Maalaala Mo Kaya has been giving us for decades countless inspiring stories that touched and moved our hearts. In celebration of Father’s Day, let us reminisce five stories of fathers and father figures who taught us important life lessons.

 

“Bahay” (2012)

 

A painful story of a father’s relationship with his children, this MMK episode showed a real-life story of how Toto (William Lorenzo) was an abusive father, who had physically and emotionally hurt his children. The man of the house should supposedly be the pillar of his family - the one who should be helping his partner provide and secure a good life and future for the family; the one who should especially be protecting his partner and his children from any harm.

 

However, in this narrative, Toto became the complete opposite - he was abusive and irresponsible as a father who caused trauma to his children. Toto only brought so much torment to his children that they wanted to get away from him. They did not see him anymore as their parent, but as a villain in their lives.

 

And this was probably enough reason for Tikboy (Matt Evans) who in return assumed the responsibility of taking care of his family, and his siblings to leave their father even if it led them to having a broken family. Alongside Matt and William were great actors like Jaclyn Jose, Neil Coleta, Dianne Medina and Lauren Young.

 

“Longboard” (2014)

 

MMK’s “Longboard,” which starred Zoren Legaspi and Jairus Aquino, revolved around the narrative of a father and his son, whose relationship was tested by their different perspectives in life. It presented how a father’s dream for his son would clash with his son’s own aspirations.

 

Bibi (Zoren) was a very loving, devoted, and protective father to Dandoy (Jairus), for whom he had huge dreams. He did not desire anything else but to provide the gift of education to his Dandoy. However, challenges arose between them when Dandoy started to take longboarding seriously at the expense of his schooling. The rest of the cast included Yves Flores, JB Agustin, Assunta de Rossi, Joe Vargas, Marc Solis, and Lance Lucido, who played the role of the young Dandoy.

 

“Kweba” (2016)

 

Raising children is already a very tough and challenging responsibility in itself, even when you have your partner to help you through it all. However, how harder can it be for someone who has to fulfill that duty on his own? That was what Juan (Zanjoe Marudo) proved to all of us. At the beginning of his story, he already experienced ordeals in his life that added more difficulties to his role as a parent.

 

From the very start, he and his wife Melissa (Dawn Chang) already found it hard to provide for their family even though Juan had two jobs. This was what forced Melissa to work despite being away from their children. However, Juan soon found out that his wife was already seeing another man. This was the first storm in Juan’s life. The second was a literal storm which brought enough devastation to their life. And after they lost their house because of the storm, Juan and his children had no other choice but to live in a cave. As a result, his children had to walk four kilometers every day just to go to school. What’s worse was they had to put up with their classmates’ insults about their living environment. This was a very difficult decision for Juan but it just also proved how strong Juan was as a parent that he will do anything just to give his children their needs to the best of his ability.

 

“Upuan” (2017)

 

This episode was based on a viral video of Ryan, a father who was watching his children eat excitingly in a fast food chain. A lot of netizens were touched by the heartwarming gesture of Ryan to his kids. However, little did they know that Ryan had to face many struggles in his life.

 

Piolo Pascual portrayed the role of the devoted and hardworking Ryan, whose dreams of a good life for his family almost became impossible when he suffered a stroke that paralyzed half of his body and caused him speech impairment. This caused inconvenience especially to his wife Rosalyn (Isabelle Daza) who, at first, tried to take care of him, but eventually gave up on him. His immeasurable love for his children however prevailed.

 

“Balsa” (2019)

 

Zanjoe once again gave life to another remarkable role of a father figure. He played Ryan, a dedicated teacher who used a raft to educate children in his remote community.

 

Although he came from a poor family, he managed to finish his studies with the great help of his father Ramon (Joey Marquez) who did everything to give him a good future. After graduating, he worked hard and persevered to fulfill his dream of becoming a teacher and to fulfill his goal of sharing his knowledge and giving kids in his community the education they rightfully need, just like what he had.

 

However, one problem caused several inconveniences especially for his students. Their barrio was situated away from the town, which made it hard for his students to attend classes. This made Ryan decide to create a raft he called “Balsa Basa” where he thought he could teach them safely. However, people including his father and his students’ parents worried about the safety of the children, telling him to stop his initiative.

 

However he may not have seen it coming but a much bigger problem spelled the fate of his passion project - it’s when a strong typhoon hit them while having a class in the middle of the river which definitely put all their lives in danger.

 

Definitely, these MMK stories provided inspiring examples of the kind of love, devotion, and responsibility a father or a father figure provides.