I have this nagging feeling that my father is Superman in disguise. His whole “breadwinner” aura may just be a mask to fool us all. There are times when I can clearly see through his “Clark Kent” masquerade.

My mother tells me that my dad has never taken the easy route in life. From an early age, he was already tasked with being the man of the family, even if he wasn’t the eldest sibling. But in my younger days the tales that my mother told me about him seemed so alien, almost like an episode from “Maalaala Mo Kaya,” and I’d just shrug them off whenever I heard them. But now, the realization of what he’s been through hits me harder and harder.

Little snippets of his life began to reveal themselves to me as the years went by. Like how he had to put himself through college by working as an errand boy. Or the year when both of his parents died.

These were things that I never bothered to inquire about any further when I was younger. It’s hard to admit it, but I was not close to my dad when I was a kid. In my eyes as a child, my father was an authoritarian figure who didn’t hesitate to use a belt on anyone of us who got into trouble. It didn’t help that I was the naughty one and so lashings came to me more frequently than to my sister. These fueled hostile feelings within me.

But as I grew up and became a little wiser, I found myself getting closer to the man whom I considered to be a “dictator.” During those idle times when I’d find myself alone with him, I would surprise myself by wanting to know more about my father.

His past revealed itself to me in the most unusual ways. For instance, we were coming home from the mall one day when my dad stopped the car to let a boy who was about my age (I was around 10 or 11 then) hitch a ride to the nearest gate. After we dropped him off, I asked my dad if he knew the boy. When he said no, I asked him why he had to give the boy a ride. “Malayo ang kanyang lalakarin” [He’d have had to walk some distance”], he explained. Whether he saw himself in that boy, walking under the heat of a noonday sun, or whether he just felt sorry for him, I never knew.

I guess the hardships he went through in his past have paid off. When we were without a house help for a month, my dad did the hand washing and ironing of the clothes, cooked the best “pakbet” dish I’d ever tasted, and did all the other household chores that our maid usually did. All my mom could say was how lucky she was to have a husband like him. “Never in a thousand years” would she find another man like him, she added.

There have been times when my addiction to books would show itself boldly. I would glance longingly at some new releases, and my dad would give me a strange look. The next thing I would know is that he has already paid not just for one book but for all the books I like. When we get home, I would wonder why he did that, when my mom would usually protest that he had used the money for the groceries to buy me those books. The result was that I developed a passion for books and that is because of him.

Matters of the heart were things I never expected to discuss with my dad. Those seemed like topics my mom would understand better. But oddly enough, my dad seems to understand them well, too. One time, a song was being played on a radio station he had turned to. I clamped my hands to my ears, and my dad asked why. I muttered something about the song being a favorite of his. And just as I was beginning to feel the tears coming, my dad got up and switched to another station, which was playing a song from the 1980s — magically transforming my mood and making me smile. “You seem to like that kind of music,” he observed.

In one essay writing exercise, our class was asked who we thought would make a good president for our country. It seems a bit cheesy now, but without hesitation I wrote that my dad would be it and proceeded to explain why.

I’d probably pick him as my political adviser if one day I should decide to plunge into politics. When we read the newspaper or watch the news together, I would ask him why this thing poses a problem to our country or how he thinks we can resolve it. His answers seem to be always sensible and well-reasoned. He gives me the feeling that with him around we would always be all right financially.

But if Superman is vulnerable to kryptonite, my dad has also one big weakness. It’s his only vice and it makes my mom roll her eyes when she hears about it, and it is called basketball. As a member of our village’s Sunday club, my dad plays the game at least once a week and returns home complaining about pain on his knees. Then he would ask us to put an ice pack on them. My mom keeps grumbling that she cannot wait to see the end of his dribbling days.

But even if he cannot play the game himself, he still manages to get some thrill from basketball by watching the games on TV. He gets so involved in it that he would cheer fervently and curse just as heated depending on how Ginebra San Miguel, his favorite team, is playing. Knowing that there are far more serious vices, I can just shake my head and grin as I watch him watch those basketball games.

Sometime in a fit of annoyance, my mom would tell me “Para kang tatay mo!” [“You are like your father!”] Most of the time, I would take that with a smile. To be compared to my hero, my Superman, can hardly be a reproach. It is to me the highest compliment.

Ma. Alexandra C. Austria, 15, is a high school junior at De La Salle Santiago Zobel.