MANILA, Philippines—A few days before Christmas, a detained Magdalo soldier gave his only son a fitting gift—a book he authored to answer questions left unspoken and share kernels of wisdom learned behind bars.

“I believe every father would like to be a hero to his son. It was once my dream. Now, I had to let go of that dream, for I wish I could be someone better,” former Navy Lt. Manuel Cabochan wrote in his book.

“I no longer would like to be the hero whom my son will only talk about. I dream to be the father whom my son will be so much willing to talk and be with.”

After six years in detention, it finally dawned on Cabochan that he needed to do something to make his 14-year-old son Myman understand him and salvage whatever ties remained between them.

“He could not explain it all in just one sitting. He thought he needed to explain it in a way our son can take … as to why he is still locked up and why he is enduring life in detention,” Myla, Cabochan’s wife, said in an interview with the Inquirer.

She burst into tears in apparent relief when her husband told her sometime in August of his plan to write Myman, initially, a letter, Myla recounted. But as the letter stretched from one page to another, he decided to turn it into a book instead.

Thus, the 144-page paperback, “A Father’s Confession—Chronicles of a Rebel Soldier,” exclusively for Myman’s eyes for now.

Myla said the book should be available on bookstore shelves once her husband walked free from prison.

It was handed to the boy by his school principal several days before Christmas Day.

Myman was 8 years old when soldiers calling themselves Magdalo took over Oakwood Premier hotel in Makati City in 2003, and his father was charged in connection with the mutiny.

Boy’s unanswered hopes

Just when Myman was expecting the release of his father four years later, Magdalo soldiers took over Peninsula Manila Hotel in November 2007 in a short-lived attempt to ignite a “people power” revolution.

Suddenly, dreams of a new life with his father vanished for the son.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines made sure that Cabochan, along with former Navy Lt. now Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim and 17 other officers, was tried for rebellion before a military tribunal on top of a pending coup d’etat case in the Makati Regional Trial Court.

Since the botched Peninsula takeover last year, Cabochan and his comrades have been locked up inside Camp Crame’s maximum security facility, where time with loved ones was always short.

Myman usually visited his father on weekends, an occasion he looked forward to. But following the latest caper, the boy started to get lower grades and appeared distant to his father whenever he dropped by at Camp Crame for a visit.

Two months after the Peninsula incident, father and son found themselves in a serious talk.

Time to understand

“I was surprised how much he has grown while I was away, while I was in detention. He is now asking questions … those that I was not able to explain clearly to his young mind when he was in grade 4, it is now time to make him understand,” Cabochan wrote.

He made sure that the book was not political and that it spoke directly to his son, lacing it with slices of humor, bits of fatherly advice and the inevitable nostalgia.

On weekdays when visitors were not allowed, his small iron-grilled cell turned into a fertile chamber for his writing, sparking occasional smiles and tears.

The daylong uprising at Peninsula was chronicled in the book—from the daring walkout during a court hearing to his first trip to his detention’s comfort room, where he brushed his teeth with a handkerchief sans toiletries.

Christmas at Camp Crame was always a “jumbled day of the year” ending too early at 5 p.m., he described. The family celebration always began with a simbang gabi (dawn Mass) at 10 a.m. and noche buena at noon.

“At 5 p.m., let me just see you off with my eyes … please do not look back … Merry Christmas,” Cabochan wrote.

‘Life is never easy’

“I must admit, life in a detention camp is never easy. It is full of hardships, disappointments and conflict. Do not ever try it,” he advised.

In a chapter labeled “On My Dark Side,” he recounted childhood memories that taught him important lessons like knowing how to give to others without discounts.

After coming home from school one day, he argued with a tricycle driver for letting him pay the full fare. His parents told him afterward that he was given his “baon” (allowance) in full, without discounts, so he can help others striving for their families, he recounted.

“If anything was intended for the services of other people, we learned to give what was due them … Be considerate of the plight of other people,” he wrote.

But life’s harder lessons came when he entered the Philippine Military Academy, where he discovered his passion to serve others.

In his freshman year when Baguio City was rocked by a killer earthquake, he crawled beneath the rubble of the collapsed Hyatt Terraces with seasoned miners and volunteers looking for trapped survivors.

“It was a privilege to do service for the people of Baguio,” he wrote.

A reason for rebellion

Cabochan carried with him this privilege and the values he learned from the PMA when he started serving in the AFP.

But as wars happened in Mindanao with comrades coming back home strangers to their families, maimed or scarred, he grew disappointed, he related.

Thus, the Oakwood mutiny, which he said attempted to rouse the government from its slumber and start solving age-old problems faced by the country’s weary soldiers.

“They called us coup plotters, putschists, messianic people, destabilizers and many more. It does not matter. People call you names because somehow you are relevant,” Cabochan wrote.

But there was one person who did not call him names, stayed with him and prayed fervently for him—his wife.

“For each of my failures, it was Myla who was suffering the most. But each time, she just prayed, asked Saint Jude for help, and waited for me to recover … ”

“She has learned to understand me, without me even saying a word. She was my best friend then and she still is today. I was her impossible dream and her worst nightmare, rolled into one and coming true,” he said.

Bedtime companion

Father and son have not had a lengthy conversation about the book yet, Myla said.

But the book was Myman’s company at bedtime. “It’s beside him when he sleeps,” she added.

To the boy, his father’s history made him “laugh, sad, depressed and excited.”

“It touched my heart,” Myman said.

It might still take time before he can fully comprehend the choices his father made, but he was getting there, Myla added. “He started joking with his father during our last visit.”

As for Cabochan, his son might be in the period of “teenage rebellion”—a life’s chapter of discovery, questions, doubts and choices. “[But] I believe he will make the right choice. He will be a better man than his father,” he said in the book. (Inquirer News Service)