When Hidilyn Diaz came home a gold medalist from the Tokyo Olympics in July 2021, then President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration scrambled to make the most of the moment. They mounted an online courtesy call in the thick of the Covid-19 pandemic in which they promised Diaz a house and lot in Zamboanga City and P3 million, apart from the cash incentives guaranteed under Republic Act No. 10699. 

In that same courtesy call, Duterte’s message to Diaz included thanks and a request to forget (an apparent reference to the Palace’s adverse reaction to her call for public assistance for her training): “We are extremely proud… pero salamat naman sa pagtitiis mo. I hope that the years of toil, the years of disappointments, and the years na hindi maganda nangyari in the past, we will just forget them. You already have the gold. Gold is gold and it would be good for you to just let bygones be bygones.”

Sports appreciation in the Philippines has largely been kept within the lenses of entertainment, an opiate, showbiz’s distant cousin, and hardly a celebration of the human physique, strength, and determination. Only a few hours after Carlos Yulo’s first gold medal win, social media platforms were already pumped with vitriol over the drama between him and his mother. The posts had little to do with gymnastics, Yulo’s brilliance, or sports, for that matter. (If there were any, they were directed against basketball, for which the Philippines didn’t even qualify to join the Olympics competition. Ironically, while the limelight shone on gymnastics, these posts alleged that we pay too much attention to basketball… because we short folk, un-ironically, believe that we are tall enough to contend with the likes of Nikola Jokic.)  

In Paris, the Philippines would go on to win two bronze medals in boxing care of Nesthy Petecio and Aira Villegas’ fists, pole vaulter EJ Obiena would apologize for a beautiful 5.90m leap, and Bianca Pagdanganan would swing valiantly to fourth place in golf. And yet public attention would still be glued to the Yulo household, the royal rumble having now recruited Yulo’s girlfriend Chloe San Jose and his mother’s lawyer Raymond Fortun into the ring. Over social media’s thin veneer of appearances and impressions, “netizens” (a cumbersome word) would chime in at length on the tangentially related topics that media’s laser focus on their personal lives had managed to unearth. But I would argue that this problem is beyond the media, and Filipinos do little to understand sports simply and precisely because we want little to do with sports.

2022 study 

There was an important study that fell between the cracks: “Results from the Philippines’ 2022 report card on physical activity for children and adolescents,” published in October 2022 by the Journal of Exercise Science & Fitness. The 9-page paper, citations included, was written by 16 scholars—15 from different colleges of the University of the Philippines (Diliman and Manila) and one from the Education University of Hong Kong. It was intended to “provide a comprehensive assessment of physical activity and other related behaviors, including the various factors and settings that influence these behaviors.” 

After the identification and review of the “best available nationally representative data,” grades were assigned to five indicators: “F” in overall physical activity, “D” in active transportation, “B” in sedentary behavior, “C-“ in school, and “B” in government. The study’s conclusion was that “despite government policies related to physical activity in the country, the majority of children and adolescents in the Philippines do not meet the recommended amount of physical activity for health.”

Even with the paper’s bleak assessments, I enjoyed reading it because of the way it was able to triangulate its analyses and arrive at its conclusion. It was holistic, and its view of sports and exercise was one which included day-to-day movement, taking a snapshot of a sizeable population over an expanded period; it was not just spurred by the occasional medal finish or close fight. 

The primordial mistake we are making in understanding and appreciating sports is how, over the past decades, we do not go beyond seeing them only in terms of their rewards, as tickets out of poverty, or a promise of heaven after a long and difficult life. Anything less difficult, or anything less rewarding, and we no longer see sports as good or worthy. 

When Diaz lifted us to a gold medal in 2021, the dire lack of funding and political patronage in the Philippine Sports Commission became the subject of Atom Araullo’s two-part report for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. But we hardly followed this through, the slapdash solution being only more funding from more private donors. And when the grandmaster Wesley So became an American citizen in February 2021, the focus remained on his personality—some would note his choice for a “better life” in the United States—and not on his genius and hard work as a winner of many chess championships. And, of course, Manny Pacquiao’s boxing defeats after being KO’d hard by Juan Manuel Marquez, as well as his countless falls from grace in politics, could do nothing to tarnish his rags-to-riches story. 

Different view

For a long time now, we’ve been viewing sports only as a linear progression, as if they’re the proverbial tests in many of our folk legends.

There must be a way to view sports differently. In following this one-dimensional narrative template for sports—in which athletes can only win or lose—we have lent a lot of room for corruption and other evils to be seen as mere hurdles to overcome. Or, worse, all these wrongs become default conditions which athletes must simply accept should they want to achieve greatness in their sport. But we can gain so much from more detailed and more complex readings into sports.

