I'm sure that most people look up to their parents, and so did I. My dad was the first parent I looked up to, and for a good reason. He was the primary "breadwinner," and it seems that he's the most skilled person in our family. He is also good at working with computers—a talent that I admired a lot when I was young (as I wanted to be good in working with computers). If memory serves, he took me to his workplace when I was young and I remember watching Spongebob on the computer all day, and I got to see what the working world was like for the first time. You can pretty much say that I looked up to the guy.

Early Childhood

My time with him during my childhood was quite great, to be honest. He was a cool guy for buying a computer (making it my first PC) and I played a lot of fun games on that XP-powered device. He also took us to Singapore—a trip I'll never forget—and I got to see a lot of new stuff there. I went to Sentosa (or whatever that place is called), studied in a Singaporean kindergarten (where I learned some Mandarin Chinese), and got to live in a condominium! During my time there, it seemed like every day would be akin to heaven on earth, and nothing bad would ever come, cause I knew he was always there.

Until he left us. Without ever giving a proper explanation as to how or why things happened, he just abruptly left, and my parents were eventually separated. Rather than having explained things in detail, both of my parents played "the blame game" and neither one of them wanted to tell us what really happened. So, growing up, I thought that my dad was out for work, or something similar; eventually developing a weird misconception that my parents are separated, but not really separated.

It was a weird and incoherent time for me, I know, and I was still unable to understand what happened to them as I was young. My dad was still there (for the most part) of my childhood, as I can recall him visiting me during my birthday, and handing out gifts. He was the guy who gave me my two (now broken) PSPs. He was still there, of course, but he was just far away and out of reach..

Early–mid teen years

During my early teen years, I eventually learned what happened. He left us and had set up another family in Australia and he has another son. Learning all this from a simple Facebook profile picture broke my 11-year-old heart. At that time, I couldn't fathom the thought of my own dad leaving for another family, and I struggled to understand why he could have done it.

At this point in time, he began to drift away from us. We'd notice him visiting us less and less, and we eventually stopped asking mom what had happened. He was still paying for our education and was still supplying us with money every month, so we were good in terms of our financial status. But still, the thought of losing contact with one of the persons you admire the most was depressing for me, at that time.

Still, I grew up without him in my early teen years. Life went on without him, of course. I was still studying at IMC and I still lived a normal life at school, it just wasn't the same at home. Sure, I only lived with him when I was very young and I haven't been living with him for almost a decade, but the thought of life without him was something that haunted me in my early teen years.

Around my 4th year of high school (my senior year), he stopped paying for our tuition fee in IMC, and he had stopped sending us money every month or so. Eventually, the thought that he had left us for good dawned on us. He wasn't communicating with us, he wasn't supporting us, it seemed like he didn't know us anymore.

This didn't immediately translate to my financial problem per se, but it was as if a snowball was thrown down a snowy mountain. My mom had trouble paying for the tuition, and she wasn't able to pay our expensive tuition in full, and she was the only parent earning for us plus her salary wasn't much. This was why I really wasn't supposed to attend my senior prom, but the family of a friend of mine offered to help.

Mid teen years

Life kept moving onward without him and my first year in college started. I was still very much well off and living life greatly at this time, and no problems arose yet. I made the most out of this year without him, and so did my family. At this stage, I started to stop caring about what he was doing and started focusing on my own life. It seemed like things were about to get better.

That was until my college tuition started to pile up, and my mother started to have problems with her work. During the start of my second year in college, I started experiencing some forms of financial trouble. I wasn't able to enroll in APC early, and, when I enrolled, the classes I was supposed to be in had already been full. This was the main reason why my flowchart, at that time, was a little irregular. On Mondays and Thursdays, my class started at 1:30 and ended at 5:30. This was also the reason why I was in MI151 for GUIPROG, and why I wasn't able to take MANPRIN and EWORLIT that term. Yeah, I had some problems during my first term of my second year, but, trust me, this was just the calm before the storm.

My second term of my second year in APC was the precipice of my time in APC. At this time, I really felt my financial problem in full-on force. There were days when I would go to class all hungry, and my blockmates started to notice. Eventually, through my blog posts, they knew that I had some form of financial problem, and some offered to help me by buying me lunch every now and then.

I struggled so much this term, and I learned of the doom that loomed ahead of me. Paying only 5,000 of my 40,000 tuition fee, and with my mom experiencing major problems with her work, I knew my fate was set. I thought that this would be my last term in APC, so I enjoyed it with my blockmates to its fullest extent. I became closer to my blockmates this term, and just had fun with them. I also went back to gaming, and sometimes played CS:GO with some of them.

One day, a weird thing happened. Dad had messaged me. At this time, he wanted to get talk to me and get close to me, I believe. I helped him sometimes with whatever kind of graphic work he needed done, and he gave me some money in return. I thought that this was a great period despite my problems.

