I AM an adopted child of the late Jose Borja King. I did not realize how painful it is for children to be labeled adopted until recently when the death and funeral announcement of my adoptive father was published in a local newspaper. It was only then that I realized that for the most part of my life, it seemed that I have been pretending to be the daughter of someone who pretended to be my father. I felt stripped of my right to be called a daughter to him. It felt as if I had to return a name that was just borrowed and lost the identity that Daddy brought me up with. It only hurt because Daddy never ever made us feel that we were not his. He always introduced Christine and me as his daughters, never Marleen’s daughters whom he adopted. He accepted us and gave us a sense of belonging in this persecuting small community. We never had to deal with the whole “adopted” issue because he was proud to call us his children and we were comfortable to call him our father. He showed us love and care that perhaps surpassed the love and care he had shown to any of his children. For that, we are forever grateful to him and give him the highest reverence a child can give to a father.
Everybody knew Tan Ping. My dad was hardworking, warm, timid, but sociable man who could have run in an election and won. He started many business ideas on Tinian that others pursued like hollow block making, powdered hot pepper, coconut oil and noni juice. He was a jack-of all-trades: farming, fishing, hunting, golf, and yes he was even popular with women, a lady’s man in his own right. He was physically active with a strength and stamina that could compare to a man 20 years younger.
At the age of 4 or 5, I met him for the first time. I was not very much fond of him because, as a child, I felt that he was a stranger trying to compete with us for the time and love of my mother. Soon enough, though, Daddy’s charm and charisma won our hearts. We became a family. We shared many picnics at the beach, had hiking trips to the jungles and the caves, hunted for coconut crabs and fished on top of cliffs, planted seeds and reaped the harvests, and cruised around Northfield where he taught us how to drive. He was a proud father who was always excited to hear from our teachers on report card days. All the honors and victories of my academic life were dedicated to him. It gave him the confidence of an accomplished father whenever he shook the hands of important people who congratulated him for having reared such talented children. It is sad, though, that his two young children will never be able to experience the great father he turned out to be because his life was cut short by cancer. Or is it really cancer? We always thought that he would outlive everyone on Tinian from his generation. He was the healthiest senior citizen. His illness took us by surprise. At the age of 73 he was diagnosed with an incurable disease which did not even show symptoms prior to its discovery. After going through chemotherapy with only one or two more sessions to go, he was promised to recover his health back and live his normal life. He was full of hope last January when I visited him. I cannot forget the smile on his face as he showed off his farm and the hundreds of noni and papaya trees he planted. After a few weeks, he was suddenly sick and lying on a hospital bed because of an unimaginable pain on his stomach. His stomach which grew unusually large tormented him until his final hours. We were told the cancer on his lungs had spread and caused him the enduring pain on his abdomen. Ironically, he did not seem to have difficulty breathing through his ailing lungs. Could it be something supernatural that was caused by people who could not wait to spend the money they made out of him and his properties? His passing was painful both for him and the truly concerned family members who helped survive him.
I read that eulogies are supposed to be words of praise and acclamation to pay last respects to the dead. But I believe that, more importantly, it should be words that will set the soul of the dead free from any thing that will hinder him to rest peacefully. My father deserves a peaceful rest and all of us he left behind should not have to suffer silently from the decisions he had made.
Cancer, perhaps, was the culprit that caused his demise. But it was not cancer that deprived his young children of his love and his presence. It was actually the people whom he trusted the most but knowingly betrayed him. They are the parasites who fed on his innocence and took advantage of his limited education. They are the opportunists who turned him against his wife and legally stole every piece of land that he owned. They are the capitalists who invested little money for his brief entertainment but profited exorbitantly as they ventured in the business called “Let’s Take Care of the Sick, Get Their Lands and Make Money Out of Them” — an old business their family runs and passed on from one sibling to another. They are the seemingly heroes and heroines of this drama who claimed to have spent so much money and resources to save my dad from death but actually took him closer there, while his other children remained only in the background left with only small roles to take part. They are his allegedly educated nephews and so-called concerned nieces who perfected every act and practiced every tear to manipulate my dad and fabricate the truth. Who among them? Surprisingly, they play larger roles than the real children who truly mourn for their loss. They were heartless to take advantage of an old man at the expense of his own family. The stench and filth in their souls are overflowing that they can confidently maintain their composure and turn things to their advantage. They are the real cancer. They are the diseases that consumed my dad’s mind and body and the virus that continue to infect others who fall prey to their cunning words. They are the gluttons who are never satisfied with money earned from honest living and desire to devour every piece of land imaginable. Of course all this took place when one of them was at the height of his career in a now defunct government agency that specialized in acquiring lands from the public — I thought it was awarding lands to the public?
So where are Marleen and her children in the middle of all these? No where. Somebody did a demolition job of her reputation to make it seem that it was her my father needed to be protected from. The mother of his 2 children and his wife of more than 20 years would take interest on his properties and sell them for her benefit? Daddy made a choice to exclude my mother from the last years of his life. He did not need her because others promised to take better care of him and his assets for the benefit of his children. True enough his assets were well protected. They are well-guarded from him and his children because he did not own anything anymore. But he did not know that, and yet every document has his signature. Who are they to act like God and promise to make him well in exchange of all of these? Have they spent enough on him to equate the profits they made? His children have nothing. And who has everything? It would make more sense to lose all that he had to the first 13 children. But it is rather puzzling to discount “conflict of interest” when the sister of the attorney-in-fact of someone’s father became the grantee of almost everything someone’s father owns? Sourgraping is what many of you would call me, but oppressed is the word that best describes my mother and my young sisters who are wrongfully accused of trying to benefit from a land that rightfully belongs to them. I only come to liberate the minds of the prejudiced. They may continue to take everything but that will not make us love our father less. We have no capacity at this time to gain them all back, but just by speaking the truth before all of you today would hasten Karma to go after them, and set the soul of our father free from those who unrighteously judged him and his children.
I would like to think that our father is a victim just like his disadvantaged children. I would like to honor him by giving justice to his death by telling what is true. He was a good person who was easy to please and contented with the little that was given to him. Because of his trusting nature, he developed many lasting friendships. His weaknesses were also his strengths. I would remember my father the most for the good times that we shared, for the fatherly love and support that he had shown, for the pride that he instilled in us for all that we accomplished, and for treating us as his own. We love him very dearly. Our lives and Tinian will never be the same without Tan Ping.

ROMA KING
Kagman, Saipan