(Note: This declamation piece was used by the Bulacan Private School Association (BULPRISA) for its 2014 declamation contest – High School division.)

Sige, kuya, full pass ahead. Here it is:

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THE TAXI DRIVER

This can’t be happening. I prepared so hard for the final exams, but I don’t have my permit yet. In twenty minutes, I have to be in the classroom. What do I do now? I have to call him… can not be reached… you must be kidding… oh my… I must call Mom. “Hello… hello, Mom, it’s me, Trishia—”

“TRIIISHIAAA!”

“Ahh — no, Mom, I’m not shouting, I’m not angry. Mom, sorry. It’s just that I’m so worried right now. Dad’s not here yet, and the exam is about to begin. I tried calling him, but his phone is off. What do I do?”

“…Okay. Yeah. Okay. I love you too, Mom.”

Mom told me to wait. But for how long? She told me to relax. But how could I, in a situation like this? She reminded me to always trust my dad. Ahh — my mom, my dad’s number one fan. Understandably so. For her, my dad is —

“DAD! I’M HERE! DAD! HERE!”

“Oh — sorry, Trish, I needed to drop by the police station because—” I grabbed the money from his hand before he could finish and didn’t wait to hear the rest. “Bye, Dad. Thanks. See you later. Sorry, I have to go.”

I got my permit and reached the classroom just in the nick of time. I had prepared hard for this. I needed a high GWA to qualify for the university scholarship I was aiming for. My dad is just a taxi driver — not exactly capable of sending me to a good university on his own.

I admit it: I envied the life my rich classmates lived. I wished I could trade places with Janine, the daughter of a car dealer. Her jewelry, her gadgets — everything about her life looked easy. Me? My only gadget was an aging Nokia Asha 311.

I loved my dad. But I wished, more than once, that he wasn’t just a taxi driver.

I went home after that long day and stayed in my room, preparing for the next set of exams. My dad came in with cookies and a glass of milk. “Can we talk?” he asked.

“Dad, I’m sorry — I’m busy.”

He kissed my forehead and left the room.

While we were having dinner, someone knocked. My mom got up and opened the door. I was startled to see two police officers, a well-dressed man, and — if I wasn’t mistaken — a journalist. I looked at my dad, who seemed a little surprised too. “Dad, what did you do? Why are they here?” He just smiled and joined the visitors in the sala.

Then the journalist stood up, walked over to me at the dining table, and said, “May I shake the hand of the daughter of a man whose integrity is beyond reproach? May I take a picture?” I nodded, hesitant, confused. That’s when I learned it — the well-dressed man owned a bag containing money and jewelry worth almost five million pesos, and my father had turned it in to the police that very morning. That was the reason he’d come home late.

Shame on me. Shame on me. I had been so blind, I hadn’t even seen the goodness sitting across the dinner table from me every night.

A few minutes later, my dad approached and whispered, “They’re offering me a large reward for what I did. Should I accept, Trish?”

I don’t know why, but I told him, “No, Dad. Please don’t.”

And he didn’t.

The next day, during lunch, I was in the cafeteria, half-watching the TV in the corner, when a news break came on. I couldn’t believe it — my picture. My mom’s picture. And then my dad’s. The news featured what he’d done. They mentioned that the owner of the recovered money and jewelry had promised to set up an educational trust fund in my name.

The next story was a sadder one. I watched police officers arrest Janine’s father — accused of running drugs behind the cover of his car dealership. I felt for her. I really did.

But it also made me ask myself something I haven’t stopped asking since: how many times had I measured a person’s worth by what sat in their driveway? By the phone in their hand, the gold on their wrist? I was so busy wishing for someone else’s father that I almost missed the one I already had — a man who could have walked away with five million pesos and chose, instead, to walk into a police station.

So let me ask you the same question I had to ask myself. When you look at the people around you — a driver, a vendor, someone who works with their hands and comes home each night with far less than you’d want for them — what are you actually seeing?

Because I promise you, whatever it looks like from the outside, it might be worth more than everything Janine’s father ever owned.