When I had talked to him about my financial situation, it seemed that he wanted to help. I mean, he (obviously) had the resources to do so, so I had faith in him. I had little hope that I would still study in APC and I would get to see my blockmates in a class setting again. "I knew he would eventually help out!" I thought, and I believed that to its fullest extent—until I learned about his conditions.

He had a few, but unreasonable conditions, to be rather honest. For him to help us, we would have to fulfill 3 conditions. The first one was easy, to respect him. Sure, I can give the guy respect—even though he has barely contacted us in the decade he was gone. I wasn't eager to give him respect first, but I eventually complied. His second condition was the hard one to fulfill, which was to think that he never left us. I can't really recall the third one because I never got past the second condition, but I believe it's something related to sending us to Australia.

I'm quite sure this was what he wanted because the guy wants to only help us while we are with him, and away from our mom. He already told us before that he didn't want to help us while we were in the Philippines with our mom's family.

I got irritated at this point, and I was extremely annoyed, stressed, and frustrated. The guy went on rambling about how he really wanted to help us, and all I had to do was to comply with his conditions. I didn't want to think that he hadn't left us, because all of the pain and struggle we experienced without him would all be in vain. Sure, if maybe I accepted, he could've been more eager to help, but I knew, deep in my heart, he just wanted us to comply so that he could send us off to Australia.

The night ended with me not wanting to talk to him anymore, and the day after that, we had a small argument, and he decided to block me on Facebook. He didn't send us a single Peso and I soon met my fate. I ended the term only paying 5,000 of my 40,000 tuition fee. It seemed that the snowball that was thrown off a mountain eventually caught up to me at the very bottom.

Present

I really didn't think I was going to study in APC anymore, and my belief that he would help us again ended that night. Thankfully, and by some miracle, my belief didn't hold up, and was immediately disproven, and that belief was that I wouldn't study in APC anymore. As I said before, the family of my friend that helped me out during prom eventually offered to help me in my studies. They offered to answer almost any problem I had, my budget, my food, my tuition, almost anything—and with barely any conditions at all.

I'm now staying at my friend's house along with their family until I graduate. I suppose I might not really focus on my family for the time being because I'm now busy with my studies, and other activities. As for my dad, I don't know.

He knows about my blog and about my situation, and he still doesn't want to help. This is what really angers me. He tells my sister that he knows my condition and wants to help, but I highly doubt it to be true. I'm SURE that he reads my blog to know what other horrible thing has happened in my life because of his actions and inactions. I'm pretty sure he gets that necessary "ego boost" when he sees me posting stuff that implies I'm suffering, and he gets triggered when someone decides to help me or when something good happens, that's why he's been messaging my sister lately, because he knows someone else helped me.

If he really wanted to help, he would've done it. Other people—more generous and kind than he will ever be—already helped me. Whether it be in small or large ways; talking to me about my situation, giving me lunch at school, or helping me out with my tuition. If he really wants to help, why hasn't he done so? Others have helped me already, why couldn't my own father?

That's what I hate the most about him, it's that he's very dishonest, and even slimy in a way. He thinks that his lies, advertised as "truth" or "sympathy," seem genuine, but it really isn't, and it shows. It's quite obvious that he's faking his sympathy in order to make him seem less of a bad guy.

What angers me the most about him is that, when I made the post that I might not study anymore, he didn't seem to care. I checked the moderation queue for the comments, nothing. I checked my filtered messages in my two Facebook accounts, nothing. I check my emails, nothing. This guy really didn't care that I wasn't going to study, and I'm sure he knew it. Other people knew about my situation and offered to help me in some way, small or big. After realizing this, I finally learned something.

To be rather blunt, I don't really care whether or not I will be able to keep in contact with him, and I couldn't care less about making a connection with him. I'm tired, depressed, stressed, and problematic. The last thing I need is another problem in my life.

He claims that we have to adjust to him in order to help us, but he doesn't realize that it's the opposite. He has to adjust to us before helping us. In reality, helping someone is an act of extreme kindness. It's easy to say that you'll help someone, but it's hard to really help someone. Often, you have to adjust yourself in order to help others. I learned that when I moved in with my friend's family, as they all have adjusted their lifestyles in order to accommodate another person in their house. This is what my dad will never understand.

I could go on and rant about my dad's irrational choices, and his horrible personality, but I don't want to waste that much time on him. He can't even give me 30 minutes so that he can talk to me and help me, so I don't see a reason for me to give him my time as well.

In the end, if he really wants to change my life and make it better, he has to change and shed his attitude. He has to remove his ideas of infallibility, self-righteousness, and step down. Because, if he didn't, nothing will ever change. This reminds me of a cartoon I saw.


I don't know what he's going to do after he reads this, but I'm quite sure he has no control of me. If he decides to talk to me so he can berate me and lecture me about life, well, there's nothing stopping me from clicking the "block" button on him. If he can do that to me, then I'm highly sure I can return the favor.

I don't need another hypocrite in my life, and I'm sure I don't need a horrible parent either. I have no reason to even regard him as a parent anymore. Sigh, I just hope that, no matter what happens in my life, I don't end up deserting my kids the same way he deserted us.