Nung akit mu king lupa ning tawu ing kasakitan at kapibabatan, eku ne siguru aitsuran i tatay. If our faces reflect the hardships and sacrifices we go through in life, my dad wouldn't be as good looking these days. It is a family joke that he was a dead ringer for Lito Lapid back in the days, but the years have been kind to his face and physique. I write this in honor of my dad, Berlito Jimenez Pangilinan, who turns 75 today.
His was not an easy start. My dad was born to tenant farmers in Del Carmen, the oldest among a brood of four. He finished elementary at the San Fernando Elementary School but was not able to finish high school because of backbreaking work on the farm to help his parents. At a young age, he had to sacrifice and give way to his siblings' education, his only sister became a midwife, while his brothers were able to go to college and go abroad too.
Later on, he became a tenant farmer too and planted sugarcane and rice. Their home was across the elementary school where my mother taught and he probably saw her by the window, catching a glimpse of her crossing the street. They married in their early 20s and settled in the barrio, right beside the elementary school.
My dad would have been a farmer all his life until he had a chance to work as a driver for a well-off family in Manila, that of Colonel Lee Telesco who landed with General Douglas MacArthur in Leyte. Having three kids in succession, he sought a better life for his family in Saudi Arabia, working for an American company as a heavy equipment operator for more than ten years in the late seventies and the early eighties.
I wasn't in the picture then yet, as I would come as a project later on when he was already working abroad and vacationed once a year. As the fourth and youngest child, I turned out to have the most privileged life among us four, and called him daddy instead of tatay. Where my siblings slept on a bamboo bed during their early years, I slept on an air conditioned room and had a TV to myself. I was also the only one who did not attend the barrio school.
My dad vowed not to let any of his children follow his difficult life as a farmer, and these days how I wished he taught me how to farm so I could have been an agricultural engineer. Back then, farming was not the "in" thing, and was bordering on the exploitative, with tenant farmers doing the hard work for the land owners, until the so-called agrarian reforms awarded parcels of land to them after the EDSA People Power Revolution. Daddy made sure everyone went to college, against and amidst the odds.
Kuya Jaybee was already a fourth year engineering student at the University of the Assumption before he entered the Philippine Military Academy. Kuya Jude, the rockstar, was in college for seven years, until they let him graduate with an Economics degree and a pregnant wife to boot. Ate Lissa finished Biology at Saint Louis University, then Medicine at Angeles University Foundation. Such was his commitment to see us all finish school that he went back to Saudi for a second stint during the 90s when ate Lissa was still in med school and I was in high school.
When my dad's work was disrupted by the death of his own father in 1997, he turned to being a driver and resumed farming, ensuring that we ate our own harvest. He took pride in his work. These days, he still goes to the what little of the farm we have left, plants and harvests rice, stacks the rice cavans in our dining room, as if to say that there is no need to worry and we will survive the rainy days.
What has my dad taught me all these years? In the family, he is the quietest one, but whose soft voice is most fearsome once someone earns his ire. With his years of devoted service to us, he reminds me that money is not everything but the simple daily acts count the most. My brothers and sister never learned to properly drive because our dad is always there to take us around. Probably because he missed most of my early childhood, he is doing his best to make up for it, devoting himself to taking care of his granddaughter Sunis in school and at home, and spoiling her with after school treats. Those times when I miss my daughter's ballet lessons, it is my dad who patiently waits. How it melts my heart to see Sunis at night, kissing her grandfather tenderly, saying "I love you the best Lolo Berling." How privileged and blessed I am to have my parents still with me at this day and age.
My dad instilled in me a sense of sacrifice that is fueled by love and commitment. Most of the time, he goes without so that we could go with, and thinks of us before he thinks of himself, and never made any demands on us. Now that I am working and raising a child, I am able to understand better what he went through.
In those days when there wasn't Facebook and phone calls were expensive, my mum and I used to make voice logs to tell him how our days went and sent these to him so he had something to listen to and remember us by. I appreciate every toil and tear that came with the price tag of every brand new sneakers or gadgets which he never hesitated to buy for me.
These days, he would still think twice about accepting gifts from us, whether it is a pair of really comfortable shoes he would love to have but thinks are too expensive, or taking a holiday because he worries about who will take care of the house. I know in my heart that I will never be able to give back much of what you have given me and given up for me.
I am me because of you tatay, I love you, and let me take care of you on this day and always.