A SUCCESSFUL ARCHITECT WAS FORCED TO SELL HIS FATHER’S OLD JEEP TO A JUNK SHOP BECAUSE IT WAS TOO OLD AND NOISY BUT HE FINALLY CRIED IN FRONT OF THE JUNK PRESS WHEN HE LEARNED THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS JEEP

In a beautiful house in Antipolo, Rizal, father and son Lance and Mang Ompong are arguing. Lance is a famous architect who designs modern buildings, while his father Ompong is a retired jeepney driver. What they are fighting over: Mang Ompong’s only jewel—a 1990 model Sarao Jeepney that is rusty, has a noisy engine, and makes smoke.

“Daddy! That jeep is so ugly!” Lance shouted as he peered into the garage. “The paint is peeling! The oil is leaking! It’s embarrassing for my clients when they visit here. The house I designed for you is beautiful, and then there’s trash parked in front!”

“Son, that’s not trash,” Mang Ompong replied calmly while wiping the steering wheel. “It’s still got a strong engine. It can still be serviced.”

“Serviced? You’re retired! You don’t drive around there anymore. You only leave early in the morning and come back at noon. Where do you go? Do you gamble?”

Mang Ompong didn’t answer. He just bowed his head.

Out of annoyance and the desire to clean up the yard, Lance made a decision. While his father was sleeping in the afternoon, he called a junk shop. “Take it. No matter how much. Just get it out of my sight right now.”

The tow truck towed the jeep. When Mang Ompong woke up and saw that the jeep was gone, he almost fainted. “Lance! What have you done?! Where is the ‘Barako’?!”

“I sold it, Dad! So we can be quiet!”

Out of sheer anger, Mang Ompong had a heart attack. He was rushed to the hospital. While his father was in the emergency room, Lance felt guilty. But he thought, it was for everyone’s good.

The next day, while he was watching over his father, Mang Ompong’s cellphone that was left in his bag rang. An unregistered number.

Lance answered. “Hello?”

“Hello? Dad Ompong?” a woman’s voice, as if crying. “This is Teacher Anna. I was just wondering if you could pick up the children today? They were waiting at the corner a while ago. No other jeepneys wanted to take them because… you know, they say it’s too busy to pick up people in wheelchairs and special children.”

Lance was stunned. “Pick up? What pick up?”

“Are you the son of Tatay Ompong?” the teacher asked. “Sir, for five years now, your father has been ferrying our students here to the SpEd Center at the top of the mountain for free. Most of them are blind, mute, and in wheelchairs. There is no public transport that reaches here because the road is potholed. Only Tatay Ompong has the patience to ride with them. Only his jeep has a customized ramp in the back that he hides under the seat.”

Page: SAY – Story Around You | Original story

Lance dropped the phone.

He quickly ran out of the hospital. He got into the car and drove to the junk shop. “Don’t kill him! Don’t!” Lance shouted in his mind.

When he arrived at the junk shop, it was too late. He saw ‘Barako’ already inside the hydraulic press. The roof was already crushed. The engine was crushed.

“Stop! Stop!” Lance shouted to the operator.

The engine stopped, but the jeep was already wrecked. Lance approached the wrecked vehicle. In the back, where the seats were crushed, he saw what the teacher was saying. There were steel ramps hidden under the flooring. And on the dashboard, a plastic envelope had fallen out.

Lance took it. Inside, there were children’s drawings. A drawing of a jeep with wings. There were handwritten letters that were strained and uneven:

“Thank you, Father Ompong. Love, Buboy (Blind)”

“Thank you for coming with us, Father. You are my foot. – Maya (In a wheelchair)”

Lance sobbed in the middle of the junk shop, hugging the drawings and his father’s broken steering wheel.

The “trash” and “noisy” jeep that he was ashamed of was actually the “wings” of angels who could not fly. The father’s early morning departure was not to gamble, but to become a superhero for children who have been abandoned by society. The rusty jeep was full of gold inside—gold of goodness that Lance had not seen because he was blinded by the glitter of the modern world.

Lance returned to the hospital, broken and full of regret. He knelt by the bedside of his father who was already awake.

“Father… sorry…” Lance cried. “Barako is gone… I killed him…”

Mang Ompong held his son’s head. “Son… it’s just steel. It can be replaced. The important thing is, now you understand why I loved that jeep. Not because I was old, but because of him, I had a purpose.”

As compensation, Lance didn’t just buy a new van. He used his architectural skills. He designed and built

a mini-bus that is fully accessible for PWDs. And on its side, he painted the name of their new school service: “BARAKO JR.”

Since then, every morning, father and son Lance and Mang Ompong can be seen driving side by side up the mountain, picking up smiling children, proof that the true beauty of a vehicle is not in the shine of the paint, but in who is riding it.