Selfless dads honored at Inquirer Read-Along in Cebu

LOVE AND THANKS | Minglanilla Mayor Elanito Peña reads the story “Ang Riles sa Tiyan ni Tatay” during the Inquirer’s Read-Along session on June 19, 2022. Children who joined the activity created handmade cards to show their love and appreciation for their fathers on Father’s Day. (Photo by MARY GRACE OBERES / Inquirer Visayas)

MINGLANILLA, Cebu, Philippines —For seven years, siblings Michelle and Mark lived a miserable life, oftentimes missing meals, under the custody of their mother who was hooked on illegal drugs.

Their father, Benjamin, learned of their condition and decided to care for them, away from their mother who already had taken in a lover. Michelle, 10, and Mark, 6, couldn’t be happier.

Although poor, the siblings and their father have been living a peaceful life in Minglanilla town, about 15 kilometers south of the capital Cebu City.

On Father’s Day, the siblings decided to make a card for Benjamin, a delivery worker of a soft-drink company in the town, to thank him for raising them singlehandedly.

“To Papa, the world’s greatest dad, Happy Father’s Day. We love you, Papa,” they wrote.

Caring for others

The siblings were among 26 children who joined in the Inquirer’s Father’s Day Read-Along session at Barangay Ward 3 in Minglanilla on Sunday. They listened to a story read by outgoing Minglanilla Mayor Elanito Peña about fatherhood.

The book, “Ang Riles sa Tiyan ni Tatay” (The Tracks on my Father’s Tummy) by Eugene Evasco, is about a boy who is proud of his father, a construction worker, who donated a kidney to his own father—the boy’s grandfather.

The boy’s father did not have diplomas and medals like his friends’ fathers, but he said his father has “tracks,” actually a railroad track-shaped scar left by surgery on his tummy, that serves as a reminder of this act of selflessness.

Peña said the story should encourage children to care for other people even in difficult moments.

“We need to be good to others. We need to love them as we love ourselves,” he said.

Grateful

Peña was grateful for the opportunity to interact with local children. “Activities like this should continue since it would teach children many lessons they can emulate,” he said.

Edmund Samson, village chief of Barangay Ward 3, said: “As the father of the village, we need to educate our children. In a time when cruelty abounds, we should teach children about goodness.”

—REPORTS FROM ADOR VINCENT MAYOL AND MARY GRACE OBERES

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