INSTEAD OF OVERHAULING GILAS, OVERHAUL YOUR PRIORITIES
by Andrew Lim
Straight to the point: what the heck are we doing in a sport that favors height? The basket is 10 ft high and can be accessed vertically or diagonally, both conferring advantage on the bigger team. Skills, speed, stamina play a role but all things equal, the taller one prevails.
Filipino fans are quick to go into the “intangibles”, often citing “puso” (heart), “diskarte”, “ma-abilidad” (skilled), “ma-paraan”(resilient and resourceful) as if we are the only ones with these. You think Team USA or Spain doesn’t possess these?
Fans point to the evolution of our Gilas players- they’re now taller, faster, more athletic (partly due to mixed marriages) but do you think other teams don’t evolve as well?
We’ve spent blood and fortune on a sport that yields very little success in the international arena. It sure feels a nation banging its head on the wall repeatedly and hoping for a different result each time. Isn’t that insane?
Perhaps it’s what Manny Pangilinan cited as justification: “It’s the sport we love.” And you can’t deny the sport is commercially viable locally- UAAP, PBA, MPBL, etc.
The only realistic goal? Dominance in SE Asia, consistent threat in Asia. That’s it. Forget international. Hope springs eternal, but hope is not a strategy.
The bigger picture? Our obsession over basketball belies the same cultural trait that bedevils our hellish traffic transportation system: we are such poor planners and poor learners. All the previous generations, previous administrations are to blame and not a single one of them was smart and brave enough to learn from the past and plot a different course.
Mark my words: several years from now, perhaps Manny Pangilinan’s grand children or Kai Sotto’s children will be involved in Philippine basketball. The results will be the same. Maybe a trip to the second round or a win or two. Are we happy with that?
Think of the potential success we could have had if we were smart and strategic enough to choose the sport that fits our genetics better.
This conversation is what we should be having, not the Thom Browne suits Chot Reyes wears to the games. Who cares about that?
Bing Image Creator: Gilas Pilipinas Losing
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
You love what you love. It defies logic most of the time.
But the problem with love without rationality is you lose even if you have the talent level of the Philippines.
We could have won 3 games, but we were not prepared.
“Love without rationality” takes us into poetry… kidding aside, does falling in love result in a loss of ability to plan, learn, and be strategic? Seems that way in the Phil experience.
It’s a terrible commentary on how we do resource allocation, management, etc. No wonder we have no credible defense posture in the West Phil Sea!
We need Joe’s perspective here.
If the economic planner suggest MUP reform, the MUP peeps say so long as no contribution, we are OK with that.
True as all nations friends and foes alike have permanent interests and permanent interest payments.
Lacking says no more pork barrel but what do you call intelligence funds.
Baka kung saan pa pumunta.
Excellent! Not only a slam dunk but a game winning slam dunk.
you could well be right about intelligence fund being pork barrel. may I add confidential fund as being pork barrel too? intelligence fund at may confidential fund pa, I think some govt agency like the ovp? has both funds yata.
busting with funds our politicians are.
I think, mup (military and uniformed personnel) are starting to get the grip that without their contribution, their pension will not be indexed. not likely to go up as the cost of living goes up.
well judging from the lavish weddings of the 2000s til now yes falling in love makes you lose perspective. making you spend what would amount to about a downpayment for a house or condo in a one day event.
Yet people frown on “live in”
to many, live in means temporary, no commitment made. pwedeng umalis anytime, no string attached. until a better offer comes along. children from this kind of arrangement may not have the same legal clout as those born in wedlock.
if church wedding is costly, civil wedding sa city hall before a justice of the peace is cheaper but just as poignant, binding and legal, and till death do us part pa rin. only two witnesses are needed and they’re good to go.
I love weddings! I saw lovi poe’s, heart evangelista’s, and others. so perfect, the bride in white, the groom young and virile, the in laws, never mind.
I used to work for a catering firm and cater weddings, so much promise, so palpable the happiness, their future is rosy.
