A hot soup for a Sunday chill

It was a cold Sunday indeed. Strangely enough, at a time when summer should be knocking by the door, it was awfully chilling this weekend. I had a hot soup to mix with a Sunday chill to share.

Down with colds, I had a short run Sunday then retired to my couch to watch a heap of boxing treat. First, there was Pinoy Pride III. Cebu City once again proved to the world that it has emerged as a sports destination and its management capabilities in sports is at par with the world’s standards.

This is once again displayed when the queen city of the South hosted the Pinoy Pride III featuring the rematch between Filipino upstart Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista against archnemesis Alejandro Barrera at the posh Waterfront Hotel.

Boom Boom stopped Barrera in three rounds of their rematch last Saturday in what was to be his best outing we have seen in years. For a while it looked like Boom Boom’s career was on a downslide. With Saturday’s win, he has a lot of good fights waiting down the road.

But the biggest victor in Saturday’s card was Cebu City and its organizers who showed the rest of the world that it can stage world fights such as this one. In one fight where an Indonesian boxer Billy Sumba was sent to dreamland by a young 18-year old Pinoy phenom, the timely and well-equipped medical team came to the Indon’s rescue.

In another boxing match elsewhere in Detroit, WBO welterweight titlist Tim Bradley won the unification match with WBC champ Devon Alexander. Bradley boldly called out Manny Pacquiao after the bout which ended in an ugly technical decision due to headbutt injuries suffered by Alexander.

You think Bradley is ready for Manny?

From where I sat, Bradley will be a good striker for the Azkals with his headbutting. Against Manny, the one-dimensional fighter won’t stand a chance. He can be a good fight against Juan Manuel Marquez though.

That was as far as my cold Sunday took me. And now for the hot soup.

Some people have it that when someone writes something bad about you in the papers, you are being attacked personally.

I beg to disagree.

When writers like us discuss issues here, we take the man out of the issue and focus on the act. Especially when the acts done are official acts. It’s nothing personal. In fact, if you care about the man, you point out the wrong instead of tolerating it.

Those who try two sweet-coat and defend the man are there not really there because they care for the man.

That is the difference.

Many times in this career, people talk you out to sanitize your written thoughts. I simply ask you not.

It’s the recent events that make me sick. Almost puke in disgust.

It’s really getting to be frustrating. How provisions in civil service are being rail-roaded and mocked at here and how private acts are not distinguished from official government acts. I could not even imagine how a simple one year election ban can be made easily violated. I need not elaborate but truth will come out. Sports may be a world of fiction and drama but reality is still the beat that everyone will have to hum with when all the presscon talk is over.

I simply wished for decency here. Propriety. Must I be forced to respect someone who does not respect simple provisions of law and simple propriety?

Pardon me but I could not close my eyes on this. I will not speak for those in this same sporting profession. They have their own opinion and I respect that. But I would rather be the only man talking than be silent forever.

In legal parlance, you call it estoppel. If you sleep on your rights, you will be barred from enforcing it. When you are called to speak and you don’t, you are silenced for the rest of your life.

As far as I’m concerned, that is totally unacceptable.

I’d drink my hot soup for that.

Tennis and other not so prioritized sports need loving too

MASTER BLASTER

Neil Bravo

The Philippines has found another gem in future tennis hero Jeson Patrombon who hails from Iligan City. And there is reason enough to be ecstatic.

Jeson made it to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open juniors singles tournament in Melbourne and barely missed the bus to the semifinals with a 3-setter loss to British George Morgan. The 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 loss is nothing to be ashamed of for the Mindanaoan netter.

Patrombon is the next big thing to Philippine tennis after Francis Casey Alcantara, another junior standout from Mindanao. Nino, as he is fondly called by peers, is a child prodigy out of Cagayan de Oro City who won the juniors doubles title in the 2009 Australian Open in tandem with Hsieh Cheng-peng. The duo beat Mikhal Biryukov and Yasutaka Uchiyama in the finals, 6-4 -2.

