MY FATHER is a preacher. People are surprised when I tell them this. Who wouldn't be? At 18, I started to be sexually active. At 22, I got myself pregnant out of wedlock and became a single parent at 23.

My parents both went to Bible school. We said grace before meals, and prayed at bedtime. On Sundays, we woke up early, had a light breakfast and went to church, never forgetting our Bibles. Going to church without a Bible was like going to war without ammunition. How can you fight the devil if you're not equipped, was my Sunday school teacher's words.

When I got older, I too taught at Sunday school, and even volunteered to teach at Vacation Bible School. I never cursed, and only watched "wholesome" movies and television shows. Watching people kiss onscreen made me feel guilty.

Skimpy shorts were a no-no for me. Not that I was not allowed to wear them, but because our preacher had always mentioned that a woman had to be modest and dress appropriately. Showing some skin might make some men fall into temptation, he stressed.

We were not rich, but it was a given. A preacher should only have enough to survive. Still, my parents managed to send me to the best schools in the city where i grew up. When I passed the UP College Entrance Test, I was half-expecting my parents to say no. After all, UP was known for its activism and liberalism. My parents certainly didn't want me to come home with loose morals.

In UP, I got to know people who didn't believe in God, practiced premarital sex, smoked and drank liquor, and said "Putang ina." I learned to accept my friends who started to smoke and drink, although I didn't take up the habit myself, and even started muttering "shit" when I got pissed. When I started asking my friends if they would still accept me if I got pregnant out of wedlock, they were worried, thinking that I was starting to be sexually active (although I didn't have sex until I was 18). They figured that UP had changed me a lot. I was still a little shy, like I was in high school, but I was more lax and accepting with other people's "faults."

For months, when I was pregnant, I stopped going to church. I didn't know how to explain to people that my ex-boyfriend had deserted me. When asked, I would tell them that I had gotten secretly married, and that my husband had gone to the US to work (my ex-boyfriend was indeed planning to go to the States then, but he has yet to leave). It wouldn't have been shameful had my father not been a preacher. What made it more unbearable was knowing that people would wonder what went wrong, and blame it all on my UP education.

They may be half-right. I don't think my views about premarital sex would have changed had I not gone to UP. I never had sex without the guilt. I have stopped reading the Bible since, and although I would like to resume my old habit of reading a chapter every night at bedtime, I decided not to. It felt sacrilegious to be reading the Bible and having sex after. Even taking the communion seemed unspeakable.

Just recently, my ex-boyfriend's (who, by God's grace, had asked me to marry him when he comes back from the United States next year) girlfriend wrote my father to tell me how shameful I was, that I wasn't acting like a respectable woman when I e-mailed my ex, in jest, that I had been "tigang" for months.

My father had reacted violently, saying that I had shamed the family, and that it was so beneath me to be running after the man who had fathered my son. I kept quiet, as always, and didn't defend myself. I had been brought up not to speak up for myself, or answer my parents. After all, I grew up reciting: "Honor your father and mother, so that your days may be long upon this earth, which the Lord thy God giveth thee."

For now, I do not know what to do. I wrote a reply to my dad, which is still in my PC, saying that my use of the word was not done with malice, and that I felt it was but normal for my ex and I to have a private joke because of our past. I explained that my stay in UP had enabled me to overcome my repressions, that I considered it but normal to discuss sex like the weather.

But I do not know if my father will believe me or forgive me for this. I have deleted my parents' and my sisters' numbers in my cellphone, and tried not to contact them anymore. I told myself that I was willing to be disowned, and that I didn't want to give my parents any more shame. I am trying to save some money so I could get my son from them. I do not intend to show my face to them ever.

I still go to church, although half-heartedly. I hope to be able to take communion without any guilt, and yes, I told my ex that I was willing to marry him next year. Not to make an honest woman of myself, because I know I can work on it alone, but because after all the trouble and heartaches that he gave me, I still love him.

Maybe one day, I can be the wholesome, morally upright person that my parents have always wanted me to be. For now, I'd like to put my life back in order. Ask God for forgiveness and mean it, and learn to forgive the people who have caused me such pain and resentment: my ex, his current girlfriend, my family, my other ex-boyfriends, and others I need not mention. And yes, no premarital sex for me, please, until I get married.

Raven has a journalism degree from the U.P, which her father regrets having sent her to. She is working on getting over the stigma of being the black sheep of the family. Although she has no plans of making up with her parentsin the near future, she hopes to iron out her differences with her father before he dies.