Are the lavish weddings the result of love or just a case of showing off wealth?
Is it not social pressure (mostly of the parents) which result in expensive weddings.
if you got it, flaunt it! we love to show off in facebook, instagram, etc. and got likes by the thousands, admired even, well maybe few dislikes and fewer detractors. anybody doing google searches would no who are taken, committed, not available and no longer single. so, back off! dont steal my spouse, haha.
marriage is once in a lifetime, a rite of passage, till death do us part . . . we make memories, good memories. happy ever after.
https://jpthehistorian.medium.com/the-good-old-days-the-lost-history-of-philippine-football-e88906e8f223 strangely soccer aka football was the sport for a while, until baseball and basketball came in, exactly in the 1920s and 1930s when English rose over Spanish.
Some accounts say that basketball was preferred due to its more competitive nature. It is, after all, true that football, especially under to old rules, was a slow strategic game and lacked the action that basketball has. One can catch up better in basketball is the feeling one gets.
Besides, a five-man team is a tighter unit than an 11-person group with roles distributed across the field. The Filipino way is possibly best suited to pakiramdaman in small tight groups, losing its creativity when under any form of formal hierarchy, which football needs more of.
https://www.npr.org/2016/11/30/503752196/no-fidel-castro-wasnt-nearly-a-new-york-yankee the Cuban obsession with baseball that went all the way up to Castro defies explanation too. Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic all also had American influences as we know.
Baseball was also popular in the Philippines of the 1920s and 1930s but didn’t really stick. Possibly too complicated for a mindset that dislikes complexity, unlike the former British colonies who savor playing cricket, which is far more complex? I have no idea either.
What happened and why Gilas did not practice? I don’t know and am too lazy to check. Guess every country has its own exercises in futility. For Germany, it is winning Eurovision. German Eurovision officials make it worse, it seems. Are they like they say Filipino sports officials are?
Hi Irineo. Your last paragraph: Gilas did practice and I think the planning/preparation this iteration is even better than previous ones. But for me, the genetic ceiling is there.
Re Eurovision, this is so hilarious! I really regret not ringing you up when I was in Berlin some years ago. I loved how easy it was to contrast which was historically East or West in Berlin.
Sayang nga.. and true East and West are distinct.. BTW most Filipinos miss passing by a house smack in the middle of Berlin, between Reichstag and Checkpoint Charlie geographically, which weirdly has an NHI plaque, but in German.. the house where Rizal finished the Noli in early 1887, standing there one gets an idea of him freezing in winter and of course as there was no FB messenger, no Twitter, no kumu, he had to imagine home in a novel and put his messages into it.. weird also that Mark Twain and Rizal missed both being in Berlin by just a few years..
I really tried! but the more I look at the plaque, the more I want to steal it! just the 4bolts securing it, it’s going easy peasy!
made of cast iron? kaya ko yan, not so heavy. hope no cctv around, haha.
https://www.manilatimes.net/2023/08/31/sports/japan-takes-best-point-guard-in-asia-tag/1907856
not tall? de bali na basta may talent, skills and determination. gaya ng song, we may never get to heaven, but it’s heaven at least to try!
pinoys may not be tall, but with intermarriages, who knows! and we can always import players, or poach them at best!
japanese players are doing well, kahit not very tall and mga yan.
nangangatog ako when philippines face off china. sana ang cry ng team natin to boost their confidence is – mv sierra madre! the barko left at ayungin shoal and besieged by the chinese, but still very much standing.
I’m writing a companion piece to this one, about the women’s football World Cup experience and the way forward. It’s between a rock and a hard place, and I was ready to surrender using the genetics card again, but then you have the Japanese… wait for it.
sir! yes, sir! waiting, waiting . . .
https://www.foxsports.com.au/basketball/fiba-world-cup/fiba-world-cup-2023-basketball-news-scores-results-group-stage-france-china-new-zealand/news-story/c158f02cba8bac60b5721f594c4894f3
ahem, china is not doing very well, magagalit ngayon si xi! ay naku, I dont know while I’m smiling ear to ear.
