thinking april

Philippine Star Father's Day edition, 06/17/2012

For a week now, I was eagerly anticipating this day, for a writing stint I did for Philippine Star, together with Robinson's Malls. I was one of the five winners of their Daddy's Cool contest, bagging a 10,000 shopping spree for the most part. And also, we get to see our entry in the paper.

When our family bought an SUV in 2009, I could not emphasize how pleased we all had been. It was a momentous event in our lives, and Papa was the happiest among us because he finally got his dream car.

Sometimes, we would kid how Papa loved the van more than anything else. For three years, we were witnesses on how he took great care of it, like his fifth child we’d say. He would not let anyone of us take it for a drive, and not too much passengers so it won’t be worn out.

But when a financial problem hit our family in the last two months, it caught us off-handed. Any extra money, however small, proved to be of great help. And even though I know how much he loved it, Papa rose to the situation and offered to take passengers everyday when we drive to Makati.

And I knew, however Papa loved the van so much, he would be ten-fold willing to do more for his family. Maybe a hundred-fold or a thousand, I know we mean that much to him. And by the simplest things, I hope I could also give back.