They had thrown their 87-year-old father into the sea… forgetting that all his life, the ocean had been his very breath.
“The sea cannot kill me. But you… you have killed your own father with your own hands.”
Lolo Carding (Grandfather Carding) had spent his entire life believing that love, like the tides of Lingayen Bay, always returned. It might recede, it might turn cold or rage through the storms of Meranti, but in the end, it always came back to the shore. That was how he had loved Lola Rosa for over sixty years. That was how he had raised his children, with the salt-stung sweat of a Pangasinan fisherman. He believed in the blood that carried his name, and in the “Utang na Loob” (a debt of gratitude) he had instilled in them from the cradle.
He was born on a stretch of coastline where houses were built from oak soaked in salt and patience passed down from ancestors. Before he could read, he already knew the difference between waves carrying schools of mackerel and those that carried only foul wind. The sea was his teacher, his judge, his sanctuary. The sea had never betrayed him. It promised nothing it could not fulfill.
With Rosa, he had learned a different kind of tide: the tide of human hearts. She had been his steadfast pillar when he faltered, a gentle silence when he spoke too much. When Rosa passed after a long illness, Lolo Carding aged before everyone’s eyes. Something inside him shattered like coral blasted by explosives. He still breathed. He still went out to sea in his old Bangka, but his eyes no longer sought the horizon.
But his children did.
Kuya Berting, the eldest, no longer saw his father as a hero. To him, the seaside house was not a home—it was “prime real estate” for potential resorts. The boat was not a memory; it was rotting wood. Every wrinkle on his father’s face was a barrier keeping him from touching the money tied to the land.
Tomas, the second child, lived trapped between loyalty and fear. He felt the tension thicken at every Sinigang meal, but he remained silent. He knew something rotten was festering in his older brother, but confronting it meant losing the family’s protection.
Clara, the youngest daughter, was the only one who still called him “Tatang” with reverence. She often sat beside him, helping to mend old fishing nets. She understood that her father’s silence was not emptiness, but pain too deep to name.
Lolo Carding sensed it all—the impatient glances, the interrupted sentences, the arguments about the “future” that died as soon as he appeared in the doorway. But he still believed. A father always wants to believe in the best of his children, because acknowledging the opposite is far more painful than being torn apart by sharks.
The invitation to go out to sea came under the guise of a “memorial for Lola Rosa.” Berting claimed he wanted to take the family out to scatter flowers, as Filipinos often do to honor the departed. Carding agreed immediately. The sea was sacred. There, he felt protected.
The sky that day was gray, strange, as if holding its breath. The motorboat ventured farther than usual, past familiar coral reefs. Carding noticed, but said nothing. He trusted them.
Berting broke the silence. No shouting. No overt anger. Only cold, calculating words. He said it was time. That their father had lived long enough. That the land and house should belong to hands that knew “business.” That clinging to the past was selfish, a hindrance to the future of the grandchildren.
Carding looked at his son—not with anger, not with fear, only with a sorrow as deep as the abyss surrounding him. He tried to speak, but a firm shove came out of nowhere.
The cold sea swallowed him…
The impact left him breathless. That evening’s waves did not recognize an old friend. He swam instinctively, guided by muscle memory, stubbornness forged from a lifetime at sea. He heard Clara’s terrified screams. He saw Tomas’s paralyzed, guilty face. And he saw the motorboat turn its back and leave him behind.
He thought of Rosa. He thought of days when his children were small, sandy hands fighting over seashells. For the first time, he wondered if he had failed to teach them how to be human. As the water swept over his face, he did not pray for his own survival—he prayed that his children would not be forever lost. The motorboat left behind frothing waves and the shrinking figure of a father disappearing into the vast ocean.
Miles away, in a cove of black rocks, Migo—a young night diver—was preparing for a dive. Under the faint glow of a headlamp, he spotted a strange object wedged in the rocks. It was Lolo Carding, unconscious, his skin turning purple, his breath barely flickering like a stranded fish. Migo did not rush him to the hospital, knowing Carding held influence in the area and fearing dark repercussions. Instead, he brought him to his modest hut, using traditional sea folk remedies and herbal medicine to care for him.
Lolo Carding remained in a coma for over a week. In his dreamlike haze, he felt the salt sting at his conscience, saw the faces of his children as they had been in childhood.
Back at the seaside house, less than ten days after his disappearance, Berting called a real estate agent, presenting forged papers bearing their father’s signature.
“Tatang isn’t confirmed dead yet, Kuya! You can’t sell the house!” Clara protested, her face hollow from nights spent scanning the shoreline for returning boats.
“The police have stopped searching, Clara! Stop being selfish. We need money to start a new life in Manila. Tatang gave his life to the sea; now he wants us to live comfortably too,” Berting said coldly, pen poised to sign the contract.
Tomas stood in a corner, staring at his mother’s photo on the altar, sweat streaming down his face. He wanted to scream, but Berting’s gaze was a noose around his throat.
Just as Berting pressed pen to paper, a cold gust of sea wind blew into the house, flinging the old wooden door against the wall.
A figure appeared in the doorway.
Back bent slightly, white hair crusted with salt, eyes as deep as the ocean’s abyss. Lolo Carding stood there, leaning on the frame, Migo at his side. Silence fell like a tomb. The paper in Berting’s hand slid to the floor.
“Sign it, Berting,” the old man’s voice was low and hoarse, yet carried the authority of a storm at night. “Sign it, if you think this land can buy peace for your soul.”
Berting recoiled in horror, tripping over a wooden chair and collapsing.
“Gh… Ghost…!” he stammered.
“Not a ghost. The truth has returned,” Carding stepped into the house, each step heavy. He looked at Tomas, whose tears were uncontrollable. Tomas fell to his knees: “Tatang! I’m sorry… I was cowardly… Kuya pushed you… I saw everything…”
Clara rushed forward, embracing her father, crying in a mix of grief and joy. Berting saw everything crumble. Before the witness of the real estate agent and villagers gathering outside, he knew he had lost everything. From arrogance, he had become utterly powerless.
Lolo Carding picked up the sale contract and tore it to shreds before everyone’s eyes.
“You always thought this house was property. To me, it was where your mother’s love lived. If it becomes the seed of evil, it should no longer belong to this bloodline.”
He turned to Migo, the poor young man with a heart of gold: “Migo, you have saved my last breath. From now on, you will manage this place.”
To everyone’s astonishment, Lolo Carding declared that the house and land would be donated to establish “Bahay Pag-asa” (House of Hope)—a rescue and care center for the elderly and impoverished children of the fishing village.
“Berting, Tomas… you will not go to jail if you choose to stay here, serving under Migo’s guidance. You must relearn humanity through the smallest acts. Otherwise, leave, and never bring your father’s name with you.”
Berting could only bow his head in reluctant acceptance. He had realized that the sea could forgive every mistake, but it would also take everything from those who lived without compassion.
That evening, Lolo Carding sat on the veranda, Clara resting her head on his shoulder. In the distance, Migo began gathering old fishing nets. The waves continued to murmur, but now, the ocean sounded gentle, as if rejoicing to welcome a soul finally at peace.