Father’s Day came and went without anyone fussing over two men who produced large, really large families that should have made each of them a Big Daddy. Between Ramon Revilla and Dolphy there are enough children to constitute a barangay, yet only Mr. Revilla envisioned politics as the only life after showbiz.

There’s talk in TV town that a second-generation “John en Marsha,” the sitcom about a dysfunctionally happy family that turned Dolphy into a superstar, is in the works, as there’s also talk that it was former Senator Ramon Revilla who quite frankly shot down his senator-son Bong’s aspirations for the vice presidency. Senator Bong – whose knight-in-shining-armor role in the KH-HK scandal is the envy of every other would-be senator – is his father’s third child, officially. Bong has six siblings, officially, but in an expansive mood many years ago, his father bragged that he had sired 76 children in all. By now, those figures must be hopelessly outdated.

Despite his advancing years or because of the large family/families who keep him young, the elder and former Senator Revilla is not out of touch. He put his foot down on the titillations offered up by Bong’s fans, the ones egging him on to stand for election as vice president, and bluntly told Bong that in his opinion the senator was “too young” to make a good VP. “Father knows best,” said the father. “Father knows best,” said his son. Ergo, Senator Bong Revilla is a reelectionist, and very likely a shoo-in.

There are other legislators and would-be legislators whose fathers are not exclusive to their official or main family, and that can only mean three things. One, there will never be a divorce law in this country, if only because alimony is a high-maintenance item. Two, voters will continue not to mind voting for men who own or belong to more than one family. Three, experience shows that candidates with multiple families tend to gather more votes.

Last Sunday, as the priest asked the fathers in church to stand up for a special blessing, I could not help but wonder if the Dolphys and Ramon Revillas of this world were a vanishing breed due to the current laws of economics prevailing over the laws of morality. Charge it to the cost(s) of (unrelenting, unsurrendering) romance, but I don’t think any of the progeny of the two gentlemen can afford to inherit and replicate their male parent’s macho image.