Manila

Is basketball only for tall people?
Think again…. 😉

Tacloban-After Typhoon Haiyan (a.k.a. Yolanda) courtesy of: http://l3.yimg.com

intramuros-basketball — Intramuros, Manila (photo courtesy of: Wikimedia.org)

Filipinos love for basketball can be likened to Canadians innate love for hockey. Every street corner in the Philippines is an impromptu basketball court… and people play the game whether they are wearing flip flops (a.k.a. tsinelas), sneakers, leather shoes, or even barefoot!

Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) (courtesy of: http://www.slamonlineph.com)	Canada Hockey (photo courtesy of: Google 🙂 )
street basketball (photo courtesy of: http://www.bubblews.com/)	street hockey (photo courtesy of: http://www.womenshockeylife.com)

You betcha! I remember when I was 15 – 19 years old, I used to be a basketball announcer whenever there was a tournament in our community; that was one of my tasks as part of the youth council.

One basketball player was always assigned to sit beside me to help me interpret the referee’s call and the names of the violations committed during the game. In other words, he needs to make sure that I don’t screw up! 🙂 All I had to do was announce what’s going on in the court, joke a little bit to liven up the game, and speak with conviction regarding the violations.

The tournament was something similar to the photos below:

kids-basketball — photo courtesy of: http://mati.gov.ph/

It’s fun and at the same time scary… especially if the intensity of the match was too high! Whew! Even though the games were a frenzy, they never broke into riots.. there were no cars being set on fire like during the Vancouver Stanley Cup riot. :p We know how to keep it under control. 😉

Riot – Vancouver (photo courtesy of: http://www.ctvnews.ca)

Riot-aftermath-Vancouver — Riot Aftermath – Vancouver (photo courtesy of: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/)

By any means, the Filipino fascination (or should I say obsession?) with basketball prompted American author Rafe Bartholomew to go to the Philippines, conduct a study, and write a book about it. (Click here to read the snapshot of his book, Pacific Rims).

Rafe Bartholomew (photo courtesy of: http://rafebartholomew.com/sites/)

pacificrims_cover — Pacific Rims (photo courtesy of: http://rafebartholomew.com/)

Who wants to play ball? Let’s go, let’s go! 😀

I was contemplating whether I should write this post or not because I know it’s a sensitive topic. Nevertheless, as an individual who experienced losing a love one at a young age, I decided to go for it.

The hostage taking that happened in the Philippines and resulted to several casualties was a heartbreaking moment that affected a lot of people all over the world. Numerous arguments have been going around coupled with pointing fingers and covering ass. This “shifting the blame” game can never bring back the lives that were taken. In any case, justice MUST be served.

Losing a loveone in a very tragic manner is very traumatic and painful. I was on the same boat few years back so I perfectly understand what they are going through. My mother died in a vehicular accident when I was 13 which nearly cause my father’s life as well. To top it off, the driver run away and eventually surrendered to the authorities. It was agonizing back then but now I can say I’ve moved forward.

I would like to share what my nephew posted on his Facebook. This is the link to Andrew Philip’s view on the hostage taking in the Philippines.
Here you go.

I hope in the long run, time will heal all wounds. My deepest sympathy to the victims and their family.