By Manny Pinol
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 11th 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 11 year old Grade 5 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,” now Davao City Mayor Rody Duterte, and one “Ninang,” South Cotabato Gov. Daisy Avance-Fuentes.
Humble, respectful and obedient, Braveheart is a son every father would be very proud of.
This “unexpected” baby has given me another chance of becoming a father again, something that I missed when the two older girls, Dr. Maria Krista and Josa Bernadette, were growing up because I was always away.
This is an opportunity that I am enjoying every moment now that I am out of government.
(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, Josa Bernadette is 3rd year in medicine proper and Bernhart Immanuel is Grade 5. 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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