I remember the early years of Alcantara when I took some of the kids under the Project Olympkids program of Davao Oriental in tournaments during the summer. He was a promising young kid guided by his dad in the courts of Nazareth Tennis Club in CDO. The same club is now headed by my college buddy and former Ateneo standout Johnnel Llavore who now calls CDO his home.

Patrombon and Alcantara form the nucleus of what could be the future of Philippine tennis. What’s good about it is that these boys come from Mindanao which is a perennial factory mill of tennis standouts. Tennis in Mindanao has always produced champions in several national tournaments. Many of those ended playing for colleges in Manila. A few like Alcantara, Patrombon and Davao’s Ralph Kevin Barte made it to the national juniors Davis Cup squad.

I remember Barte forming part of the rival troika in the juniors circuit with Ed Angelo Diez of Davao del Sur and James Patrick Pang of Davao Oriental. Diez eventually played for La Salle while Pang suited up for UP in the UAAP. Pang, who used his tennis scholarship to earn a Human Kinetics degree in UP, is now working for Maynilad Water. Another notable player is El Santo Santos who hails from Davao del Norte. I had the privilege of guiding Santos win a gold medal in the 2007 EAGA Friendship Games beating a power-hitting Indonesian in intense heat in Makassar City, Indonesia. Santos and Pang also teamed up to win the silver in the same tournament. Santos made it double silver after teaming up with Steffi Dizon in the mixed doubles.

The future of Mindanao tennis looks brighter even today with a number of standouts making good in the juniors ranks. Paolo Cansino, son of PHILTA regional director Titong Cansino, is one of the torch-bearers of Mindanao tennis along with Davao Oriental’s Geleardo Amazona, son of another former tennis standout Bebing of the famous racquet-wielding Amazona brothers of Mati.

If tennis continues to reap the fruits of its labor, credit the efforts of the elder Cansino who has devoted his time promoting tennis in Mindanao. A former tennis standout himself, Titong has been in the tennis program of Philta for the past two decades.

The bottomline is that we have a situation here where a sport could be Mindanao’s bright spot in sports. At a time of tennis resurgence in the country with the recent successes of the Cecil Mamiit-led Philippine teams, Mindanao could be the best breeding ground for future tennis stars of the land.

I believe that tennis should be given a close look as a possible focus sport for Mindanao and Davao City. Tennis could go the way of boxing in terms of development.

But where does tennis sit in the priority of sports in a big city like Davao? Maybe not in the top 5. But it deserves to be there along with diving, billiards, boxing and athletics.

Problem is, these events do not appear to be the focus sports in the order of priority for development and support. Basketball stays as number one. I wonder. Where we had so much failure, people tasked with developing sports put their money and mouths where it should not be.

Again, I have nothing against a particular sport, but the point we are driving at here is simple recognition. Simple situations require simple solutions. Do not fool us with social commitment or breaking the chains of poverty. Books are a good source of learning and for making people sound deeply thinking and filled with wisdom. Be wary though. Words can be deceiving. Remember, words thrown in the air are weightless.

Let us put premium on action and results.

Like what tennis has produced in Patrombon and Alcantara, and also Cansino and Amazona.

Our very own children like Cansino and Amazona and many others in tennis and other sports not as popular but productive, deserve our attention, support and recognition. These sports need some loving too.

Will the other sports please stand up. It’s time we raise a howl.

Senator Lapid must honor his mandate

My friend from the Senate informed me the other day that Senator Lito Lapid, chairman of the Senate Committee on Games, Amusement and Sports, was absent since November.

“He applied for a leave of absence last November 15 until December 19 to go to the States, he asked for an extension but (Senate) President Juan Ponce Enrile did not approve it,” said my source. Senator Lapid reportedly went to the United States. He has not reported since.