Your opinion is SLAM DUNK.
thanks and please spread the conversation around, it would be nice if Manny Pangilinan and our sports writing community reads it…
I love this.
Nuffsaid.
Philippines is a land filled w/ extremes: if you put the country on a weighing scale, either you are thin or hopelessly obese which puts it as binary. Not much complexity here.
Rational decision making requires combination of skill and cognitive awareness. In a situation like this, also requires succession planning with a foresight into the future that generations will benefit. Unfortunate for us, this is not present on our state of affairs. Gilas is simply a byproduct of our generational ruin—lackluster planning, weak mindset to improve, individual indifference towards either not to mention being colonized thrice in a span of 400+ years and what you have is simply put, SUFFERING.
Hopefully we can still get back on track en route 2024 Olympics with 2 qualification games against South Sudan and China. True, we didn’t accomplish our goal which is to win the FIBA World Cup but also keep in mind we still have other important issues to take care of rather than sports.
ahem, I can say the same about china! been winless much like the philippines. what’s their excuse?
We’re being taken for a ride and we don’t even know it. How stupid can we be!
darl, please dont go so much inward. we are not stupid, just misinformed, maybe.
though I’m one of those that play stupid just to get out of sticky situations, haha.
I thought you said karl….OK darl carry on.
Oh wow! lol
Junior had a front seat view of a losing Gilas game vs. Dominican Republic but don’t have the time to convene a DA cabinet meeting to map strategy against rising prices of agri products or ways to boost local rice production.
That must be the priority.
The idea of the bu or or prisons head to let inmates plant something in open soaces in military camps like Nueva Evijaand move there maybe a good idea for food security.
Plus remediate landfills recycle recyclables and use unrecyclanles as coal replacement in cement making. For additional agri lands.
Urbanisation should be balanced.
But let us not turn into another Africa.
Feeding China in exchange for some simple pleasures and benefits.
lest, pbbm has put 22 reclamation projects sa manila bay on hold. sobrang baha na sa metro manila, flood waters have nowhere to go, halos barado na ang mga rivers made shallow with silt. methink, those reclamation projects cause much of the flooding, rain falling down from the sky with nowhere to go.
I cannot undestand why civil engineers and govt surveyors are not advising pbbm about the adverse side effects of unbridled reclamation projects! and the massive flooding that come with it. if not for US embassy pointing out the black listed chinese firm entrusted with the reclamations, the firm that has presumably no regard for the environment and our kalikasan, metro manila would have been entombed!
👍
We evolved as a team?
Puro JC o ksya puro drive to the basket instead of taking the 3 …..
and correct others evolved
Before China, and the rest of the world aside from US and the West were not in the basketball radar.
So we devolved.
China has a new map Vietnam has a newone..
For PH tolentino wants to translate the whole map to tagalog.
We were supposed to have a new map since we won the arbitral award AO29.
Plus Jardaleza bill could have solved some issues bit was snubbed in congress.
tagalog, bisaya, hiligaynon, chabacano, etc. why must tolentino insist on tagalog when other dialects are just as deserving? let us have a universal map understandable to all, locals, foreigners and visitors alike.
foreign tourists want local or national map they can understand, english is okay as english is universal language understood by almost everybody.
deviate from the usual and have our map in tagalog version and chinese visitors to our country would probly want map in mandarin version too! the japanese in nihongo, the french in french, etc. that is even more confusing and more publishing expenses to us, more money down the drain: publishing maps in all other languages to cater for world tourists.
tolentino must think hard and long and think of others. philippines is not an island and were are not isolated. we are an illustrious archipelago visited by many.
👍
I was wrong. The bill mentioned Kanlurang dapat ng Pilipinas as a translation of WPS.
