By Daphne Sevilla

(Editor’s Note: This tribute was delivered by Daphne Calimbayan Sevilla, daughter of Donald Borja Sevilla, on the last night of his wake. Donald passed away on September 8, 2026.)


Remembering Donald Borja Sevilla through the lessons he left behind: A Daughter’s Retelling

I have spent the past several weeks learning new things about my father.

Not because I did not know him, but because losing him has made me realize just how many versions of him existed beyond the one I knew as my dad. I have heard stories from his friends, his high school batchmates, his IHMS brothers, his JCI family, colleagues, and people whose lives he touched in ways our family never fully knew about.

The amount of “Dad lore” I have uncovered has been remarkable. Every story seems to reveal another layer of a man who was already, to me, endlessly complex. So rather than attempt to describe exactly who my father was, I find myself wanting to write about what he taught me.

My father was not particularly demonstrative. He was not the kind of parent who would sit his children down and give them a carefully prepared list of life lessons. Instead, he taught us through the way he lived. I learned by watching him—by observing what he stood for, how he treated people, how he responded to hardship, and what he was willing to sacrifice for the people he loved.

Stand for what you believe in.
My father was a deeply principled man.

Once he believed in something, he stood firmly behind it. He was capable of being stubborn, but beneath that stubbornness was an unwavering commitment to his principles. He was willing to endure criticism and discomfort rather than abandon something he genuinely believed was right.

There is a quote my brother Benny once shared with me that has always reminded me of Dad. It comes, somewhat unexpectedly, from The Amazing Spider-Man:

“When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world—‘No, YOU move.’”

That was my father when it came to his convictions.
He stood like a tree .And there were many occasions when doing so came with consequences.

My father was politically passionate, while I have never considered myself particularly political. In fact, Dad and I had many heated debates about politics. We disagreed, challenged each other, and sometimes drove each other crazy in the process.

But even when I disagreed with him, I admired his conviction. He never required me to believe what he believed. He never made me feel that being his daughter meant inheriting his opinions. He gave me the freedom to form my own.


Unfortunately, his political beliefs also made him the subject of years of deliberate and malicious attacks online. Many people witnessed the character assassination directed toward both him and my mother simply because they held political beliefs that differed from those of others.

It should be entirely normal for people to disagree about politics. What should not be normal is using positions of power to silence people simply because they hold different beliefs.

I initially hesitated to write about this. I did not want to create another controversy around my father’s name. But I also realized that avoiding the subject would be inconsistent with one of the very lessons he taught me: stand by what you believe is right, even when doing so is uncomfortable.

I am my father’s daughter, after all.

And one thing Dad was exceptionally good at was ruffling feathers.

I am also deeply grateful to the people who stood by him during those years—to the friends who defended his character, and especially to those who respected him despite disagreeing with his politics. That kind of respect is rare, and I know my father valued it.

My father was an intellectual. He loved being challenged. Some of my favorite memories of him involve conversations that started over an ordinary meal and somehow turned into hour-long debates.

But despite his strong opinions, he never imposed them on me. He believed in the value of discourse. He could disagree with someone without believing that disagreement made the other person less worthy of respect.

And even when provoked, he was rarely vulgar. He was a formal man. Even when responding to nameless people hiding behind the anonymity of social media, he tried to maintain a certain dignity.

In that way, my father taught me that having strong convictions and treating people with respect are not mutually exclusive.

My mother, meanwhile, was always his fiercest defender.
If someone came after Dad, they were in for an even more formidable fight. My mother’s unwavering support of my father is one of the clearest examples of the partnership they shared. They were a team, and she stood beside him through some of the most difficult chapters of their lives.

Looking back on their political struggles, one quote comes to mind: Time is the ultimate truth teller.

 I think that lesson, too, will stay with me.

Show up for people.

Perhaps the greatest lesson my father left me was the importance of showing up. As I listened to people talk about him after his passing, I kept hearing the same theme.
He showed up. For his friends. For his community. For his organizations. For his family. He showed up even when it was inconvenient.

My father’s love language was often acts of service. He expressed affection through doing—through helping, attending, participating, driving somewhere, making time, solving problems, or simply being present.

Growing up with him taught me that genuine community does not happen effortlessly. The price of having a rich community and meaningful relationships is often inconvenience. Sometimes loving people means giving up your time. Sometimes it means going somewhere you would rather not go, helping when you are tired, making an effort when it would be easier to stay home, or putting someone else’s needs ahead of your own.

My father understood that instinctively.

And I think the extraordinary number of people who came to honor him after his passing was a reflection of the life he had lived. He had shown up for so many people. So when it was his turn, they showed up for him.

Our father was a young father. He raised six children, beginning with my older siblings Tweety, Puddy, Benny, and Mia, and eventually Daffy and me. Looking back, I understand more clearly how much of his life was spent choosing us.

The comforts and opportunities we have today were made possible by countless sacrifices he made along the way. Putting your children first is, in many ways, the ultimate act of inconvenience. It means rearranging your life around people who depend on you.

Dad did that for us.

