumaki-laki siya, tinuturuan at sinanay na rin natin siyang sumulat at magsalin sa tatlong wika. Pangarap kasi natin na anuman siya maging, guro man o doktor, gusto nating siya ri'y maging manunulat sa tatlong wika. gaya ni Maningning.

                                                                                                              - Tulay Chinese -
                                                                                                                Filipino Digest
                                                                                                                March 6, 2001, p. 13