Champions
February 20, 2010
If only to do my patriotic duty, let me extend my congratulations to
Manny Pacquiao for his smashing victory over the Mexican boxer, David
Diaz, earning for himself his fourth world boxing title.
He has done his country and countrymen proud. In these trying times,
buffeted as we are by natural and man-made disasters on a weekly
basis, and starved as we are for heroes in the flesh, Manny Pacquiao
is a real boost to our sagging national ego.
Actually, I do not like boxing. I did not watch his fight in Las
Vegas. I do not enjoy watching anyone, not even a Mexican boxer, being
beaten to a bloody pulp by another person, even for “sport.”
The first and last boxing match I have ever watched in my entire life
was the title match between Floyd Patterson and Archie Moore – did I
get the names right? – in Chicago half a century ago.
My housemate Jimmy, who is a real boxing aficionado and who now lives
in Australia, convinced the rest of us in our Evanston rooming house
to take the El to Chicago for the fight.
I do not recall any memorable incident that evening, except that I
predicted out loud that the fight would end at 9:30. Sure enough, at
9:30, someone – it must have been Moore – got knocked down or out. I
should have been a boxing bookie.
During the weekend of the Pacquiao-Diaz fight, I was watching replays
of the Euro 2008 UEFA football (soccer to Americans) quarterfinals,
semi-finals and finals in Basel and Vienna.
I had signed up with SkyCable for live broadcasts, but later changed
my mind when I found out that all or most of the live coverage started
at 2:45 in the morning. Never having worked as a call center agent or
as a night watchman, I didn’t think I could stay awake from 2:45 to
5:30 a.m. everyday for several days. So I had to settle for replays
from Solar Sports through Paranaque Cable, to which one of our TV sets
is fortuitously wired.
Of course, watching football replays with full knowledge of who had
won and who had lost, and by how many points, robs one of the
edge-of-your seat suspense and excitement inherent in a well-contested
game.
But there was still the sheer joy of watching well-executed plays and
expert ball-handling by some of the best football players in the
world. This would be almost akin to watching, again and again,
world-class gymnastics – my favorite spectator sport – performed by
champions and would-be champions in previous years.
Anyone who has watched national teams compete in such championships as
the UEFA and the World Cup know the explosions of national pride that
accompany each victory, as the league progressed. Euro 2008 was no
exception..
Sports champions become national icons. And well they should be,
because they personify the self-esteem their victories generate in the
national psyches. Excellence in sports is actually a tool in
nation-building. Which is why the governments in the then socialist
countries (the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Cuba) all invested
heavily in developing world-class athletes
I am surprised that with the world-wide acknowledgement of Manny
Pacquiao, there is no attempt by the Arroyo government to enlist his
endorsement of a nationwide search for new, younger talents through
the medium of nationwide competitions for different age brackets .
Much as I dislike boxing as a sport, I know that it is very popular,
especially among the low income sectors.
And not just in boxing. I am surprised that with several world class
champions that we have in billiards, there is no attempt by the
government to search and develop new and younger talents in this sport
through nationwide competitions for different age brackets.
Even more than boxing, billiards is very popular, especially among the
low income sectors. There are literally thousands of billiard halls
all over the country. An organized competition nationwide, if properly
promoted and marketed, would discover dozens of potential world-class
champions who would help build national pride, as well as earn good
money for their families.
Why stop with boxing and billiards? This country has not produced
world-class tennis players since Felicisimo Ampon in the 1950s. Why
not organize nationwide competitions among ball boys (‘pulot boys’)
and nameless pros who earn their living in the country clubs of the
filthy rich?
So also would nationwide competitions among the caddies in the golf
clubs of the filthy rich. We have not produced a world-class golfer
since the time of Celestino Tugot in the 1960s.
With our low self-esteem because of decades of poor governance by the
trapos and their political dynasties, we need more champions in sports
to remind ourselves that we are as good as anybody else in the world.
Sports are the best training ground for excellence because they teach
the virtues of hard work, self-discipline and fair play. Unlike the
vices of instant yaman, social anarchy and pervasive dishonesty which
our trapo culture has embedded in our national psyche through decades
of misrule. . *****
All reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles in www.tapatt.org
and in acabaya.blogspot.com.
A Desperate Solution?
