He is a man of many names.
To the people he trained, he is "Engineer"; to relatives, he is "Datu Dido"; and to those who look up to him, he is "Kaka Mama".
To me, he is "Papang": the man who brings home P15 halo-halo in a cellophane bag for his kids, asks them to walk over his legs (his idea of a massage), crawls on all fours like a carabao for them to ride on, buys obsolete NatGeo magazines from thrift stores, rents books from hole-in-the-wall bookstores (and forgets to return them), only buys one pair of shoes and uses it until he wears them down, gives almost every person he knows a freaking nickname (which they end up getting known for), goes out to buy something and returns hours later because he met someone he knew and he lost track of time chatting with the person.
He is all that and more. Most importantly, Papang is the wind rose that kept the balance to my otherwise tricky childhood.
I grew up with my grandmother and she ruled the house with an iron fist. My grandmother is a kind and loving woman but she is also tough. Small mistakes like spilling a drop of water on the table is reciprocated with a kurot sa singit. Bigger blunders like watching TV outside the standard TV hours, getting injured or wounded, or forgetting to wash your clothes means a session with the sinturon or whatever it is that she can lay her hands on. Heavy crimes such as getting a grade lower than 90, going home later than 5:30, or simply having the misfortune of being at the wrong place (house) at the wrong time (grandma is in a bad mood) means an extra hour of lashing on top of the sanction for a bigger blunder you have unintentionally committed.
It is perhaps this early training which made my pain tolerance higher (and my patience shorter). I grew so accustomed to the beating that I stopped crying after the fifth minute. Surprisingly, my longest and hardest cry was not a product of a beating session with my grandmother. It came out after a fifteen minute talk with Papang.
I was in Grade Five then and it was the final week of exams. Papang caught me watching Discovery Channel that day and he asked why I was not studying. I told him that I will do so after I finish the show. He went out and came back three hours later to see my eyes still glued to the TV. Papang asked me whether I'm done studying and I sheepishly answered "not yet". Decades later, I will still remember the look on his face. It was the look of disappointment. He sat down in front of me, turned down the volume of the television, and asked me in a gentle voice whether I would prefer to stop schooling. In the same gentle tone, he narrated how he works hard so he can send us to school; that even if that means he is not there to see me grow up, he is willing to sacrifice just so he can give me a better future.
That night, I went to sleep with puffy eyes.
Most of the time, Papang would indulge us by covering for our 'crimes'.
In the 90s, school children will go home early to catch their favorite late afternoon anime show on TV. Papang knew that. However, the golden rule in my grandmother's household is to keep the television turned off the entire day except from 7 to 8 pm, in time for Esperanza. As a child, I was not to touch the TV. Hence, Papang would make it a point to come home early, sprawl in front of the TV, ask me in a loud voice to turn it on so he can watch "Taguro", and ask me to walk over his back for a massage.
My grandmother need not know that all these are part of his elaborate plan to let his kids watch 'Ghost Fighters'. I knew. I found out about it when I noticed that he would always fall asleep right before the first commercial break.
Papang had played his role as an 'accessory to the crime' quite well. He would give me money to buy band-aids so I can hide bruises on my knees. He would lend me his big NatGeo magazines so I can conceal Archie comics when I read them at home. Most often than not, his mere presence at home automatically saves me from a beating because he would catch the brunt of my grandma's wrath. You see, they say that I took after my father a lot, and that means whatever I do that annoys my grandma, he probably does them too---tenfold.
I was always honest with him. I would tell him tall tales about my recent daydreams and would ask him questions fearlessly. Why are you reading a book about the Bible even though we're Muslims? When the Day of Judgment ends and we are sentenced to live eternally in Paradise or Hell, won't we get bored or tired of waiting for it to end? I would give him opinions that sounded most sensible to a ten year old child and he would listen attentively. He never shot me down.
When I was bullied during my fifth year in grade school, I trusted nobody else to learn of my misery but him. I asked him what would happen if I decide to stop studying. He probed on and I told him that I don't want to go to school anymore because my classmates were making it hard for me. Our conversation ended with me having the courage to face another day. His answer was something along the lines of "You are a brave and able girl. If you will give up your future for this, what else would you fight for?"
So, I sucked it up for one more year. Not much later after that conversation, he passed away.
We lost Papang in 2000, during President Estrada's all-out war in Mindanao. He was thirty-two.
The first hour was painful. I remember skipping home that day, eager to deliver the news that I will be representing the school in a competition only to be given the biggest surprise of my life. His loss was sudden. I wasn't prepared. He has yet to see me compete in a quiz bee, graduate grade school, and pass the entrance exam in a science high school. He has yet to see me grow up.
But I'm a brave and able girl. I have to move on.
Years later when people would ask how passed away, I will answer in jest, "he forgot to breathe". It was not an attempt to mask the pain. In fact, it doesn't feel painful at all when I think of his death. On the contrary, the pain resurfaces, hard and stinging, when I think of how would it be like if he is still alive.
Will we have trekked Mt. Apo like he promised? Will he have finally ridden a plane? Will he be as equally pressured as my mom in finding me a life partner? Will he remain loyal to the stall that sells halo-halo? Will I be who I am now?
Perhaps, his demise was the trigger that set things in motion. Perhaps, that is the reason why I ended up where I am today: working on something as fragile as the peace process in hope that there will come a day that nobody would fall asleep a beloved child and wake up an orphan.
Every year, when the third Sunday of June comes along, I think about him once more and the many things I wanted to ask him. For one, I never learned the reason why he buys the P15 halo-halo at the dusty Old Market. Is he being thrifty? Is the Old Market's halo-halo the best of its kind? Also, why does he bring home the halo-halo in a cellophane bag instead of a plastic container? Why is the ube separated from the rest of ingredients? And why do we mix them all up in a bowl instead of a glass?
After the war, Old Market was razed down and on its site now stands Cotabato City Arcade. The halo-halo stall of my childhood disappeared along with the memory of Old Market.
As I grew older, I found myself developing an affinity to dusty weekend rural markets, wherever in the world they may be. I find solace in the lively chatter and the smell of herbs, street food, and sun-baked mud.
Once in Dalican, I caught myself looking around for wooden stalls selling cheap halo-halo. My feet brought me in front of one and I stared dazedly at the jars displayed on the table.
Suddenly, I am transported back to the past and I am once again the ten year old girl who, for the price of fifteen pesos, learned one of the many ways a father can show that his love is priceless.
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Today, I found out that the abridged (and revised) version of this post was published in Inquirer's Young Blood. Achievement unlocked.
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