It is 11:50 PM. In ten minutes, April 10th will officially end, and with it, my mother’s birthday. I am back in my room in Quezon City, the smell of motorcycle engine oil still clinging to my skin and the familiar, rhythmic creak of the ceiling fan welcoming me back into the dark.
Yesterday was Araw ng Kagitingan—the Day of Valor. While the rest of the country is supposedly celebrating courage and heroism, I spent the day practicing my most convincing lie in the bathroom mirror of my apartment in Quezon City. And today, the real battle happened on the winding roads to Rizal.
The road to the NHA relocation site in Montalban is a long, dusty stretch of broken promises. I rode my motorcycle out there today, the engine sputtering with the same exhaustion that has lived in my bones since 2019. Back in my days as an IT Project Manager, I would have zipped through this traffic with the arrogance of a man who owned the sky. I was the "cool guy" from the public schools who finally made it out of the Quezon City slums. But today, as I climbed the hills toward my parents' small, government-issued house, I felt like a thief returning to the scene of a crime. My stomach was a hollow cavern, reminding me that I haven't had a proper meal in days, and the "haze" in my head—the one I haven't been able to medicate since 2020—was so thick I could barely see the road through the tears I refused to let fall.
I stopped at a bakery in San Mateo, the smell of sugar and yeast mocking the absolute zero in my bank account. I stood there for twenty minutes, staring at a simple chocolate dedication cake, frantically doing the math in my head. If I bought the cake for my mother’s birthday, I wouldn’t have enough gas to get back to my rented room in the slums. I wouldn't even have enough for a single egg to eat tomorrow. I stood there, a thirty-something man who used to manage million-dollar budgets, and I realized I couldn't even afford to buy my mother the sweetness she deserves. I walked back to my motorcycle empty-handed, my chest tight with a shame so acidic it felt like it was dissolving my ribs. I am the eldest son, the dropout who was supposed to be the hero, yet I arrived at her door with nothing but the dust of the road on my clothes.
The birthday lunch was a masterclass in slow-motion psychological torture. My mother, who still spends her weary days volunteering at the barangay hall, had cooked pancit for my "long life"—a bitter irony for someone who has been praying for the clock to stop since 2019.
My father, a retired security guard whose hands are permanently curved from years of gripping a shotgun he never owned, looked at me with a pride that felt like a physical weight. While my older sister sent photos of her life as a nurse in Florida and my younger brother bragged about his caregiver salary in Japan via the family group chat, I sat there and lied.
"How’s the office, anak?" my father asked, his eyes full of a pride I haven't earned. "The traffic in the Metro must be exhausting."
"It’s okay, 'Pa," I lied, the words feeling like shards of glass in my throat. "The new project is demanding, but the management is happy with my performance. Just a lot of overtime lately."
I invented meetings, I complained about "corporate deadlines," and I described an office environment I haven't stepped foot in since I was laid off in 2022. I wore the mask of the successful son so tightly that I could feel my soul suffocating underneath it, all while my stomach screamed in protest from not having a real meal in forty-eight hours.
I couldn't even buy her a gift. I told her it was "delayed in shipping," another lie to add to the pile. I felt like a ghost haunting my own family’s dinner table—a Kulaspiro acting foolishly to protect them from the truth of my depression.
Being unemployed is a shame that eats you quietly. But being a liar—pretending you are "okay" to protect the people who love you—is a weight that breaks your bones. I sat in my childhood bedroom for a few minutes after lunch, surrounded by old trophies and books from a time when my potential was still a promise. Now, I’m just a 30-something who can't even buy his mother a birthday cake.
I left as the sun started to dip, making excuses about a "busy morning tomorrow."
As I was leaving, my mom walked me to my motorcycle. She didn’t ask about the cake or the gift. She just handed me a plastic container of leftovers and tucked a small, folded piece of paper into my jacket pocket.
I opened it when I got back to QC, just a few minutes ago. It said: "Kahit anong mangyari, nandito lang kami. Magpahinga ka, anak. Mahal ka namin." (No matter what happens, we are just here. Rest, my son. We love you.)
I’m sitting here at 11:55 PM, and I wonder if she knows. I wonder if she sees the cracks in the mask, the paleness of the Kulaspiro, and the exhaustion of the lie. The haze is still here, and the bank account is still empty, but that little note is sitting on my desk next to my laptop.
I didn't give her a gift today. But maybe, just maybe, the fact that I showed up—that I fought the urge to disappear and instead chose to be there, even as a lie—is a small kind of valor.
The day is almost over. I’m still here. And for tonight, that’s the only truth that matters.
Have you ever had to hide your struggles just to keep the people you love smiling? How do you handle the silence when the celebration is over?
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