It is said the son is the father’s dream, or in a rather morbid introspection, the sum of the latter’s frustrations.
I did not know how I come about to dream of becoming a lawyer. When I was ten years old, I accompanied my father in his oral defense of his masteral thesis at Xavier University. I wandered around the campus for several hours. I was simply mesmerized by the huge edifices and the emotions they evoked. At that tender age, I resolved to study in that school if I had to take up law.
Why law? I did not know how the resolve struck me. But it just came to me without much thought. It was as if the course had been charted even before I was born. Father wanted to be a lawyer, but indiscretions forced him to flee to Davao City. There he met my mother and got married, putting his dream aside.
Maybe, when I was still in my mother’s womb, my father already whispered to me his failed dream of becoming a lawyer. Or, while lulling me to sleep in my infancy, he was talking to me to become a lawyer. It was some sort of mind-conditioning that when I reached the age of reason, I embraced the conditioning without question. The thought of becoming a lawyer has been so engrained in my sub-conscious that I did not entertain any course except law.
Early on in my childhood, my father was talking to me about his good friend, Atty. Eddie Tamondong. He was always talking about his good friend and his successes as a lawyer.
Atty. Tamondong and my father must be good friends, or that the former has great successes as lawyer that he spoke about him glowingly. Later on in my career, I had the opportunity of crossing legal swords with Atty. Tamondong, and when he came to know that I am the son of his good friend, it took no time for the case we handled to get settled. Later, Atty. Tamondong referred some of his clients to me.
The lawyers’ weapons are the law, and the words, both spoken and written. The knowledge of the law would come later. But the magic of the words, woven into powerful expression, already engrossed me early on.
Lawyers and the way they speak captured my imagination. At one time, when the Mindanao Alliance was having a political rally in Surigao City, I listened to the speeches of Reuben Canoy, Edel Amante, Homobono Adaza, Tony Tupaz, and the rest of the political ticket who were mostly lawyers. It was already 2 o’clock in the morning when the rally was concluded and without me being aware, my parents and siblings were all worried where I was. I was eleven years old then.
My grandmother’s brother was a Seventh Day Adventist. He died single, and did not have a girlfriend, but he was married only to one thing : his books. He was living in our house. He had a room all to himself. The room was full of religious books. It was him who introduced me to the adventures of human civilizations, read and imagined through the prism of the printed words. His name was Mateo, and in his honor, my youngest child is named Matt Steve.
After graduating in elementary in Surigao City, I went back to my hometown, with a deep sense of frustration. Our family has settled in Surigao City due to my father’s work, and considering the distance, it was impossible for me to study in high school in Cagayan de Oro City at Xavier University. The cost of going to school in Xavier University was simply too heavy a burden for a financially-struggling family.
I did not mention to my parents my desire to to study at Xavier University High School. Knowing the cost, I did not even see the need to open my thoughts to them. Deep inside, I just knew that if I had to become a lawyer, I should be studying at Xavier University.
My classmates, friends, and siblings were already reporting to school by June of 1978, while I was in my grandmother’s place.
But parents’ know best. One day, they talked to me about why I was not enrolling in Surigao City. I opened-up and justified why I should be at Xavier University. Early July 1978, after convincing for late enrollment the high school principal Fr. Julian Pastor, S.J., I was at the school I dreamed about. The rest was personal history.