For the past two weeks, a stray dog named Buboy has sat outside the faculty office at Mabalacat City College in Pampanga, Philippines. The pup scrapes at the door, hoping his favorite person will come out and give him some food or a scratch behind the ear.
The sight of the mottled dog waiting hopefully is breaking the hearts of the school’s staff and students — because they know his dad isn’t coming back. Professor Carmelito Marcelo, who has taken care of Buboy for the last four years, passed away on Saturday from a stroke after a few weeks’ stay in the hospital.
According to Kristina Demafelix, Marcelo’s colleague, the dog followed the professor everywhere. Buboy would greet the professor at the gate in the morning, trailing after him from class to class. They ate lunch together in the faculty office, and at the end of the day, the dog would see the teacher off at the gate.
Even when Marcelo didn’t have classes, he would visit his pup. “He considered you family,” Demafelix wrote in a Facebook post. “When he has no classes, sir will go to school to look at you and give you food.”
Demafelix first noticed the dog hanging around the faculty office while the professor was in the hospital. But when Buboy continued to wait, Demafelix decided to help the stressed animal find closure.
“You can’t express all the pain because you don’t know what happened,” Demafelix wrote on Facebook. “Suddenly he didn’t go to school but still you are waiting outside the faculty room where you are always waiting for him, you are always waiting for his arrival.”
Demafelix brought Buboy to Marcelo’s wake on Tuesday, to help the dog say a final goodbye to his beloved friend. Buboy paid his respects, gazing at his friend lying in the coffin. But when it came time to leave, the dog refused to budge. “Buboy doesn’t want to let go of the coffin of sir Marcelo,” Demafelix wrote online.
Now that the professor is gone, members of the faculty and staff are coming together to care for Buboy collectively. “All of the school’s concerned about Buboy,” Demafelix wrote on Facebook, “and the school is the one who became his home.”
