I spent the entire All Saint’s Day at home. I don’t usually go cemetery-hopping to honor and pray for the dead, since I don’t have a relative’s grave nearby to go to in the first place!

My dad, a fighter pilot, was presumed to have died at sea in the vicinity of the Palawan Islands. This was were his plane was assumed to have crashed on March 16th of 1983. After a few years of searching, the government wasn’t really able to pinpoint where his plane went. And so his “Missing-in-Action” status was finally changed to “Presumed Dead” five years after that fateful day.

We would have loved to have given him a proper burial. And I understand and empathize with people who cry barrels-full of tears at funerals, especially coming from the departed’s next of kin. Well, at least they get to see their dad finally rested. And I guess this is why, for so many years, I hated going to cemeteries and “envied” people who partake of the yearly tradition.

It’s a good thing Conne and CJ were able to keep me company at home. I had them all to myself. Oh well, I can always try the graveyard rounds next year. This year is for praying at home.

March 16, 1983: I can vividly recall the evening my mom arrived, pedal-to-the-metal, mustang engines roaring, a hundred decibels louder than what we had been accustomed to hear, to tell us the bad news: my dad was declared missing-in-action; his plane was said to have disappeared over Palawan waters.

I didn’t cry, since I was too young to understand it then. All I knew was that, in my eyes, he was my hero, and the greatest fighter pilot to ever defend Philippine skies, and I firmly believed that he would one day come back to us.

It’s been 23 years since that fateful day, and a lot has happened since. It’s one of those freak events that drastically changes and molds a person’s life. The sad part is, I used to blame my life’s miseries on this event. Oh what a fool I have been, and what a shame.

After 23 years, I can still hear how other people, his family and friends, speak well of him; the praises are endless. I realize that, despite his absence, he was always there to protect me and my family, and teach us life’s ways by showing us how he lived it, thru other people’s tales of him.

I may not have heeded him then, and would have been considered by some as a disgrace.. “Sorry po daddy…”

Now that i have a son of my own, I know that emulating my dad would be the best fatherly gift that I can ever give CJ, and by following my dad’s footsteps, I can also be the best man for Conne.