Kim celebrates 46th birthday with his dad’s book launch

MANILA, Philippines - School-age kids know him as the nature-loving, fast-with-facts “Kuya Kim,” to noontime TV viewers, he is the much-loved host of It’s Showtime. Although Kim Atienza’s triathlete’s body doesn’t look it, he turned 46 last Jan. 24 and has decided on an unusual way to celebrate via the launching of the autobriography of his father, the former Marcos-era opposition member of Parliament, and later three-term Manila mayor and environment secretary Lito Atienza.

The autobiography, titled Light From My Father’s Shadow, is actually a celebration of the principles of public service that Kuya Kim’s own grandfather, Liberal Party stalwart Jose “Don Pepe” Atienza Sr., lived by and imparted with  Kim’s dad.

Lito’s story chronicles his childhood in Malate (way back when he and his friend could play with “remnants of the war — junk trailers, armored vehicles, even real tanks”), his simple childhood and youth (when he would shine his father’s shoes and experienced working  as a stevedore and a construction worker), and his engrossing stories about dancing and traveling with the Bayanihan Folk Dance Group (where the former mayor met and courted Kuya Kim’s mom, Evelina “Beng” Ilagan).

The book details Lito’s 38-year career in public service and his achievements as one of the few opposition MPs in the Batasan during the Marcos regime; as head of the National Housing Authority; and as the city of Manila’s first-ever vice mayor to get elected as mayor, and the first mayor to be elected to three consecutive terms, with a strong pro-life advocacy.

The former Mayor reveals some of the toughest choices he had to make during some of Philippine history’s most critical moments: The bombing at Plaza Miranda, of which he is one of the few remaining survivors; living with the oppressiveness of martial law, the Marcos dictatorship and up until the 1986 EDSA revolt; the pivotal moment when a group of opposition politicians decided to run against Marcos loyalists and expose the vulnerability of the Marcos regime; the push (made by the so-called “LP young turks,” of which Atienza was an active member) to have the late Cory Aquino as the united opposition candidate for the 1986 Snap Elections; and more recently, the impeachment trials of former Pres. Joseph Estrada and Chief Justice Renato Corona — and in between those two events, the LP leadership squabble.

“God-fearing, principled, a devoted family man, hard-working and someone who has always treasured life as a gift from God to be nurtured and protected” is how Kim describes his papa with whom Kim shared an important part of his own life: His brush with death as he suffered a stroke. The older Atienza recounts this in the book, along with the miracle healing that Kim experienced.

Light From My Father’s Shadow was recently launched at the Maynila Ballroom of the Manila Hotel.