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1181033
tolentino had wanted barbie not shown in ph, but was overruled. bec the world barely said a thing, nigara (I dont know the term in tagalog) ang china and followed up fuzzy barbie map with newer map, this time clearly showing 9dash line!
barbie map was experimental lang pala. china really is expansionist!
FWIW, a vlog about the DR vs RP FIBA opening game by Dominican twin bloggers Sol y Luna: https://youtu.be/9dWqqaCDblA?si=V2LcRkq9VPvx-eK8
thank you for the link. such ugly twerps dominicans are! pwe! I’d like to break all their legs! and send them back to their country, legless!
ahem, I’m just lashing out, still reeling from me loss. gilas’ loss is my pain to bear. ang sakit!
our boys did try. thanks for trying.
Joe Jr thinks baseball would be good. Volleyball requires height, too. Gymnastics, terrific opportunities. But I agree, the disciplines of management totally escape most. Even sports. Certainly rice. As in Singapore, Chinese businessmen thrive, but that’s for private gain. Not community gain. The absence of community is why corruption is a major industry here. Bigger than malls or gambling. But the skies are gorgeous and the seas warm, so what’s to worry? My ‘blanket’ is a sheet and I don’t use it a lot. I don’t own a jacket. The only real need is food.
I look forward to the soccer article. Lots of passions there.
Hi Joe. Putting Gian’s comment and yours, I’m now going into high level conceptual stuff, and it involves a bit of Marxism:
Is our “love” or passion for basketball a case of succumbing to cultural imperialism? Because they sold and packaged it so well, we bought into it like Coca Cola.
If yes, then sad that many of us are too dumb or weak to figure it out.
Gian, sent in the new article. Pls attach a good photo.
Some comments:
1) Colonial influence also made Pakistanis and a number of other former British Empire countries into excellent cricket players.
2) colonies “hit back” through migration and importing their food and music to the former colonizer. Witness Indian food and Caribbean music in London. Sometimes, even religion, who would have thought that a decision by a Roman official named Pontius Pilate would later make a religion around a Middle Eastern carpenter into the Empire’s official religion?
3) People have always imported stuff from abroad. It took a 19th century German sports teacher to create the German terms in soccer used until today to make a strange British game accepted over here, and it was only after WW2 that it became the de facto national sport.
4) What people adopt out of colonial or military base situations varies based on what they find a liking to. Rap never was loved in mainly agricultural Bavaria even when US troops were here, but country music left a legacy of “Country Road” becoming an Oktoberfest standard song. The first German Rap scene was in Frankfurt around US military bases, and not far from Heidelberg which is still one of the US bases in Europe, four young German men once “shocked” a Rap contest by rapping in their own language. Die Phantastischen Vier was born then.
5) KPop and Kdrama are making use of the relative weakness of the American music industry and Hollywood – especially KPop is a child of US military presence in South Korea. KDrama is an example of soft power that does not need colonial power to spread it, just Netflix.
Excellent insights. No issues with “imperialism” either way – if it’s food, music, tv. But competitive sport? There’s a loser and a winner.
In cricket, Pakistanis and others are known to outdo the British. 😉
Don’t know enough about cricket, I guess it doesn’t offer much advantage to bigger, stronger teams. It’s skill and strategy?
Cricket is somewhat like baseball but far more complex. I have never understood it. But yes, it is very much skill, teamwork, and strategy.
skills, strat and dedication. and sometimes, the ability to play dirty counts. australian cricketers sometimes ‘underbat’ much to the consternation of many. it’s not illegal but frowned upon.
professional cricket players are treated like rock stars! they are heavily sponsored and become multi-millionaires. and sometimes, they become knight of the realm like sir brian lara who was knighted by the late queen of england.
Good question. I don’t know how the NBA marketed it here. Or if American troops engaged Filipinos. The NBA marketed to the US successfully to overcome a “too black” reputation. So Americans got imperialized, too, because the league’s popularity took off. Then it went global. I think some things just blossom here, like any plant you stick in the ground. And one was basketball.