January 10, 2009
A Desperate Solution?
By Antonio C. Abaya
ConCon, not ConAss
December 14, 2008
ConCon, not ConAss
By Antonio C. Abaya
Bishops versus Queen
November 13, 2008
By Antonio C. Abaya
Those were harsh words that five Roman Catholic bishops spoke against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, as quoted in the Oct. 29 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
“Twenty million hungry Filipinos will disagree with the proclaimed ‘ramdam ang kaunlaran‘ (progress is felt’) – which is the administration’s favorite mantra – with their own experience. ‘Ramdam ang kahirapan, ramdam ang gutom.’ (Poverty is felt, hunger is felt’),” Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo said yesterday.
“The benefits of the much proclaimed economic growth are not felt by the masses,” the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president said in a statement which he issued jointly with three other bishops and the vocal administration critic, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz.
Asked by reporters later if he thought President Macapagal-Arroyo was corrupt, Lagdameo unhesitatingly said “yes.”
Asked if the President deserved to be removed from power, he said “the answer should come from the people who see what’s happening in our country.”
Lagdameo said in a press conference that the statement, which called for “immediate reforms,” was the product of communal discernment” with Cruz, Masbate Bishop Joel Baylon, Banga-Bataan Bishop Socrates Villegas and Legazpi Bishop Emeritus Jose Sorra.
“In the past few years up to today, we have watched how corruption has become endemic, massive, systemic and rampant in our politics. Corruption is a social and moral cancer,” said Lagdameo, who clarified that he was making the statement as the archbishop of Jaro and not as the CBCP president.
“In response to the global economic crisis and the pitiful state of our country, the time to rebuild our country economically, socially, politically is now,” Lagdameo said.
“The time to start radical reforms is now. The time for moral regeneration is now. The time to conquer complacency, cynicism and apathy and to prove that we have matured from our political disappointments, is now. The time to prepare for a new government is now,” he said.
Villegas stressed that they were not calling for another mass revolt.
“We are making this statement because we believe that if we had been less corrupt we would be better prepared to face the impending global crisis. The problem of the Philippines is not population, the problem is corruption, Villegas said.
End of quotes from the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Many concerned Filipinos would agree and sympathize with the bishops’ sentiments. But, realistically speaking, how do the bishops propose to convert those sentiments into political action and reality?
How do we start radical reforms now? How do we encourage moral regeneration now? How do we conquer complacency, cynicism and apathy now? How do we prepare for a new government now?
To achieve these goals, there must be a political movement, and there must be a fearless and charismatic individual to personify that movement and articulate its goals, someone to publicly carry the torch for that movement. Most people, especially Filipinos, will not rally around an abstract idea, no matter how noble and compelling it may be.
And – pray, tell – what are these “immediate and radical reforms” that the bishops want to push? Judging by Bishop Villegas’ last line, it could include equating the use of condoms with abortion.
Barack Obama‘s ‘Change We Need’ and ‘Yes We Can’ would not have won the commitment of tens of millions of Americans if there was no Barack Obama to personify and eloquently articulate it.
Do the bishops have someone in mind, our own Barack Obama? If they do, I doubt if they will publicly name him or her. And they shouldn’t, as they should not involve themselves in partisan politics.
About three years ago, Archbishop Lagdameo expressed the need for a “new breed of leaders,” which I supported in one of my columns. But my Thursday group met with him and seven other bishops to find out how this “new breed of leaders’ could come to prominence, seeing that Philippine media tend to publicize only trapos, coup plotters and communists. Our impression was that the bishops had no practical method on how to bring about this transformation. Or, if they had one, they did not want to tell us.
Ten months ago, at the height of the ZTE broadband scandal, a previously unknown individual, Jun Lozada – who was/is neither a trapo nor a coup plotter nor a communist – shot up to prominence because of the weight of his testimony before the Senate committees investigating the scam, and his apparent readiness to risk his life in doing so.
Lozada became the man of the hour as no Filipino has ever become since the beloved Ninoy was assassinated in 1983. Because he spoke mostly in Filipino – eloquently and with deadpan humor, at that – Lozada connected with all levels of society. Even our maids and drivers followed the senate hearings and the TV interviews every day.
