Dear Bongbong,
When I said goodbye to you I knew that I was saying goodbye to my only son—still a boy. For no matter how many times you may return home I have given you up to the world and its many cares. And you will soon be returning home no longer a boy.
Do you remember what I said to the La Salle School graduates (of which you were one). I said then that we, your parents, are like the coaches of an athletic team. We can and do train you. We can teach you all the plays. We can explain the rules. We can induct you into the secrets we have learned on how to with the game of life. But when the whistle blows and you have to go into the field to play, we, the coaches cannot go in to play it for you. You will have to do the playing alone. And only you can win or lose the game. That is why you are where you are—in a strange land, alone.
But we will be in the sidelines praying that you remember the lessons we have repeated in redundancy, I know, to your exasperation and impatience. And when you occasionally fall we will hope that no matter how hurt you are you will have the courage to stand up to your place in the game. And even when the score is against you, in our hearts we are crying out that you will play just as hard and just as cheerfully as if you were winning. For you will remember what I have always said that in my experience that seems to have spanned several lifetimes, it takes just a little bit more of fortitude or a scant and narrow margin of patience to snatch victory from defeat or life from death.
Just remember that no matter where we will be, here on earth, or in some unknown land, we will be cheering and applauding you.
So now, son, the whistle has blown and you are all alone in the field and in the game. My voice may not even reach you. But it is a glorious and exhilarating game. And much more pleasant than you thought, isn’t it? Although, as I said, a little bit lonely.
But you have to learn now that loneliness is the other side of the coin of freedom.
Happy Birthday!
Welcome to the age of responsibility!
Your father—
F. E. Marcos [Signed]