I think the arrival of Larry Bird plus other white Celtics players enabled them to overcome the too black image. The globalization was ushered in by the original Dream Team and Michael Jordan.
Any of these could have helped NBA popularity here:
a. Marcos Sr was looking for people to have a diversion so the PBA was well supported
b. basketball can be indoors so rain and intense heat can be avoided
c. did US military personnel play a role? not sure
I’m not sure if space availability was a factor, it’s often cited for basketball’s rise here but in Europe and S America football is played by kids on the streets.
in south america, kids are known to play football anywhere there is space. poor kids cannot afford football, so they practice on watermelons! plenty watermelons over there, cheap and easily available. same thing with african countries yata. but instead of watermelons, poor kids practice on makeshift footballs.
That is why Bayern München is recruiting young talents globally but especially with an end on South America and Africa, as raw talent nurtured by playful early practice can be sharpened.
Europe they play less and less in the streets as it has grown richer and many people don’t like to have kids playing just anywhere and maybe risk their windows broken. Beckenbauer still grew up playing in Munich back alleys.
It is like Pinoy kids from Germany rarely are in singing competitions – I guess it is because they can’t practice on karaoke machines like kids in the Philippines as the neighbors would call the cops on them for noise pollution. Karaoke bars here are in soundproof basements.
I am so riled up with the calls for Chot Reyes’ resignation from Gilas coming from netizens and sports writers/personalities.
I’m writing a third piece in this sports series and it deals with Filipinos’ intellectual and cultural poverty – the inability to handle ideas, abstract thought and concepts. Hence, the easy path is to talk about people because it’s the only thing they can understand.
You see this phenomenon everywhere- the way we choose leaders, the way we implement long term projects, etc.
occupational hazard yan, coaches bearing the brunt of the crowd’s unmet expectation. I think, coaches around the world expected to be given the boos and the marching order for the lackluster performance of their team.
even in spain, the women won the recent fifa 2023 championship, and yet their spanish coach was asked to resigned! for misogyny.
in south america, football coaches have been shot at! even killed for losing the world cup.
people are indeed very passionate about sports, moreso if they are heavily invested and there is betting involved.
as for chot reyes, I’ll wash my hands. it’s not really in me to kick one who is down and out.
The following tweet is an example of how ideas are treated superficially..
The father speaks of transparency, and the son practices the opposite. Often in the Philippines, ideas are often just nice words to be put in speeches but not put into practice. Principles are what the principal is to unruly school children. You follow when he/she is watching, but the moment he/she turns her back.. probably the death of Miriam Santiago is the reason everyone in the Senate is behaving like kids who have taken over the school. Decency is laughed at as if it was just all for show anyway, devoid of true deeper meaning. Ipokrito daw ang mga taong disente dahil lahat naman tayo di santo at lahat tayo umuutot. But I await your article, as I have reached that level of frustration that most people there can’t really be reached anymore.
miriam santiago was marcos crony, requesat en pace. not. she was kissy, kissy with imelda the last few months of her life; apparently, in return for supporting pbbm’s previous bid for higher office, miriam got state of the art cancer treatment abroad. all expenses paid kuno. that was the rumor going around.
electing ruffians to the senate equals ruffians inc. and there is push back vs ruffians. that’s the beauty of democracy: free speech but only up to a point. even if we have federalism there will always be pushback, talkback, debates, arguments, etc., the internet make talk show hosts of us all, lol!
anyhow, I dont like to be saint, you would have to be dead to be saint!
I can never be a talk show host or even a vlogger as I am neither fotogenic nor telegenic. There is the one good foto I have that I use everywhere and that’s it.
That is why I prefer to write.. though I am suddenly less shy if I start singing. So maybe there will one day be vlogs by me that start after I have sang for warm up and I will greet all with marhay na banggi, magandang gabi, maayong gabii..
Of course, I will ramp up my little Bikol and learn Cebuano. And I will start with all the chismis..
