The Superhero Song

🎤 Lilipad ako para lang sayo, lilipad ako sa dulo ng mundo, dahil ang totoo'y ikaw ang aking Superhero. 🎤

If you are a batang 90's and your neighbor had a TV in 2006-2007 you probably enjoyed singing the song above. It is the song by the band Rocksteddy which became popular because it was used as a soundtrack in the ABS-CBN afternoon fantaserye 'Super Inggo'.

Back in the day, you would hear children who were playing bato-lata and shatong, singing their hearts out to this song. You would feel their excitement when a radio station played it while they were eating their favorite mango-flavored ice candy (na maka karas sa tutunlan). And you could even see teenagers who would sing and write the lyrics of the song because at that time we had no access to the internet and the only way to know the correct lyrics was to transcribe them.

It was the intense popularity of the show which made the song unforgettable for everyone, but for me, it was another story. 

The Superhero song led me to my very first CRUSH. LOL, I know it sounds so cheesy so let me rephrase it. The Superhero song led me to my very first LANDI in life. 

I was very young back then. It was a mundane day of my Grade 2 life, everyone was at the school ground cleaning his/her assigned area. We were under these big trees and I ended up standing between a girl classmate and this cute little boy. I don't know what was our childish conversation at that moment but that boy just suddenly sang or let's say performed the Superhero song.

🎤"Lilipad ako para lang sayo. Lilipad ako sa dulo ng mundo. Ang lahat ng 'to'y para lang sa 'yo.Dahil ang totoo, ikaw ang aking superhero."🎤

Maybe it was because of my addiction to Badong in Super Inggo, or maybe because of the fact that I was serenaded by a cute boy with an Ariel-bleached uniform, but I was blown away by his voice. I know for sure now that he doesn't have a nice voice but at that moment I thought he could win The Voice Kids.

No one could say how that cringe and the cheesy scene ended, but that was for sure where everything started.

I spent my Elementary years avoiding this Superhero boy because the cheesy incident somehow became the catalyst of the 'sungog-sungog'. I died with humiliation every time they teased us. But even at a very young age, I knew to myself 'na hindi kami talo'. 

He came from a well-off family while I was from an average one. He ate egg and hotdog for breakfast while I gobbled my Lucky Me beef noodles. He had ironed school uniforms while I didn't even change mine for two days. So years passed, and we came up with this unspoken rule to stay away from each other. 

We became high school students without even exchanging a single word with each other.

He got his first girlfriend, I got my first period. I got busy at school, he got busy fooling around with girls. And somehow I just woke up one day realizing that he had been my crush all through the years.

Maybe because of the kick of the teenage hormones. I started stalking him on FB, scheming to get his phone number and putting myself in a scenario that would make him notice me. 

And you might not believe this, but there were times when I could not sleep well thinking of him.
I would wait by the window of my Lola's house for him to pass by. I even made a loveteam for us. I was just crazy about him. 

And big thanks to my teenage hormones for letting me do that. 

But after a year of insanity and the last-minute realization that he would NEVER EVER return back those feelings, I finally let go of that long-time-running unrequited crush.
I bumped my head to our 'haligi' and said 'Wake up, hindi nga kayo talo'. 

Though that was fifteen years ago and everything in both of our lives has changed without changing at all, every time I hear the Superhero song, it takes me back to my childhood years. To the school ground, with those big trees, with my girl classmate and the superhero boy. Where the only problems I had were how could I win the next bics-bics, shatong, and jolen match, where to buy that yellow makakaras tutunlan ice candy and when could I go home and sleep, yes, just sleep and SLEEP.

To my childhood self,

Lilipad ako para lang sayo, lilipad ako sa dulo ng mundo, dahil ang totoo'y ikaw ang aking superhero.

                             -From your barely flying self 💗