From hard court to hardcore
It is widely acclaimed that we Filipinos are genuinely a grateful people apart from being a respectful lot.
Take, for example, the celebrations we make in practically all months of the year — whether these are traditionally religious-imbued as the fiestas or secularly-influenced as Valentine’s Day. All these because Filipinos are known to harbor an innate patriotic fervor or to take familial or filial devotion to a high level, although some present-day lawmakers would be attempting to draw up measures that would run counter to these age-old values.
The month of June has been long associated with ‘June brides’ and weddings. It also marks great solemnities and memorials starting off the first Sunday with the Most Holy Trinity and recently the devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the “Twin Hearts” — the other being that of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Just concluded was the worldwide celebration of Father’s Day dedicated to whom we consider as “the person” who has played an important, consider it critical during these times, role in our family and personal life.
As for my father, he is ‘Papa’ to us three girls and our youngest, a boy who tragically passed away at a tender age of 10. Perhaps, this is basically the reason as to why this story is being shared.
Going back to our Papa, there are three things I remember much about him: 1) his unrelenting love to an “over-zealous” spouse who has either accompanied or followed him to most, if not all, of his out-of-town assignments as an Internal Revenue Officer; 2) his being a rigid disciplinarian when we were in our pre-teens making us kneel on mongo seeds for what seemed to be endless hours in front of our family altar whenever we fall from grace, so to speak; 3) his constant reminder to me to already use my baptized name as I have already graduated from college and has started to apply for a media job. I was actually using a monicker, the family name of a basketball idol, starting from high school at an exclusive girls’ school in Quezon City until the time I finished a Communication Arts degree at the Pontifical University.
You see, due to my brother’s sudden demise, I immediately metamorphosed from being a bookworm, a.k.a. nerd, to being a specs-strapped (when wearing contact lenses wasn’t the norm yet) female varsity cager who helped organize one of the pioneering women’s basketball teams in the Women’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (W.N.C.A.A.).
My father, incidentally, was a great fan of the Caloy “The Big Difference” Loyzagaled Yco Painters since the good old MICAA (Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association) days. His blurred vision disabled him to have a clear view of the on-court happenings on black-and-white TV. From the time he lost an only son who was his constant companion whenever he would watch basketball on TV, things changed abruptly. This situation forced me to the wall and made me my brother’s substitute as my father’s instant “da-barkads” — blurting out names of players with the ball and almost describing play-by-play accounts of the protagonists. This was actually the pivotal point that enabled my career to take off as a sports broadcast journalist, 10 years hence.
My owner-type jeepney college graduation gift. Oh yes! I have a postscript to the greatest memories about my Papa: number four is — he gave me an owner-type jeepney he had an assembler customized in Cavite as a college graduation present contrary to my initial request of a “hand-me-down” family car, an Isuzu Bellett, a subcompact four-door sedan he bought in 1969. This car, to my mind, would have been perfectly fit for my age and size but my Papa had other plans. As an obedient daughter, I reluctantly took the wheel after blowing air rather than a kiss to a more excited “gift-giver.” Indeed, my Papa was more the eager beaver as he saw to it that all of my needs on my first-ever driving lesson from a trusted driver — let’s call him “Mang Edong” — will proceed without any hitches with the unit on full tank and totally cleaned or washed; with oil, battery, engine and tires — checked.
After several jackrabbit starts and faulty maneuvers particularly on the ascending and descending areas in the then wide open spaces of Del Monte and Araneta Avenues which
continued on to days and weeks of tireless driving lessons to farther distances, my initial disinterest slowly blossomed into considerable enthusiasm.
I slowly and surely learned how to valiantly operate a basic manual-driven stainless four-wheeled machine. Eventually, I became the regular chauffeur of my father — in the early mornings driving him to his office in Caloocan and of my older sister whom I would regularly fetch in Intramuros after my work at a government office nearby.
There were odd but funny encounters with traffic, although not that heavy in the late 70’s. One more distinct was when after picking up my sister, we would reach the foot of Quezon Bridge ascending and going down to Quiapo. At that point, she would alight from the owner-jeep, walk up the bridge then down and would wait for me just across Quiapo Church.
Why? She would not want to go through the ordeal of staying beside me in the passenger seat and seeing my fully tensed-up expression as I try my frantic best to put my foot down on the pedals- diagonally positioned alternately on the accelerator and the brake with my left foot unmoving on the clutch pedal — which is a big no-no in manual driving. But being a new driver — and I’m sure most would have had this experience — in what is called the “hanging” position in an ascending slope while stuck in traffic. This situation was definitely an ultratough challenge every time. Whew! It was like hurdling a series of final exams in trigonometry or going through numerous rounds of punishing wheel-barrow or duck walk drills around the university’s football field.
This almost harrowing experience for a newbie went on for over a year but it also had built in me a good amount of guts, enough grit and sheer confidence plus lessons learned from hard-court battles as a basketball amazon that helped shape me into becoming, what you may call: a “hard-core on-and- off-the-road warrior.”
Definitely, the influence of my spouse, a veteran motoring and sports broadcast journalist, carried me further on to become a much better and responsible driver, making me part of our Auto REVIEW team together with our two sons and two daughters plus our staff in various and separate media challenges and test drives, particularly in the 90’s.
Despite years gone by, I would still often look back and remember what my revered Papa would often tell me and perhaps cheer me on back then, saying “once you’ve mastered manual driving in our owner-jeep, it’s a lot easier for you to drive any other vehicle. It would not be the same had you started driving an automatic transmission vehicle.”
Only then did I realize why he made that choice as his graduation gift over and above my personal favor — where in fact, these wise words came from somebody whom — ironically — I haven’t even seen driving any vehicle ever!
But still, for this, and any other driving strategies I learned from him, I will forever be grateful to my Papa.
Why? She would not want to go through the ordeal of staying beside me in the passenger seat and seeing my fully tensed-up expression as I try my frantic best to put my foot down on the pedals-diagonally