The name of my vlog will be Straight from the Horses Mouth and will have the sound of a horse as its jingle. I need a nickname less old-fashioned sounding than Irineo though.
Harry the Horse is to close to Harry Roque. I want to be popular, not disgusting. Any ideas? 😉
AI is tops: very helpful, very creative, imagination unbridled and the sky is not limit. thanks, but who needs humans!
I have my caricature like jessica rabbit’s, lol! hate it being copied, saw mini jessica rabbits galore; trolled. it’s gone now. peace at last.
AI is best bet. let it go wild. and be ready for backlash. you’ll both be loved and hated, loved and hated.
“Salty Sydney” 😂🤣😂
https://www.philstar.com/happens/1183
hava nagela, hava nagela, my god I’m street dancing in the dark!
phillippines beat china! talo natin ang cruel monsters sa west phil sea!
for all our humiliations each time our supply boat being water cannoned by chinese navvies on the way to ayungin shoal! ah, such sweet victory! talo natin and china! sit down, sit down, we’re rocking the boat!
para sa akin, sweetest victory ito. I’ve been waiting for this! talo natin ang china! have nagela, hava nagela!
https://www.rappler.com/
more on our win vs china.
Professional Heckler has this to say about basketball and politics:
https://twitter.com/PHRepMovement/status/1697969255202120016
if we cancel each other, there would be no one left. and there’s no guarantee the next one coming along will be better.
I also got angry with chot at the heat of the moment, but cooler heads prevailed. let chot stay, but if he wants to go, no hard feelings.
and the winner is . . .
miss confidentiality has varied portfolio. she is not only the grinch that stole christmas with classrooms presumably no longer allowed to display christmas decors, she is also bully and traumatised kids!
she ordered kids’ works were ripped from classroom walls, the best in handwriting, best in drawing, best in coloring to be replaced by – confidentiality! bare walls so confidential, there is nothing to see! haha.
Musical intermission: “It’s Raining in Manila” which is reality these days..
(Fortunately not sung by me as it would make the rain worse) 😜
singing in the rain, I’m singing in the rain . . . I used to love the rain, now I hated it! rain is almost always synonymous with flooding in metro manila. so inconvenient. and those reclamation projects in manila bay are not helping!
sabi ng mga engineers those reclamation projects dont cause flooding kuno, yeah right. sabi, there are reclamation projects around the world and they dont cause flooding, year right, they would say that, may vested interests sila. and are those reclaimed lands na pinagmamalaki nila are done by the same rogue chinese firm, the one that got blacklisted and now fully entrusted with the reclamation in manila bay?
they would build sea wall to stop tsunamis kuno, kaso tsunamis have no respect for seawalls and could easily go over them!
Quite good , love the horns. Thanks for sharing.
A vlog of a South African couple who went to the Philippines to watch the game between the Philippines and Italy in the Araneta Coliseum:
I still think that love for the game of basketball should be the main reason to participate in international tournaments.
I get it that we don’t have the bulk and the height to even make a dent outside Asia but majority of Filipinos (male) learned at an early age basketball as their second language. We just love it.
Maybe because it reflects realities in life, the struggle, the battles, the survival . In basketball, you not only face challenges against an opponent but you also challenge yourself in order to pull through. The struggle to fight the things that prevents you from scoring or taking the win is similar in the way you struggle against the the ups and downs affairs of life itself.
I have no illusion of the Philippine team reigning supreme in international stage. For me, dominance of Asia is enough because, like in boxing, it is the only weigh in category that we have a fighting chance to succeed.
A win is a win but since nag performance enhancing drugs ang import parang iffy lalo.
When Andrew thanked the Africans for the win and the hold medal, the drugs issue was not yet an issue.
https://www.rappler.com/sports/gilas-pilipinas/asian-games-men-basketball-results-philippines-china-october-4-2023/
Marijuana is not traditionally known as a PED
My bad, mj is the downer of downers.
Should have said dinged for a banned substance.