WHITE-COLLARED PEDICAB DRIVER

ANYONE who is familiar with the Senate Legislative Journal Service must know our utility aide Nario Bescocho. Yes, he is a utility aide but sometimes he looks like the boss especially because of his booming voice (hahaha). He commands respect from everyone because he is dependable and trustworthy. If anyone of us has work-related—even otherwise—questions, we ask Nario. He posesses not only organizational but also institutional memory. Because of this, we call him our Walking Encyclopedia.

He said he was valedictorian in high school, or a corps commander of his Citizens’ Army Training class, although it doesn’t show (hahaha) because he seems to be in a constant fight with this animal called the English language, his brain refusing to acknowledge the latter. But he is a genius at Math, or so it seems to those of us who are so poor at it.

Last night, his daughter Jennelyn showed me a document of her appointment to an office at the Department of Finance. Nario asked me to become one of her work references which is a vital pre-employment requisite in the department. Jennelyn is Nario’s only child to his first wife who worked at the Bureau of Posts but unfortunately passed away because of a respiratory disease contracted from her dust-ridden workplace. She was then reviewing for her CPA boars exams. Then infant Jennelyn was left in the care of Nario and his inlaws.

A few years later, Nario married Cecil, a solo parent. Nario welcomed Cecil’s son Christian like his own. Later on, he and Cecil would have two other daughters, Bianca and Chelsea. For his growing family, Nario worked his butt out—literally. For many years, he was known in his place in Malibay as a white-collared pedicab driver. After work, he would change from his barong to working shirt and shorts and drive his pedicab around or fall in the pedicab queue. He earned P5.00 per passenger, “swerte na lang kung special,” he would say, because he wouldn’t have to spend more time waiting for other passengers. He rode his pedicab at every opportunity he had, a few times coming to work limping because of arthritis. There was also a time when he sold “putok” and some other breads or pastries for breakfast which, he said, Senator Lacson loved.

Nario takes his work very seriously. He reports to work more than the required number of days during and even prior to the pandemic because he was in charge of preparing the hard copies of the Journal for the senators’ approval. A few times he was recognized for his exemplary work, but perhaps not a full appreciation of it because of his seeming inability to express himself in words which, through the years, was something we would tease him about and which he would gaily laugh along without feeling any offense.

These days, Nario proudly shows off the “fruits of his labor.” The pride was never about himself. It was all about his children. It is the shameless pride of a father, something that brings tears of joy to the eyes of anyone who knows his story. Now Christian works for Lufthansa and is being considered for training abroad. Jennelyn is starting out work in government with a basic salary that is perhaps even higher than her father’s. Bianca is in high school going soon to college, and Chelsea, admittedly his dear little spoiled youngest daughter, is reaping academic awards left and right.

Because of sheer hard work, discipline, faith in the Almighty, love for and of his family, and respect for and of his peers, Nario has indeed gone a long way from being a fisherman, construction worker, and pedicab driver.

Mabuhay ka, Nario! Isa kang buhay na inspirasyon sa amin at sa marami nating katrabaho at kababayan! We love you and are mighty proud of you and your accomplishments!

Get well soon, Sir!

WHITE-COLLARED PEDICAB DRIVER
Source: Filipino Pinoys