What bothers me?
By: Luis Emmanuel G. Fleta
We are a nation so in love and so obsessed with basketball, yet basketball just doesn’t seem to love us back – and with our Men’s Senior National Team, basketball is becoming harder and harder to love.
Citizenship has sometimes become synonymous, if not, closely linked to the concept of Patriotism and Nationalism. “Identifying oneself as part of a nation and showing support for the nation’s interest” - indeed, what better example for this than by showing love to our very own Gilas Pilipinas.
With the FIBA World Cup still ongoing as of this writing, it is disheartening to say the least watching our Men’s side as they have suffered a cumulative 108 point differential against Serbia, Italy and Angola. We never really expected to dominate and win a lot of games in this tournament, but being beaten black and blue just wasn’t in the agenda.
Although we were never really expected to win, we were expected to fight, to show grit and grind in these games, to exemplify our famous battle cry – “Puso.” Yet the opposite happened.
I would no longer go into the details of why our basketball program failed to show fruit in the highest stage of competition. Let’s just say it was a combination of failures – lack of preparation and training, injuries, an isolation style of basketball, and most notably socio-political conflict of interest among the officials from the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA). And as our losses kept piling up, our known avid supporters in social media have turned into our team’s very own hecklers and haters to say the least.
With this, I have noticed relatable parallels with the current socio-political situation of our country with our status in international basketball.
What bothers me is that despite this government’s “war against drugs” which is killing thousands of wrongly accused and innocent collaterals, Duterte’s trust and approval ratings remain high.
What bothers me is that amidst obvious exploitation of the Chinese government on our territorial waters, our government remains oblivious and silent on the issue.
What bothers me is that while our small-time farmers are being killed in Negros, multi-national companies and plantations are being protected and assured of land ownership.
What bothers me is that we are a nation with immense pride and passion, yet because of the questionable choices and policies of the Duterte administration - our country is becoming harder and harder to love, much like our beloved basketball team.
