In so many instances in the past, even up until today, I was confronted with the question why and how I embraced the word Braveheart and named almost everything associated with me after the Mel Gibson movie.
Braveheart Boxing Club, Braveheart Farms and Braveheart Media Communications are some of the establishments I have set up which all carried the name.
Admittedly, the word stuck in my conscious mind because I loved that Mel Gibson movie, Braveheart.
But I started adopting it after the birth of my youngest child, Bernhart Immanuel, who came 13 years after the youngest girl, Josa Bernadette.
He was unexpected. My wife was 36 when she gave birth to a premature baby boy through the ceasarian section.
It was a happy moment in our life. I was in my second term as Governor of North Cotabato when Imman came.
Little did we know that the premature baby would go through some of the most scary moments before he would celebrate his 17th birthday today.
Born premature, Imman had a hole in the heart and had to placed in the incubator for 18 days surviving the first few days with the aid of a respirator.
As I and his two sisters watched his fragile body inside the incubator as he was fighting to live, we whispered prayers and urged him to have a “Brave Heart” and survive.
Survive, he did, and we started calling him “Braveheart.”
Today the baby with the hole in his heart who had to make so many trips to the doctor for the first few years of his life is a healthy 17 year old Grade 11 kid.
What makes this young boy remarkable, and this trait is also seen in his sisters, is that he has never felt that he is special because he is a political figure’s son.
He does not even talk about the fact that in his baptism he only had one “Ninong,” former Davao City Mayor and now President Rody Duterte, and one “Ninang,” former South Cotabato Gov. Daisy Avance-Fuentes.
Humble, respectful and obedient, Braveheart is a son every father would be very proud of.
At 17, Braveheart plans to take up Veterinary Medicine and manage the farm which I established in 1993.
This gives me another feeling of comfort and reassurance that as I walk towards the sunset of my life, my son will take care of the chicken, the ducks and the goats and become another farmer just like me, my father, my grandfather and those before them.
Happy birthday, Imman! Papa loves you very much.
(Photo caption: How time flies! This picture of me and my young children catching “Tilapia” in the farm fishpond was taken by my wife several years ago. Today, Ma. Krista is a doctor who just won a seat as Board Member of North Cotabato, Josa Bernadette is also a doctor taking up specialised studies at St. Luke’s Hospital in Quezon City and Bernhart Immanuel is Grade 11. The joy that my family gives me in my low moments is a blessing that I savor every minute of my life.)
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