Tatay and the durian fruit

Tatay said violence solves nothing and simply leads to bleeding and hurt. Simply extrapolate those simplest of advice and one can readily discern the substance of Tatay, not simply as a national leader but as a father.

The accolades are legion. But still they are not enough to cover the full measure of the man who had done so much and given all for his country, his family and his friends. The posthumous tributes spoke mostly of the patriot and statesman that he was, his heroism, his honesty and his relentless pursuit of what was right and true. In the political sphere, he was perhaps the greatest senator of modern times and by far the best president we never had.

Indeed he was all that. But for some of us, beyond the political world where he stood as a titan, towering humbly and speaking in that raspy whisper we now miss, Aquilino Pimentel Jr. was simply our Tatay — a term of endearment used by his family, by Bing his loving wife, the children, and those of us now left virtually orphaned who miss him the most.

Beyond his son’s pride where we also considered him our Tatay, we all wished that not only might we be his adopted children, but as his children, follow his lead and approximate what he had done for us and be deserving as his adopted offspring.

The greatest and most eloquent tribute to Tatay was not in the eulogies delivered by his colleagues and peers but in the thousands of anonymous Filipinos who prayed for him and filed past his remains, weeping, numbed by a sudden loss, and profoundly saddened that we might never again hear his voice, see his smile and be deeply touched by his love for us.

I will miss the times when, after I would end teaching a class in economics at a nearby university, he would insist that I join him for lunch, reminiscent of various previous times in his senatorial heyday when we would grab a quick bite and shoot the breeze figuring out what more might be done to solve the world’s ills.

I cannot forget a special moment when I was gravely ill and confined to heal in bed, he appeared at my home unannounced and alone, there, again, to spend some time away from the nation’s problems, back-burnering politics to simply comfort like an ideal Tatay would.

Of the eulogies honoring him, perhaps the most eloquent of Tatay’s profound substance was an unprepared tribute by Sandiganbayan Justice Karl Miranda. Karl recalled when he accompanied Tatay to a rebel camp deep behind the lines in Muslim Mindanao.

What was memorable was when Karl, as a matter of diplomacy, was forced to eat durian fruit for the first time. After his initial adventure gobbling on two servings including one when he inadvertently swallowed its seed, Karl, desperate to wash his hands of the fruit’s distinct odor had unsuccessfully experimented on different soaps and combinations of odor-killing detergents.

As the durian’s unique odor prevailed over the perfumes of Karl’s alchemy of soaps, losing hope, he resorted to violence. He grabbed a ball of steel wool and vigorously rubbed his hands hoping to tear away at the epidermal skin where the durian’s malodorous smell had seeped in and integrated at the quantum level with his DNA.

Soon Karl’s hands started bleeding. That was when Tatay saw him and asked what he was doing. When he told Tatay what he was desperate to achieve, inadvertently surrendering to violent scrubbing, Tatay gifted Karl one of the most profound tidbits of wisdom that any father could leave a son.

Upon seeing Karl’s self-inflicted wounds Tatay said violence solves nothing and simply leads to bleeding and hurt. Simply extrapolate those simplest of advice and one can readily discern the substance of Tatay, not simply as a national leader but as a father.

Not content to leave Karl to his own devices to solve the odor problem, Tatay proceeded to provide a solution to Karl’s predicament.

As if Tatay’s comment on the use of violence as a solution to problems and challenges was not enough to alter one’s weltanschauung and approach to life, he then said that the solution to most of life’s problems lie in their inherent nature — that challenges provide their own answers and external solutions can only solve so much.

It was then that he told Karl to wash his hands using the durian’s peelings.