Coco Martin is inarguably one of the most popular and bankable actors in local showbiz today, but what people usually say about him is that he hasn’t allowed his success to go to his head.
For one thing, Coco has always been proud of his roots—his beginnings as a tricycle driver and a dutiful son of a tireless jeepney driver.
Coco comes from a family of jeepney drivers and he’s not one to hide this fact. His grandfather made a living driving a jeepney and was able to provide for his family and meet the needed expenses in raising his children. Coco’s father continued this particular family legacy and provided for the family by driving a jeepney as well.
Humble beginnings
At an early age, the young Rodel Luis Pacheco Nacianceno or Coco to us now, learned to drive a tricycle and took passengers so he could earn enough for his school baon.
His father was also the one who taught him to drive a four-wheeled vehicle and would tag him along as his back ride. He would also almost always be asked to wash and sometime even fix the engine of the jeepney his father drove.
He saw how his father took very good care of their jeepney and would not scrimp on fuel and high-quality engine oil. Coco even remembers his father telling him that the engine oil is the lifeblood of any vehicle and that what we put inside the engine should be of good quality. “Using high-quality oil is critical when driving and maintaining a jeepney,” Coco’s father used to say.
With this in mind, Coco’s father mainly used Shell Rimula as their jeepney’s motor oil. Coco recalls that his father used Shell Rimula because he wanted to achieve a cleaner and crisper engine sound, which Rimula gives.
“Naaalala ko na inaalagaan namin ng mabuti ang sasakyan na pinapasada niya nuon, kaya yung tatay ko Shell Rimula talaga ang ginagamit at wala nang iba,” Coco recalls. “Iba kasi ang takbo ng jeep na gamit ng tatay ko nuon pag Shell Rimula ang gamit eh. Damang-dama mo ang hatak at ang lakas ng makina,” Coco adds.
Coco’s father did not own the jeepney he was driving and was just paying the operator the daily “boundary” so he could use it to ply his route.
So, when he was already earning enough from doing Indie films, Coco bought his father three tricycles as well as a brand-new jeepney, which his father still uses to ply the same route he has driven for the past 30 years.
Coco now says he has not forgotten the jeepney driver friends his father made all these years and applies the same friendship to his tricycle drivers now that he, too, is a tricycle operator. He says that growing up driving a tricycle, he knows everyone in the TODA in their area.
Pride in one’s roots
Considering his roots as the son of a jeepney driver, Coco has always had a high reverence for hardworking public utility drivers who brave the elements and the traffic gridlocks just to earn a decent living for their families.
“All drivers are deserving to be considered tsuperstars because it is not easy to drive all day under any road condition and in any kind of weather,” Coco stresses, adding that the service they provide the public every day is unparalleled and will always be considered noble, making the future in more ways than one.
And just like the legacy of Coco Martin’s family that has been passed on for generations, Shell’s legacy in its 105 years of operation has been the creation of high-quality engine oils that have been powering engines for decades now, while making the future for drivers by protecting engines, improving cleanliness, and decreasing engine wear.
Legacies are important and Coco Martin’s tsuperstar father and grandfather have been essential in shaping him to become the artist and achiever that he is today.