In his many forays into schools and universities, he was welcomed and embraced by the young people like a rock star. No public figure has excited the young people of this country as Lozada did, since Miriam Defensor-Santiago ran for president in 1992 (and topped all public opinion surveys and straw votes in and out of schools at that time.)
But Lozada was eventually gagged by no less than the bishops, who banned Catholic schools from further inviting him to their campuses, even as Malacanang’s paid hacks in media stumbled over each other bad-mouthing him, both for the benefit of the embattled Black Queen.
I am not sure if Archbishop Lagdameo and the other White Bishops-critics of President Arroyo participated in the gagging of Lozada, but they certainly did nothing to protest or prevent it.
In chess, as in our cannibalistic politics, it is almost impossible for just two (or even more) White Bishops to checkmate the Black King, without the help of White Knights and White Rooks. Lozada could have been one of the White Knights and the Catholic schools and the NGO community could have been the White Rooks. Even without a White Queen, the White Bishops can checkmate the Black King, but not if the White Knights are gagged and the White Rooks are purged of sentiments inimical to the Black Queen…
On the other hand, the Black Queen is very powerful. She has her own Black Bishops who are rewarded generously for their loyalty. Her Black Knights – the AFP and the PNP – are coiled to strike at a moment’s notice. Her Black Rooks – the Lower House and (soon) the Supreme Court – are impregnable, while upfront, her eight willing pawns – Ronnie Puno, Eduardo Ermita, Hermenigildo Esperon, Raul Gonzalez, Bert Gonzales, Prospero Nograles, Joey Salceda and Nene Pimentel – are eager to change the rules of the game so that the Black Queen can reign forever.
Check?!!!? More like bundles of cash in paper bags. *****
SWAP WITH THAILAND. During a round table discussion of current events yesterday with some faculty members and students at the Lyceum of the Philippines, a student asked how to resolve the impasse regarding the request of former Thailand prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra for political asylum in the Philippines.
I suggested a swap: We will grant political asylum to Thaksin, as long as, and at the same time that, Thailand agrees to grant political asylum to President Arroyo. Fair? *****
Reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles in www.tapatt.org and in acabaya.blogspot.com. .
Is McCain Senile?
October 27, 2008
Probably not. But many American commentators are genuinely puzzled at his choice of vice-presidential running mate for the November presidential elections.
In the American system, vice-presidential nominees are not chosen by primaries or on the convention floor. He or she is the personal choice of the presidential nominee.
Thus Barack Obama, the winner in the Democratic primaries and caucuses, exercised his prerogative after due diligence and came up with Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. By most accounts, it was an inspired choice.
Sen. Biden has long been prominent in Washington politics, with an established reputation as being knowledgeable in foreign affairs. He is perceived to fill a gap in Sen. Obama’s political curriculum vitae, that in foreign policy. Thus the pair is seen as logically complementing each other..
The same cannot be said of Sen. John McCain and his choice of vice-presidential running mate. It is safe to assume that before Aug. 30, 99.5 percent of the population of the United States, outside of the state of Alaska, had never heard of Sarah Palin, incumbent governor since 2006 of, well, Alaska.
It did not help reassure puzzled pundits and voters that before she became governor of Alaska, Ms.Palin had been mayor of the town of Wasilla (pop. 8,741). Or that during high school days, she had played center guard in basketball and was known as Sarah Barracuda. Or that Sen. McCain had apparently met her only once (last February) in his entire life, though he had talked to her, by telephone, one other time since.
Even Republican apologists and strategists were at a loss to cite anything significant to give a positive spin to the Great Puzzlement that this nomination has spawned. The GOP line is that Gov. Palin had fought against corruption in Alaska, had refused to support a Bridge to Nowhere, and something or other that she did or did not do. Someone in Fox News, the cable channel of the neo-cons, is said to have remarked that Gov. Palin has some experience in foreign relations because Alaska is right next to Russia. Amazing!
My reading is that Sen. McCain made this choice based on his personality flaws. He is known to have a short temper and does not get along easily with other people. During the early part of the primary season, he had candidly admitted that he knew absolutely nothing about economics, which one of his rivals, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, used to hit him on the head with. So he scratched Romney off his short VP list.
Perhaps for a similar, personality-based reason, he scratched New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani off the list, who has something of a star status from 9/11 and could outshine him on the campaign trail, aside from being too liberal by Republican standards.
