His Fatherly Love

By Enrica Maria Corazon Edralin

I’m not afraid to be hurt when I fall in love. I was taught that love is equated with pain. I will only realize that what I feel is love when I already felt pain. Pain is defined to be a symptom of some physical hurt or disorder. There is no pain, there is no love.


When I was a child, I used to play with my friends every after class. Different games are to be played each day. I only remember the game we play on Thursdays – the dakop-dakop. It was a predator searching of its prey type of game. My friends and I play this sweat-releasing game in the quadrangle of my grade school. I scream, shout, and run as fast as I could so that the hungered predator will not catch me. If I’m caught and become the “it”, I run faster to grasp my prey. Fairly, everyone becomes a predator of the game before the first round ends.

My typical after-class routine ended on a sunny Thursday afternoon sometime in 1999. I gleefully enjoyed playing dakop-dakop that I forgot the time. It was already thirty minutes after five. I had already been playing for two hours. To my surprise, my father went inside the school campus to fetch me. He was really mad that he was already waiting for me for an hour outside the school. When he was approaching, he dragged me to the green grassy area, just 50 to 100 steps away from the cemented quadrangle. He held his leather belt and smacked me in front of my classmates.

I was so embarrassed that I speedily ran away from him. I wished not to stop running, but I halted suddenly. My heart was intensely pounding. I was hurt for being humiliated in front of my friends. However, it hurts more knowing that my father hit me with leather belt just because I was playing too much in a late afternoon.

In that particular moment, I was really afraid to come home because I feared that my father will hit me more. My mother looked for me in the campus, and found me sitting on the bench under the aged mango tree. She consoled and assured me that she’ll protect me once my father will hit me again. My mother is always like that. When my father would inflict pain on me and on my brothers, she would always run close to us and would hug us tightly. Sometimes, she spares me from the fourth and fifth strike of my father’s belt. Instead of me, she would be hit.



Eventually, I get in the car with my shivering hands and feet. I was gnashing my teeth. I was glad that my father was driving. His hands were busy maneuvering the stirring wheel. He had no opportunity to slap me. I stopped crying, because if I cry more, he’ll hit me again.

At that time my thighs had violet-blue stripes that almost looked like the street’s pedestrian lane. Those stripes are receipts of my submission to pay for my fault. Silence deafens me as I recover from trembling and crying. My elder brother would hand out an ice bag to relieve the pain of my thighs. I knew he was empathizing, because he also had felt similar pain several times in his life.

After ten minutes of sobbing, my mother informed me that I must go to my father and say sorry. Up to this day, I don’t understand why I must say sorry after every “ritual of discipline” – a manner to express my father’s fatherly love. I’m obliged to say sorry with the fright that if I wouldn’t, I might be hit by my father’s mighty leather belt again. With fear in my face and heart, I approached my father and utter ed the scripted words my mother instructed me to say, “I’m sorry. I will never do it again.” My father would then let me sit on his lap and he’ll say the line I always hear, “pinangga man gud ka, mao bunalan ka” or “love man gud ka mao bunalan ka”. In context it means, “You’re loved that’s why you’re being hurt”. The love that my father instills to me reflected on my bruised thighs.

Belt-beating had always been an exchange for failing to comply with my father’s rules. His rules are arbitrary, and they’re neither written nor said. I traumatically learned not to complain, do things as fast as I could, and to always be on time. I have to be punished before I will know what is right.

The right thing I knew on that experience was time is important. I can lose my pride and self-worth if I become late. On the evening of the same day, I decided to never let my father inflict pain on me again. I adored my father for being a genius to equate love with pain. However, I felt like was more of a genius because I realized that inflicting pain is not an expression of love. Pain is a symptom of hatred. Hatred is the antonym of love.

I had hated my father for being a punishing father. I could never accept that he compromises his love for me through smacking me with his leather belt. I wished he didn’t have any leather belt at all. I resisted accepting his love for me because I feared that its exchange is to be hurt again.


I later grew up having one fear in my heart – to be hurt because of love. My father had molded me to doubt on any man’s love. I learned not to trust any man who promised to love me. In the back of my mind, I mock the promises of love. If love brings pain and agony, I would rather choose to reject love.

I’m afraid of love but ironically, I love to love. Unlike my father, I believe that love is not equal with pain. Love brings happiness, while pain doesn’t. Although being hurt is my greatest fear, I think I’m strong enough to experience pain. My father’s concept of love had trained me to face love’s alter ego – pain.