Among the bills waiting for appropriate Committee action is SB 2620 filed by Senator Pia Cayetano. The Bill aims to create the Philippine High School for Sports. Another bill filed by Senator Angara calls for the creation of a Philippine Sports University. These bills could be consolidated as they are crafted for the same purpose of creating an educational institution for Filipino athletes.

Senator Pia is the vice chair of the Committee along with Senator Migs Zubiri. However, without express authority from the chair, the two lawmakers cannot also call a Committee hearing.

Senator Lapid, who is from Pampanga (I wrote Pangasinan erroneously earlier), hopefully attends the opening of the Senate’s first session of the year. Senate Committee hearings set for January 11 to 14 did not bear any schedule from the GAS Committee.

Here’s hoping Senator Lapid honors his mandate. I’ll keep tab until my source feeds me the latest on this subject.

Let me take a different walk through the local sports scene. The Davao Sportswriters Association (DSA) will soon be known as the Davao City Sportswriters Association, Inc.

The new name will take effect as soon as the incorporation papers of the oldest sports media organization in Mindanao will be approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The incorporation has been a long overdue process for the sportswriters’ group which has been existing for 16 years.

The process of reserving the name took me just a few seconds though via the new online reservation process of the SEC. Impressive. I could barely imagine that all of 16 years wait could end in just a few seconds.

Attorney Javey Paul Francisco, regional chief of SEC, introduced me to this wonderful innovation of registering via online when I paid him a visit last month. Jinggo, as we call him, is a classmate in Law School at Ateneo. His wife Kara is a classmate of mine too in elementary.

Back to Sec. I believe that registering online helped a lot in declogging the piles and piles of documents lodged at the SEC.

There are some glitches in the system though. Jinggo admits that not everything is perfect. If you register online, the name you want to be reserved may not be admitted because of its close similarity to another corporate name. In a face-to-face human transaction, an applicant can plead his case. This one, you cannot appeal your case with a machine. So if the machine does not admit your name, you have to think of another until the name you entered is available.

When this happens, however, Jinggo says you can still get the name you want by appealing your case personally now with the SEC registry desk. That means, where the machine fails, human intervention comes into play.

Now, we just need to wait a while after paying the reservation fee. The next step is to formulate your own by-laws which you can do by just ticking on the boxes where it correspond to your corporate purpose.

Brilliant.

Notes: Belated birthday greetings to colleague Joji Alcantara, my sister Leah, and batchmate Julius Espina. As I was writing this, it is 1-11-11. For whatever that means, no number combinations can ever match God’s power over us.

Will the real Leon Guerrero please show up?

He was on a dead end of the road, madly chased down by two bandits with their smoking pistols aimed at him. He checks his .38 caliber revolver and discovered he had just one more bullet left there. Two against one. Is this the end of the road for the quick-handed pistolero?

Just when you think this was the end of the line for the big screen hero, he pulls out a dagger, places the blade in between the bore of his pistol, then pulls the trigger. The blade slices the blazing metal and, like guided missiles, darted towards its target. The two villains fall down one after the other from the half-slug that hit them.

Not even Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino could have thought of that in their movies.

Yes, only a Lito Lapid can.

I must admit, when I was a kid I was a big fan of action movies starring the bemoustached stuntman from Pangasinan. He was the consummate hero and gentleman. He was always at the right place at the right time, whether rescuing a damsel from her would-be rapists or as a horse-riding Leon Guerrero saving a boy from a rushing train.

Those movie antics have made Lito Lapid a household hero among Filipino masses who thought that his acrobatic stunts leaping from one building to another or evading a barrage of bullets are enough reason to make this on-screen hero their hero in the halls of Senate.

Senator Lapid is now the chairman of the Senate Committee on Games, Amusement and Sports. I do not know the wisdom behind the order the three subjects were arranged in this committee, but Sports is last after Games and Amusement. This Committee is one of the 37 Committees in the Senate and by all sheer luck this was the chairmanship that fell on the table of Senator Lapid.

Alright, I would not doubt Senator Lapid’s capabilities as far as amusement is concerned. In this subject matter, he is the lead star of the Senate, whatever that means. Games and Sports are almost synonymous and this is the sad part.