And so one of the lessons I will carry for the rest of my life is simple: Show up for the people you love.

Hardship does not have to break you.

There is another lesson my father embodied perhaps more than any other: resilience.

My siblings and I spent countless hours talking about Dad after he passed. One conclusion we repeatedly came back to was that he embodied what I would call the indomitable human spirit. For as long as I knew him, I rarely saw him completely defeated by adversity.

He had been through difficult things.

He had experienced periods of financial hardship. He had struggled to provide for his family. He had experienced loss. He had faced professional and personal setbacks. And yet, somehow, he always moved forward.

I remember a conversation I had with him when I was struggling with something that felt enormous to me at the time. I was severely depressed and eventually confided in my father. He sent me a message that I saved. He told me he was proud of me. He told me not to worry too much about the future because I might forget to live in the present. Then he told me about his own past.

He remembered walking to Chong Hua because he could not afford the jeepney fare. He remembered having only three pesos in his pocket and knowing that every peso had to go toward his family’s needs and my late brother’s treatment. He remembered not being able to buy himself socks because he had five children to feed and a child undergoing chemotherapy.

He also remembered eventually reaching a point in his life where he could buy two cars in two different colors simply because he could.

And then he gave me one of the most important pieces of advice I have ever received:

“Monetary success is not equal to happiness. Do not worry too much about succeeding if you already compromise your happiness.”

He told me that what mattered was that I was happy.

It was such a quintessentially Dad thing to say.

He had experienced both scarcity and success, and somewhere along the way, he learned that neither necessarily determines the quality of a person’s life. He understood that there are things more valuable than achievement.

He understood that happiness matters. And perhaps most importantly, he understood that his children did not have to follow his exact path to make him proud. He gave us room to become ourselves. You are allowed to grow, fail, and become your own person.

My father was never particularly traditional in the way he raised us.

He was a progressive thinker. He allowed his children to make mistakes. He gave us room to learn through experience. He did not demand perfection. But whenever life became too heavy for us, he was there to help carry it. And he did so without making us feel like we were burdening him.

That is something I appreciate more deeply now.

When Dad was in Chong Hua fighting for his life, one of the last things he said to my eldest sister, Ate Tweety, was:
“I’ve been through worse.”

He said this after a heart attack, a stroke, and a relentless series of infections.Even then, his instinct was not to surrender. It was to remind us—and perhaps himself—that he had survived difficult things before.

That sentence has stayed with me.
I’ve been through worse.

There is something incredibly powerful about that mindset.
It does not mean pretending that pain does not exist. It means refusing to believe that pain is the end of the story.
My father’s resilience was not simply confidence in his own abilities. I believe much of it came from his faith.

My father was never perfect. None of us are. But he was a man of profound faith. The way he lived, the things he valued, and the way he continued to believe through adversity were all expressions of that faith.

And that gives me comfort now. I can rest knowing that, after everything he endured in this life, he is finally at peace. Family is the greatest legacy.

My father watched me take my first breath. And I was there to watch him take his last. There is something profoundly strange about that symmetry. We all understand intellectually that, if we are fortunate enough to live long    enough, we will eventually bury our parents. It is one of the unavoidable realities of being human.But knowing it does not prepare you for it. Losing a parent leaves a space that cannot simply be filled. I will carry the loss of my father for the rest of my life.

But I have also realized that I do not have to leave that space empty. I can fill it with what he taught me.

I can carry his principles.
I can show up for people.
I can choose resilience.
I can remain open to learning.
I can make sure to leave room for happiness amidst success.
I can challenge people while still respecting them.
I can love my family through action.
And I can continue building the kind of community that mattered so much to him.

There are probably a hundred other lessons my father left me. I imagine I will continue discovering them for the rest of my life.

I will probably become the annoying daughter who constantly brings him up in conversations, retells his stories, quotes his messages, and finds some way to connect every random life event back to something Dad once said. And I am completely okay with that. Because that is one of the privileges of having loved someone deeply: you get to carry pieces of them forward.

Dad, thank you for everything.

Thank you for the life you built for us. Thank you for the sacrifices that gave us the lives and comforts we have today. Thank you for making your family your priority. It was not always perfect. We were not always perfect. But where it counted, you always showed up.

I am incredibly grateful that you were my father. And if I were given the choice in another life to have a different, supposedly more perfect father, I would still choose you. In this life or the next. Because in my eyes, you were the best dad.

And you always will be. I love you, Dad.

Rest easy knowing that you raised us to be strong and capable. We will take care of Mom. We will take care of each other.
The greatest gift you ever gave us was our family. And even without you here, we will carry that family with us.

Finally, to everyone who loved my father, knew him, worked with him, learned from him, argued with him, laughed with him, stood beside him, prayed for him, visited him, sent messages, brought flowers, shared stories, and came to pay their respects:

Thank you.

Thank you for showing up for our father.

It is fitting that one of the greatest lessons he taught us was the importance of showing up for the people we love—and in the end, so many of you showed up for him.

We will never forget that.

And we will always be grateful.