There was a year in grade school when my father promised me a bicycle if I topped my class. I studied like that bicycle was already mine. I never got it. What I remember, decades later, is that the promise itself — made by a man who probably didn’t have the money to keep it — taught me more than the bike ever could have. That was my Papang. Nicanor “Momoy” Gabunada Sr. left Cebu as a young man chasing a better future in Mindanao. He drove for a living, raised a family, and spent most of his life making sure we had food on the table — even when that wasn’t guaranteed. This Father’s Day, I want to tell you why a man who