Why of all committees it had to be sports, already a least prioritized item on the Philippines’ development agenda, which fell on the hands of Senator Lapid? Makes me wonder. Is sports that cursed?

For the record, Senator Lapid reportedly owns the dubious distinction of having the most absences in Senate. And if ever he attends a session, you will find yourself lucky if he ever talks at all.

Sports legislation is among the cures Philippine sports needed. Senator Pia Cayetano and Senator Angara passed separate Senate Bills calling for the creation of the Philippine Sports High School and the Philippine Sports University. Both bills can be consolidated once the Committee hears the proposed bill.

Problem is, there has been no call for a hearing by the Games, Amusement and Sports Committee. Worse, Senator Lapid is rarely found in his seat. How can we file these bills that needed to be passed in order to give sports a necessary shot in the arm if the Committee cannot call a hearing?

In his movies, Senator Lapid would always be ahead of the law enforcers. He would take the bandits with him and bring them to the arms of the law. But that was the movies. In the Senate, he is reportedly missed by his peers. His table at the session hall is like a deserted village left ransacked by bandits out of his cowboy movies.

Will the real Leon Guerrero please show up?

There he was on the dead end of the road chased by bills that needed to be heard. If Senator Lapid is not happy with his Committee, or at least one-third of it, he better give it to those who can steer it better and get the legislative machine moving.

This is no longer the silver screen. He cannot fire back with an empty pistol. Not even with a dull dagger.

Yes, Joker, a sports office is not for intramurals

I was in church Sunday morning when I got this message from a good friend. It was an invitation to a chess tournament from James Infiesto at the Blue Jaz in nearby Samal Island.

James, whose face and name is easily recognizable as a performing magician, is a friend from way back in college. He is the regional president of the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) and that gives him the right to act as the NSA representative for chess in this part of the country.

I begged off from the invitation but not after thanking the guy for his effort to reach out. That’s what real sportsmen are.

James is rumoured to be in the shortlist of candidates as head of the city’s sports development office which remain idle and headless since new Mayor Sara Duterte took office. Personally, I like James but I heard that a consultant from city hall is pushing for another candidate who does not have any experience in managing an office either in government service or the private sector.

Coming from a supposed experienced manager, that has to be a very poor choice.

I cannot help but be ribbed about this latest comic development. First, you got someone who could be breaking Section 94 (b) of the Local Government Code. Then you got a recommendation for someone to head a vital position without a development management experience on his curriculum vitae. I don’t even know about the other Civil Service requirements either.

But what is intriguing and mysterious, if not scandalous, is the choice of this candidate as possible head of the sports office?

I cannot help but recall to mind the words of Senator Jokey Arroyo when he compared the Cabinet of President Noy as “student council.” Is the city sports office also going the way of a school intramurals?

It’s still too early to say. But the Mayor should be told that there is something really mysterious about this recommendation. Then she’d probably start researching why.

This is nothing personal. We all are for sports development in the city and we know that the Mayor is serious about this. With all humility, I have seen sports in this city from the outside and inside for some time now. This is the chance for the Mayor to redeem the scorecards the Dutertes had in the subject of sports.

It starts with the right people. It’s not the money. The city can run a sports program with its resources. Problem is, someone has to chart the blueprint of a serious and realistic sports program. Someone who is loaded in this subject between the ears. Someone who has earned his spurs in school and in experience. Not something popped like magic. Not air between ears. Not empty promises. Not NATO.

You know what NATO is?

No action talk only.

Some people will be disguised like geniuses, visionary, but they are not. They move about around up there. Up close with the powers that be.

James is close to the Mayor but he says he will never sell himself so hard. On stage wherever the Mayor visits barangays, James does all the acts that are comic, mysterious and magical. But the Mayor knows James’ magical acts are merely for stage purposes only.

Unlike some mysterious, magical acts by some people.

I wonder.