Thoughts on Father’s Day IT’S NOT ABOUT FATHERS; IT’S ABOUT OUR CHILDREN

By Manny Piñol

Yesterday, I received a call from my son-in-law, Chito Solis, childhood boyfriend and husband of my eldest daughter, Maria Krista, who greeted me ‘Happy Father’s Day’ in advance.

I jokingly brushed off his greetings and told him not to give the day much significance as it was invented by businessmen who wanted to make a big sale of their men’s wares at least once a year.

In my afterthought, however, I realised that while Father’s Day may be a commercial idea, it has a deeper meaning than just buying gifts for our fathers.

For the children, it is a time to remember the sacrifices of their parents in securing a better future for them.

For the fathers, it is a moment to think deeply how they could ensure that the future is better for their children.

My late father, Bernardo Magbanua Piñol, was born to a farming family in Liboo, Dingle, Iloilo and went to his elementary graduation ceremonies barefoot.

He became a teacher, a very strict one especially on us his children. He once hit my head with a book in front of my classmates in the elementary grades when I failed to submit my assignment.

My father threatened to shoot me with his old gun when I asked his permission to go to the mountains to join a radical youth group which was fighting the dictatorship in the 1970s.

He whipped us when we failed to do our share in the household chores, including the washing and ironing of our own clothes, cooking food, working in the farm, fetching water from a distant spring and even the tethering of the carabaos daily.

I hated him when I was young, especially when he would wake us up early on weekend mornings, when as young boys we loved to curl up and sleep up until the sun rises, to lead us to the farm where we worked for two days to take care of the rubber trees.

Looking back, I realised why my father was very strict. He had 11 sons and had he not been a disciplinarian, many of us would have gone wayward.

My father’s corporal discipline, coupled with my mother’s caring understanding and love, made us 11 brothers what we are now.

All of us are professionals. Patricio, the eldest retired as a police colonel, I became Mayor of M’lang and then 3-term Governor and then Vice Governor, my brother Jun was congressman while two other brothers, Efren and Joselito, became undefeated Mayors of two towns in North Cotabato.

The rest of the siblings all lived up to our father’s dreams – Celso is a ship captain, Gerardo a municipal councilor, Noli owns a security agency and pursues a masters degree, Ferdinand is municipal administrator of our hometown, M’lang, Nilo is a British citizen who lives with his family in Great Britain while Socrates was a barangay chairman and member of the provincial board.

A few of us drink alcohol and love raising roosters for the traditional “sabong” but no one among us smokes.

We are not rich but we are happy with we have become.

Amazing and unbelievable?

Give credit to our father who cracked the whip when needed to keep us toe the line and our mother, of course, who consoled us and applied “lapunaya” on the welts we suffered from Tatay’s belt.

Have I been a good father to my children?

It is not for me to say. I’m sure my children will tell the world who I was as a father when I am long gone from the face of Earth.

I am not a perfect father, no one could ever be.

My love for my children, however, is beyond question. Maria Krista, Josa Bernadette, who is now a medical intern, and Bernhart Immanuel, however, could tell their friends that I had never hurt them physically.

Everything that I do in life today, even my political and agricultural advocacies, are all because of my love for my children.

Even my support for my friend, Davao City Mayor Rody Duterte, is anchored on the belief that the country needs a father-leader like him who could crack the whip to make people toe the line thus ensuring a more secure future for our children, free from the threats of drugs and criminality.

Let us celebrate Father’s Day today to honour the fathers who are ice cream vendors, farm workers, garbage collectors, overseas workers, tricycle drivers, security guards, including the beggars and those who go through the indignities and difficulties in life just to be able to feed their children, send them to school and secure for them a better future.

They do this without even expecting their children to pay them in return but only dreaming of earning the honour of being called a Good Father.

Also, it must be remembered that Father’s Day is not about fathers – it is about the children they love and care for.

To all fathers, I dedicate this piece by Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese poet:

On Children

Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,

but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.

(Photo: My daughter, Dra. Maria Krista, sent me this composite photo showing her on my lap when she was a child and a new photo of her son, Duane, on my lap. Two generations of fatherly love. Krista, JB and Imman in playful mode.)