When dad left us, in 2010, at age 91, three years after mom herself passed on, I suddenly felt orphaned and strangely vulnerable, at age 70. For many years dad, like a protective shield, stood between me and harm’s way. With him gone, I found myself on the front line, and that took some getting used to.

I miss the dad of my younger years, before he entered politics. He wrote a daily column and taught law in Far Eastern University. I would accompany him to The Manila Times and wait as he typed away, the paper waiting for him to finish.

Now that I write a Sunday column myself, in Lifestyle, I can only imagine the pressure of a daily column in the more serious Opinion section. He must have felt embarrassed collecting his pay for his sideline newspaper labor, because he sent me instead to the cashier.

He had a law office, but he was also into buying and selling, playing the stock market, and going to the races. He never seemed to scrimp; we ate out weekends, one day in a panciteria in Chinatown, another time in a classy place like New Europe. His priority was good food, but once in a while he took us for some ambience (“ . . . so you know how it feels, kiddo”).

Most generous

He bragged that I never gave him problems when I was growing up. He thought me pretty and smart, but what he liked most was I wasn’t one to ask him for things. For that, he was most generous to me.

My favorite gift from him was 18 gold coins on my 18th birthday, with a note on why I deserved every coin. He added one every year, until I got married at 21.

He didn’t stop giving even after my marriage to a medical intern, who technically was still in school. But when his own parents proved super supportive, dad stopped competing.

He and mom visited when I had my fourth child in the United States. For the occasion he gave me another jewelry set—amethyst in a modern flower design.

After five years in the US, we came home to a beautiful home in Dasmariñas Village, another gift from my in-laws. Dad only told me much later that he was again outdone—he had been negotiating for an 800-sq-m lot in Greenhills.

My neurosurgeon husband had completed his specialist training, but no job was waiting for him at home. Dad disliked asking favors, but emboldened by my husband’s credentials, he introduced him to Eugenio Lopez Sr., who had put up a first-class hospital for Meralco executives and employees. It was a social visit between family friends of the old school of delicadeza.

Without either one of them saying anything outright, Mr. Lopez turned to my husband: “When would you like to start?”

After 20 years, without any means of supporting myself, I got out of what appeared, in every way, a stable marriage. Dad, not exactly the model husband himself, knew better than try to talk me out of it.

Not knowing any better myself and definitely out of line, I once asked him why he had done the things he did. Cornered, he gave me the answer I deserved: “The world doesn’t owe you an explanation, kiddo.” He must have recognized the same inexplicable madness in me. Everybody, including mom, thought I was out of my mind.

For the first time, dad’s firstborn, his pride and joy, at age 40, was giving him a big-time problem. Dad warned me that there are people who, if you’re not smart, will try to pass on their problems to you, like those waiting every day in his office in Congress. But dad took mine on like the father I needed at the time.

Setting me straight

I wanted to somehow put some order in my own mess. I filed for dissolution of conjugal property and separation of assets, which would be the first step to an annulment.

Things weren’t exactly going well for me. I went through different lawyers, all of them more self-interested than interested in my case, until a dear friend suggested a woman lawyer, Mary Bautista.

From the start, dad set me straight. “You need this more than he does. Forget fair, you’ll never agree to what that means. Settle for less, and he’ll feel like he’s already won.”

That‘s what I did. Dad came with me to every court hearing, and his continuous presence and prominence made the judge decide to hear my case in private chambers. Everything went well after that.

When the judge handed down his decision for the lifting of the freeze on the rental of the only property I had, dad said, “Go quickly, you still have time to catch the bank.”

Little by little, as dad got older, I worked on him to put his own affairs in order, at least as far as we were concerned. He was juggling things expertly, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it up as he got older. That’s when the disciple used the master’s own advice on the master himself: We settled for less. He agreed and felt like he had already won. He gave me one condition: that I’d do all the work. It was a good thing, too, because mom, a diabetic, surprised us all by dying in her sleep.

None of it would have been possible without mom’s invaluable help and admirable selflessness, my brother’s full trust and cooperation, and dad’s magical advice.