(This was my Fair Play column for SunStar Cebu’s July 22 edition)
A FEW years back, Pinoy football super fans Craig Burrows and Santi Araneta took a dip at a hotel fountain. Nobody told them off for it, in fact everybody was secretly wishing they could do it. It was the final of the Peace Cup and the Philippines just won its first trophy in men’s football.
Things like that are a tradition in sports.
So I was surprised at how the celebratory dip of John Pages, Acting Vice Mayor Dondon Hontiveros, medical committee head Dr. Rhoel Dejano and volunteer Renzo del Rosario got a negative treatment with most of the story highlighting the rules of the pool which they supposedly violated.
The rules cited were for those who want to swim at the pool, which at that time, has yet to be opened to the public. The rules didn’t specify banning celebratory dips, do they?
Because that was what it was–a celebratory dip plain and simple.
Context is important, our former boss Pacheco A. Seares use to say and his grand son Renzo, who used to serenade us during SunStar Cebu newsroom activities when he was a kid became a victim of a story without a context.
I was told the story treatment left an unwanted taste in other media covering this year’s Palaro.
Mistakes are normal in this line of business and I hope the writer learned from his. In events like the Palarong Pambansa, we always look for the success and feel good stories because they are a plenty. The sports pages, as the joke then was, were where people turn to when they get tired of the front pages.
And in this year’s Palaro there were a lot of overlooked stories—starting from the story of how the pool itself was renovated. The generous friends of John Pages, a fellow columnist in this paper who is now the chair of the Cebu City Sports Commission.
There’s Doc Dejano and Renzo too, who were part of a medical team that rivalled that of a Southeast Asian Games, the first for a Palaro. There’s Mendel Lopez, the third-party surveyor, and a former champion middle-distance runner from Cebu who is now married to Lohriz Echavez-Lopez, a former champion swimmer.
They credit their success in life to Abellana, their home as athletes, and the survey was their way of giving back to this generation of athletes.
Even unsuccessful teams have their own stories, like how volunteers and donors helped the Carmen baseball teams in their preparation for the Palarong Pambansa.
These were all overlooked, but I hope not in future palaro.
To everyone involved in the Palarong Pambansa, congratulations on a job well done.
Take a bow.
Or a dip.