A high school classmate was killed in an ambush last Monday. Gregorio served in the Philippine Army whose unit was assigned in Panabo, Davao del Sur. While some of his classmates were nursing headaches brought about by hangover from the drinking session the previous night, he must have been engaged in a senseless battle against the rebels whose cause I cannot comprehend and whose sense of idealism is very applicable 50 years ago. He was 32.
He left behind a wife and a child. A wife who from now on will have to do with the meager pension the government will send her every month. The child will eventually grow up with a blurred memory of the heroism of his father and a faint idea on how it is to live and grow up with a father by his side. They are the collateral damage of an idealism that is antiquated and moot and academic.
There never was a leftist blood in my system. I have been a recipient of many invitations to join their cause but I always believed that the streets nor the mountains were not the proper venue to vent out our grievances. This country, if it is to develop and prosper, should adhere to the rule of law and not to misplaced idealism which in reality is in pursuance of self-grandeur and self-interest.
Happy Father’s Day, Gregorio. I know how it is to live without a father. I have seen my own mother suffered trying to make both ends met just to raise her four fatherless children. My heart cried to your little baby and to your darling wife. I hope life will be kind to them the way it is to us. Be their star. Watch over them the way my father has been watching us all these years. Please hug my father for me. Tell him he is sorely missed.
Goodbye, Gregorio.