McCain’s constant beef against Obama has been that Obama was only a celebrity and did not have the executive experience to qualify for the presidency, a bias that was uncannily reinforced when Obama chose Biden as his running mate Two articulate and verbose lawyers, both without any executive experience in managing a state or a federal agency..
But what does McCain do? He scratched out Romney, and Giuliani and former Pennsylvania Governor and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Rich from his VP short list - each one with more executive experience than Obama and Biden combined, each one with more executive experience than McCain himself - and chose instead an unknown woman whose executive experience has been limited to being mayor of a small town in Alaska for six years , then being governor of that state for less than two, whom McCain has met only once in his entire life.
Does this make any sense to anyone other than a die-hard Republican?
It makes some sense to social conservatives, whether Republican or independent. Ms. Palin is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and is against gun control. She is also against same-sex marriage, birth control and abortion. Her youngest child was diagnosed with Down’s syndrome – a chromosomal deficiency – four months into her pregnancy, but she chose not to abort the foetus. She also rejects Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and wants to have the Creationism of Christian Evangelicals taught in public schools.
The idea that McCain is trying to win Hillary Clinton’s women supporters, who were disappointed when Obama did not choose her as his VP, is nonsense. Most of Hillary’s women supporters would never support Palin’s conservative agenda.
Here seems to be the key element in McCain’s choice of Ms. Palin, and there is reason to believe that the Christian Evangelicals, who constitute 30 to 35 percent of the American electorate and continue to be the biggest single political bloc that still supports the disgraced George W. Bush, will rally around the McCain-Palin team.
With Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson gone to their heavenly rewards, the leading Christian Evangelical preacher now is John Hagee, head of a mega-church in Texas. As early as more than a year ago – and I mentioned it in a column of mine then - the Rev. Hagee anointed McCain as the successor to George W, in a lavish ceremony in Texas attended by McCain, to which George W. sent a congratulatory message. This was long before Hagee’s endorsement of McCain last April, which was criticized as being anti-Catholic and from which McCain has distanced himself…
Hagee is also national chairman of a Christian-Zionist organization called Christians United for Israel. Christian Evangelicals believe that war in the Middle East is biblically foretold and divinely ordained. They support Israel because they believe that, though Israel will be destroyed,144,000 Israeli Jews will be spared and they will convert to Christianity. And this will be the signal for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
In this light, Barack Obama’s 16-month withdrawal plan for US troops from Iraq has been pre-empted. The Bush government has been negotiating with the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Noor al-Maliki for a timetable under which US troops will withdraw from all Iraqi cities by June 2009, and withdraw from all of Iraq by end of 2011, “depending on the situation on the ground.”
This is obviously meant to take the wind out of Obama’s 16-month withdrawal sail. Depending on the situation on the ground means full withdrawal from Iraq can be rescinded or reinterpreted after the November 2008 elections. McCain’s 100 years in Iraq (and Afghanistan) – or how ever long it will take for the biblical prophecies to be fulfilled – is therefore more likely to become the conventional American wisdom.
It is significant that on Aug. 20, as I mentioned in a column last week, Obama was ahead of McCain by only one point in the CNN poll of that date. As I write this, the CNN poll of Sept 01 puts Obama still ahead by only one point, despite all the hoopla and hoohah at the Democratic convention in Denver last week. That means there was not much of a bounce for Obama and Biden, as had been expected from that coronation.
The Republican convention, scheduled for this week in St. Paul, Minnesota, has been scaled down considerably in deference to the deaths and devastation that Hurricane Gustav is expected to visit on New Orleans and neighboring towns and cities.
McCain is not senile. God is on his side. Ask the Rev. Hagee. *****
Reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com.Otther articles in acabaya.blogspot.com. Tony on YouTube in www.tapatt.org. .
Champions
July 3, 2008
If only to do my patriotic duty, let me extend my congratulations to
Manny Pacquiao for his smashing victory over the Mexican boxer, David
Diaz, earning for himself his fourth world boxing title.
He has done his country and countrymen proud. In these trying times,
buffeted as we are by natural and man-made disasters on a weekly
basis, and starved as we are for heroes in the flesh, Manny Pacquiao
is a real boost to our sagging national ego.
