The day my father died

March has always been a painful month for me.

My dad, Jess Paredes Jr., was born on March 28, 1915. He died on March 17, 1957, two weeks before his 42nd birthday, in the airplane crash that also killed President Ramon Magsaysay and around 20 others.

The presidential plane, a C-47 aircraft called Mt. Pinatubo, had just taken off after midnight from Cebu’s Lahug airport, when it disappeared from the radar. When the crash site was found less than 24 hours after on a lonely mountainside near Cebu City, it was theorized that the plane had hit a tall tree on Mt. Manunggal and burst into flames.

A barking dog led a farmer on Mt. Manunggal to a badly burned man, the reporter Nestor Mata, who had gone to Cebu to cover the President’s day-long visit. Nestor Mata, the lone survivor of the crash, was put in a hammock and carried to the nearest hospital. The rest of the passengers were taken down from the mountain in body bags.

The President had gone to Cebu to deliver three speeches at graduation rites in the city on March 16. My father, who was one of RM’s ghost writers, had written two of the speeches. As they were about to board the plane home past midnight on March 17, someone took a picture of my dad being introduced by RM to the old man Serging Osmeña. According to witnesses, Magsaysay told Serging, “Meet Jess Paredes, my next secretary of Education.”

My father had left the house on Saturday morning, March 16, in the limousine of Education Secretary Gregorio “Yoyong” Hernandez, who lived in our neighborhood. Dad was wearing his favorite white sharkskin suit. He always looked dapper in that suit. I remember waving goodbye to him as the limo drove out of our driveway. He said he’d be back, maybe Monday, if the President decided to take the presidential yacht back to Manila. He was looking forward to a relaxed and restful cruise on a slow boat back to Manila. But there was also the possibility that RM would decide to fly home after the hectic day in Cebu, in which case, Dad told Mom, he’d go directly to Pinaglabanan Church in San Juan for Nocturnal Adoration where the men stay up all night praying before the Blessed Sacrament.

On Sunday morning, walking home after 7 a.m. Mass at the Immaculate Conception Church near our house in Cubao, my brothers and I ran ahead to try and be the first to get to the comics section of the newspaper. We were still wrangling over when our eldest brother Jesse told us to stop and pray because someone had just called to say Dad’s plane was missing.

My siblings and I went on playing. I was 10 years old, they were even younger. What did we know? It was only later in the day that I began to understand the gravity of the situation when uncles, aunts and cousins, neighbors and friends trooped to the house to wait with Mom for news about the missing plane. When the crash site was found later that afternoon, an uncle flew to Cebu hoping to find my dad alive, or if he was one of the fatalities, to identify his remains and take them home. 

Meanwhile, the house was filling up with people — my brothers’ classmates and teachers at the Ateneo were on the terrace singing their glee club songs, while the adults were in the living room and spilling into the kitchen and my parents’ bedroom. And my cousins and I ran freely around the house playing games that children play.

When Dad returned home on Monday afternoon, he was in a flag-draped sealed bronze casket that lay in state in our living room.  We never opened the casket. So, as far as I was concerned, we buried a heavy metal box.

My recollection is that the wake was loud and lively. People alternately wept and laughed as they shared stories about my dad, their friend, brother, in-law, teacher, classmate, student, co-worker, neighbor. Newsmakers from politics, the church, theater and the movies came to condole with us.  My dad had taught in two law schools, helped catholic schools with their needs from government, did nightly political commentary and an early morning talk show on radio, wrote speeches for the President, and acted on stage and the movies – and all these people were his friends and admirers.

The politicians huddled, and I heard my mom tell Diosdado Macapagal, who had been our neighbor on Laura Street in San Juan, that my dad thought he’d make a good president.

Dad was only 41 when he died and I was 10.  One would think that after 57 years, I should have gotten over the loss. But now, well into my senior years, I am still a 10 year old kid waiting to welcome him home.

On paydays, my brother Gabby and I would waylay him a block away from our gate to ask for money to buy plastic twine that we would weave into bracelets and key holders on lazy afternoons.  There was never enough money for the family of ten children, and Mom minded it when Dad shared his loose change with us. But he gave them to us anyway. Once, when Gabby begged him for a bicycle, before Mom could launch into her litany of urgent expenses, Dad said he’d get us one to share. “When, Dad?” we asked, unable to contain our excitement. “On February 30,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

We believed him. But as Feb. 28 turned into March 1, our dream was crushed. Two and a half weeks later, Dad was gone and we stopped grieving over our lost bike.

About a month after Dad died, a brand new bike was delivered to our house.  It was from a priest, Fr. Peter, who served in a parish in Surigao and had heard about my Dad’s broken promise to my brother and me.  On the front of the bike he had painted, “February 30.”

Summer stretched endlessly ahead after March 17, 1957. After we buried Dad and the crowd at the wake had gone, the house felt empty. There was nothing to look forward to with joy. There was only regret and grief so deep, it has taken me a lifetime to get over the loss of my father.