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LETTER FROM THE PHILIPPINES
SPORTING NATION
FROM PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL TO IMAGINATIVE CHILDHOOD GAMES, THE PHILIPPINES OFFERS UP A RICH TAPESTRY OF SPORTING PASSIONS
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BY COLM MEANEY CSsR
Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao
Everybody needs a break, climb a mountain, jump in a lake”. Ah yes, the immortal words of one of our greatest wordsmiths, Christy Moore, from his wonderful ‘Lisdoonvarna’. The seemingly simple lyrics contain a profound truth: all work and no play make Jack a dull boy. A life bereft of relaxation or entertainment or sport is surely an unremittingly boring, repetitive life.
Sports, whether individual or team events, are of ancient provenance. The Greek Olympic games began in the 8th century BC; the game of hurling is at least 3,000 years in existence; chess has been played for at least 1,500 years.
Quite apart from any enjoyment experienced in playing games, there are also beneficial side effects: the discipline inculcated through regular training; the rewards, to self and others, of perseverance; the chance to be creative, to do the unexpected; the simple gain of getting exercise. Not to be scoffed at is the element of competitiveness, of wanting to win. This is not a vice but rather a measure of one’s dedication to the game – to not want to win is surely an indication of indifference. This is exactly what St Paul says in his letter to Timothy: “I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race” (2 Tim 4:7). And he says elsewhere: “So I run with purpose in every step; I am not just shadow-boxing” (1 Cor 9:26). And while, according to St Paul, what we are striving for is the crown that will never perish (1 Cor 9:25), nevertheless our worldly sports are surely a step, however humble, on that memorable path. Allow me to describe a few of the sports and pastimes beloved of Filipinos.
“ SPORTSMANSHIP The all-time popular team sport is basketball, thanks to the American presence here, officially for a good part of the 20th century and even more pervasively now in the era of the internet and social media. In Manila, there are professional teams, often including foreign players; but even in the most remote hillside village you will find a ring attached to a tree trunk or tacked onto the side of a building. There, a few of the local youngsters will practise their passing and scoring skills and will occasionally organise a league with neighbouring villages, especially if the annual fiesta of the village is approaching. These games are taken quite seriously and the decisions of the paid referee are accepted as infallible. These can be quite touching affairs, when the organisers arrange for a simple sound-
system to be provided so that there is a running commentary during the game. Around the basketball court are the nearby rice paddies, the corn fields, the distant hills, the setting sun, while the game is played under a floodlight or two, and the commentators make sure to praise every deft move of their own team, while not failing to note any lapse on the opposing side! But there is no ill-will, no rancour; all is in a spirit of enjoyable sportsmanship and honest competition.
The most famous Filipino sportsman of recent years is, of course, the boxer Manny Pacquiao. He came to prominence in the early years of this century: his goal, like any boxer, to apply as many injuries as he could to his opponent’s body. While this ‘sport’ may exhibit such estimable traits as dedication and fancy footwork (avoiding the opponent’s punches), I find the overall result somehow disappointing: the reduction of one man to the status of something demeaning of what we are made to be.
Do a nation’s sports reflect the character of that country? Hardly. I mean, the English love their bowling on the village green, surely the essence of placid civility; yet they also revel in their pitbull fighting (illegal), not to mention the rough-and-tumble of rugby. The Spaniards love their football, but also their bullfighting. Sports, I think, reflect more the ethos of different groups in a society, rather than the nation as a whole.
SIMPLE GAMES
The Philippines, also, can accommodate a variety of sports and entertainments, from the basketball and boxing already mentioned, to simple games, the fruit of childhood ingenuity. It is the poorer children especially who exemplify the saying about necessity being the mother of invention. Without the wherewithal to buy expensive toys or gadgets, they create their own simple games, similar to ourselves as youngsters when we played conkers or marbles or kicked a football on the road. The girls have a game whereby they string rubber bands together until they stretch to 3 or 4 metres. These then are held between two girls and the contestant tries to catch the band with her foot, bringing it to the ground. The band is then held increasingly higher, even reaching shoulder-high and the leaps of the contestant become progressively more acrobatic, all accompanied by whoops of glee from all involved.
For the boys, one of their games is called Sipa (literally ‘to kick’): it is a traditional native sport which predates Spanish rule. The aim of the game is to kick a soft ball, made from rattan fragments, back and forth over a net in the middle of the court. The sport requires speed, agility and ball control. The ball can only be struck using the foot and cannot touch the ground. It’s played on school playgrounds, but mostly in the rural areas. My sense is that it’s a fast-disappearing pastime, what with the ever-increasing encroachment of the world of hi-tech gadgetry.
DARK SIDE OF SPORT
Dispiritingly for a nation of gentle, welcoming people, some Filipino pastimes involving animals are transparently violent – although it must be said that the spectators are almost always males. Cockfighting is extremely popular all over the country. It goes back to at least the 4th century BC, and ranges from multi-millionpeso derbies in the big cities to informal bouts in the villages. The roosters involved in the bigtime fights are reared in customised air-conditioned coops and are fed specialised feeds. For the fight, a razor-sharp blade is attached to the cock’s foot and thus the violence is done: fowl play for sure. Blood is drawn pretty quickly and the winning owner claims the dead bird as one of his trophies. Intriguingly, the man taking the bets for the fight is known as kristo because of the posture of having his two arms outstretched as he accepts wagers from all sides.
Much more deserving of the title Kristo is the main figure in Goya’s disturbing yet inspiring painting entitled The Third of May, 1808 – incidentally, another scene where copious amounts of blood are shed. The canvas depicts an execution scene, as members of the Spanish rebellion against Napoleon face a firing squad of robot-like troops. The main figure, dwarfing the others in size, his white shirt caught in the gleam of the lantern, has his arms stretched out Christ-like, in a gesture both of acceptance of his fate, yet defiance at the inhuman forces causing it.
The Third of May, 1808 by Francisco Goya