We must move toward making these sports easier to understand. One of the remarkable things in Yulo’s two gold medals is that they were won in events which required judges to look critically and to apply their technical expertise in floor exercises and vault gymnastics. In other words, these events can be said to be subjective, their scoring highly dependent on what the judges thought. We Filipinos are often allergic to these “subjectivities” and tend to cheer more for more quantifiable, points-based sports, like basketball or volleyball. But now, with Yulo’s win, we find that our subjective natures can be causes for celebration, too. Grace, timing, beauty, mystery, consistency, decisiveness in motion—all of these are often lost on us when we see only the reward aspect, only the supposed conclusions, of playing sports. 

All the medals have been awarded and the 2024 Olympics has finally ended. But what still interests people are the discussions it opened: the cultural clash in the Dionysian Bacchanalia aka reworking of the Last Supper, the colossal cyberbullying around Imane Khelif and her gold-medal finish, Rachael Gunn’s deliberate flopping and her mockery of breakdancing, the running titan Eliud Kipchoge’s DNF, and now, Carlos Yulo and how everyone just wants a piece of any of his two gold medals. Sports are at the core of all of these. 

Many would say that these are issues which are far from the gut and can hardly put food on the table. Yet there’s a way to see sports differently. Lest we forget, since forever, from the myth of Greek gods playing games in Olympia to the reality in front of us, sports have always been a way to make sense of our lives and a way to arrange the society we live in.

DLS Pineda is a member of the UP Mountaineers and an assistant professor at the Department of English and Comparative Literature – College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines Diliman.

Read more: Quest for gold: Gymnast Carlos Yulo seeks revenge in Paris

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It’s no secret that much is expected of Obiena in his upcoming campaign. He’s the second-highest ranked pole vaulter in the world, after all, and he knows there’s a ton of pressure on his shoulders to deliver.

But after having a career-defining year in 2023 that saw Obiena rule the Perche en Or in Roubaix, France and the Orlen Cup in Lodz, Poland, pressure no longer fazes the Tondo, Manila native. He, in fact, welcomes it.

“I’ve been saying this for quite some time, but pressure is a privilege,” said the 28-year-old athlete. “Being in a situation where there’s something expected from you… that means you’ve shown that you are capable of doing something historic—something worthwhile.”

Inspiration from Diaz-Naranjo

On the topic of making history, Hidilyn Diaz-Naranjo shattered barriers when she captured the country’s first and only gold medal in the Olympics in Tokyo.

Obiena believes this moment of inspiration in Philippine sports will continue to have its ripple effects—not only on his own campaign in Paris but with the entire Philippine delegation as well.

“I called it two years ago. I said there’s gonna be more Filipinos in Paris after what Ate Hidilyn has done in Tokyo. She definitely showed a whole country, a whole nation that the Filipinos can win medals in the Olympics,” Obiena said of Diaz-Naranjo’s monumental achievement.

“And with that, it creates an effect and a wave of people that believe in themselves to be able to compete,” he furthered. “And I think that’s priceless.”

That, coupled with his compatriots’ unwavering support, fueled Obiena’s desire to remain steadfast on his mission.

“Anytime you wear the Philippine flag, you know, there’s a different energy into it because you’re not just representing yourself. You’re representing a hundred and ten million all over the world. And I think with that, it comes with responsibility and morale boost,” said the second-generation athlete.

“I know there’s a hundred and ten million Filipinos who want to see me win and with that, you have enough motivation to make sure that you perform at your best.”

Redemption in Paris

Obiena did not exactly have a stellar performance in his Olympics debut in Tokyo. He finished 11th in the 2021 edition of the Summer Games, while his archrival Armand Duplantis took the shiniest medal available.

In this year’s go-round, Duplantis will inevitably serve as the final boss in Obiena’s quest once more. The Swedish-American pole vault currently holds the sport’s world record with 6.23 meters. On the other hand, the pride of the Philippines boasts a personal best of six meters, the Asian record.

The 0.23 meters that separates both vaulters may not seem much—about the length of a standard letter paper. But in a game of inches like pole vaulting, it could spell the difference between victory and defeat.

Obiena, though, doesn’t seem bothered. “It’s pole vault,” said the product of the University of Santo Tomas.

“I just have to make sure I’m in the best shape of my life, make sure I make him jump another bar. So yeah, I’m gonna keep pushing and at the end of the day it’s a competition.”

Duplantis may be his primary target, but the Pinoy athletics star isn’t looking past the other competitors either.

“I think that everybody on the field knows that everybody is capable of winning,” stated Obiena. “So for me, the strategy is to prepare the best that I can and make sure that I have the best chance, whatever it is, coming into the games.”

No doubt, Obiena soared to new heights by dominating competitions left and right leading into the grandest stage in sports. As impressive as World No. 2 is, however, Obiena isn’t settling for anything less than reaching the proverbial mountaintop.

“Of course, my goal is to win gold,” declared Obiena. “There’s nothing short of that. I set out to compete and every competition I set out to, that’s all I wanna do. I know it’s a tough competition, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

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