Actually, I do not like boxing. I did not watch his fight in Las
Vegas. I do not enjoy watching anyone, not even a Mexican boxer, being
beaten to a bloody pulp by another person, even for “sport.”
The first and last boxing match I have ever watched in my entire life
was the title match between Floyd Patterson and Archie Moore – did I
get the names right? – in Chicago half a century ago.
My housemate Jimmy, who is a real boxing aficionado and who now lives
in Australia, convinced the rest of us in our Evanston rooming house
to take the El to Chicago for the fight.
I do not recall any memorable incident that evening, except that I
predicted out loud that the fight would end at 9:30. Sure enough, at
9:30, someone – it must have been Moore – got knocked down or out. I
should have been a boxing bookie.
During the weekend of the Pacquiao-Diaz fight, I was watching replays
of the Euro 2008 UEFA football (soccer to Americans) quarterfinals,
semi-finals and finals in Basel and Vienna.
I had signed up with SkyCable for live broadcasts, but later changed
my mind when I found out that all or most of the live coverage started
at 2:45 in the morning. Never having worked as a call center agent or
as a night watchman, I didn’t think I could stay awake from 2:45 to
5:30 a.m. everyday for several days. So I had to settle for replays
from Solar Sports through Paranaque Cable, to which one of our TV sets
is fortuitously wired.
Of course, watching football replays with full knowledge of who had
won and who had lost, and by how many points, robs one of the
edge-of-your seat suspense and excitement inherent in a well-contested
game.
But there was still the sheer joy of watching well-executed plays and
expert ball-handling by some of the best football players in the
world. This would be almost akin to watching, again and again,
world-class gymnastics – my favorite spectator sport – performed by
champions and would-be champions in previous years.
Anyone who has watched national teams compete in such championships as
the UEFA and the World Cup know the explosions of national pride that
accompany each victory, as the league progressed. Euro 2008 was no
exception..
Sports champions become national icons. And well they should be,
because they personify the self-esteem their victories generate in the
national psyches. Excellence in sports is actually a tool in
nation-building. Which is why the governments in the then socialist
countries (the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Cuba) all invested
heavily in developing world-class athletes
I am surprised that with the world-wide acknowledgement of Manny
Pacquiao, there is no attempt by the Arroyo government to enlist his
endorsement of a nationwide search for new, younger talents through
the medium of nationwide competitions for different age brackets .
Much as I dislike boxing as a sport, I know that it is very popular,
especially among the low income sectors.
And not just in boxing. I am surprised that with several world class
champions that we have in billiards, there is no attempt by the
government to search and develop new and younger talents in this sport
through nationwide competitions for different age brackets.
Even more than boxing, billiards is very popular, especially among the
low income sectors. There are literally thousands of billiard halls
all over the country. An organized competition nationwide, if properly
promoted and marketed, would discover dozens of potential world-class
champions who would help build national pride, as well as earn good
money for their families.
Why stop with boxing and billiards? This country has not produced
world-class tennis players since Felicisimo Ampon in the 1950s. Why
not organize nationwide competitions among ball boys (‘pulot boys’)
and nameless pros who earn their living in the country clubs of the
filthy rich?
So also would nationwide competitions among the caddies in the golf
clubs of the filthy rich. We have not produced a world-class golfer
since the time of Celestino Tugot in the 1960s.
With our low self-esteem because of decades of poor governance by the
trapos and their political dynasties, we need more champions in sports
to remind ourselves that we are as good as anybody else in the world.
Sports are the best training ground for excellence because they teach
the virtues of hard work, self-discipline and fair play. Unlike the
vices of instant yaman, social anarchy and pervasive dishonesty which
our trapo culture has embedded in our national psyche through decades
of misrule. . *****
All reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles in www.tapatt.org
and in acabaya.blogspot.com.
Free Tibet Later
May 29, 2008
COMMENTARY: Antonio Abaya Read more
Electoral Reforms, Federalism, Pimentel
May 23, 2008
COMMENTARY: Antonio Abaya Read more
Prelude to 2010 Elections
May 14, 2008
COMMENTARY: Antonio Abaya Read more
Barack Obama’s Mama
April 10, 2008
COMMENTARY: Antonio Abaya
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