The most important event in my father’s life was the war.
For his generation, the Japanese occupation during World War 2 was the great tragedy that not only destroyed their homeland. The Pacific War also derailed their personal plans and dreams, forced them into survival mode at a young age and haunted them for the rest of their lives.
He was a teenager from Bicol looking forward to a studying to become an engineer in Manila, when the Japanese imperial forces invaded. He was forced to flee back to Naga where he joined the guerrilla resistance.
Now, as himself admitted to me, my father wasn’t much of a soldier.
“I think I just hit coconuts,” I remember him saying and then bursting out laughing.
That’s why, he said, the resistance gave him other tasks. He was with the group that produced and distributed anti-Japanese occupation leaflets. He was also asked to monitor enemy positions.
He didn’t have any exciting war stories to tell. No tales of fierce gun battles or daring hit-and-run raids. No spectacular accounts of military engagements.
My father had his share of close calls. He was once picked up, questioned and slapped around by the kempetai, the Japanese secret police.
And like many other Filipinos, my father’s family endured traumatic events.
His younger brother, my Uncle Jesus, was deemed too young to join the resistance. He stayed home with my grandfather. This was not a problem in the early years of the occupation when the Japanese were winning the war.
But as the war drew to a close and the Japanese faced defeat, the invaders became more brutal.
One day, they raided my grandfather’s house. My Uncle Jesus was never seen alive again.
My father would still casually tell me about what happened. “Yes, we think they killed Jesus.”
My father was a soldier. He did his duty.
But he fulfilled it with quiet dignity. He didn’t make too much out of what he did and endured as a guerrilla defending his homeland. He didn’t try to embellish his war record. He didn’t make up stories of bravery to impress me or anyone. He didn’t come up with wild tales of leading the charge and singlehandedly wiping out enemy forces.
He recalled his service with humility, and quiet detachment.
The more painful and horrific episode—like my Uncle Jesus’s death—he often talked about it with little emotion. Still, we suspected his brother’s death—and perhaps the acts of brutality he encountered during the war—continued to haunt him for decades. He often had nightmares.
That in way shaped my own views on war, on violence. It has made me wary of attempts to glorify war and violence. For my father’s experience shows that whether or not you are the victim or the perpetrator of violence, being exposed to war and violence inevitably leaves scars. And they take years to heal. Sometimes, as in my father’s case, they never completely heal.
I reflect on my father’s service as we celebrate Father’s Day. I also reflect on what he and many other World War 2 veterans did for our country as we endure the Marcos fake hero fiasco.
For here’s a despised former president – one of the most corrupt rulers in world history, one of the most brutal dictators in recent history – being presented to us as a hero, as someone one who should be honored by the country’s military, despite the well-known fact that his claims of military glory were all products of his overactive imagination.
Having grown up during martial law, I’ve been critical of the Philippine military and its human rights record.
But I also know that the Philippine military is not a monolithic institution – that there are honorable men and women serving in the armed forces.
And in the Marcos fake hero fiasco, even I feel bad for the young officers, many of whom I’m sure take seriously the principles of honor, courage, sacrifice and love of country.
What an insult to these principled soldiers of the homeland if plans push through to bestow military honors upon a fake hero, a ruthless ruler, a despot who destroyed Philippine democracy.
What a slap in the face of Filipino officers who sincerely hope to serve their country.
What a slap in the face of older Filipinos like my father — they who responded to the call to defend their homeland, sacrificed their dreams and even their lives, endured the horrors of war.
They who served with honor and humility. The patriots who quietly did their duty, who honored us by defending their homeland — but did not try to claim honors, military or otherwise, that they knew they did not deserve.
On Twitter @KuwentoPimentel.