National disaster
Can we blame these back-to-back setbacks on our athletes or their lack of height, skills, strength, discipline and ability to overcome the giants of Asia? Definitely not.
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Can we blame these back-to-back setbacks on our athletes or their lack of height, skills, strength, discipline and ability to overcome the giants of Asia? Definitely not.
The 20th Asian Games have just started, but our athletes in our favorite sports — men’s basketball and women’s volleyball — have already bombed out of competition.
Gilas Pilipinas played like it didn’t belong at the Asian level. Featuring an all-local crew of Philippine Basketball Association players, Gilas surrendered an 85-89 decision to a heavily reinforced Bahraini side before getting some relief with a 109-78 victory over Kazakhstan.
But whatever chances they had completely vanished when a revenge-driven Chinese squad embarrassed them with a 44-point massacre, 105-61.
The setback was so humiliating it rocked the local basketball community to its foundation, with Senators Christopher “Bong” Go and Juan Miguel Zubiri reaching for answers and former Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas executive director Noli Eala branding the entire campaign “nakakahiya.”
A couple of days later, the other wildly popular national squad in Alas Pilipinas followed Gilas to the exit.
Just like Gilas, the Alas women showed some flashes of brilliance. They pushed mighty China to the limit in the first two sets before surrendering a 25-18, 25-22, 25-8 decision, followed by a 29-27, 24-26, 23-25, 19-25 beating from Kazakhstan.
Yes, Alas Pilipinas still has a chance to salvage some measure of pride as it is competing in the classification phase. Still, the fact remains that its golden chance to land an Asian Games medal is gone, and its campaign serves as yet another tragic chapter in Philippine volleyball.
Can we blame these back-to-back setbacks on our athletes or their lack of height, skills, strength, discipline and ability to overcome the giants of Asia? Definitely not.
Filipino athletes are not to blame for their poor performance. Yes, they were the ones who competed on the floor, but they were just foot soldiers who were bound to follow the instructions of their coaches, team managers and federation officials.
Take Gilas Pilipinas, for example. The Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) had three years to prepare for its title defense. They were given a year to assemble a competitive roster based on the availability of the best Filipino players around the world. And they had a couple of months to train the players, turning them from a collection of individual stars into a well-oiled unit capable of retaining the crown.
But it didn’t happen. Instead of buckling down to work early, the SBP took its sweet time, apparently thinking that another Asian Games title would be handed to them on a silver platter. And when the players on Gilas coach Tim Cone’s wishlist didn’t arrive, they scrambled to form a team just for the sake of sending a delegation.
The biggest blunder was the absence of naturalized player Justin Brownlee. Sure, he is the heart and soul of Gilas, the hero behind the magical victory that ended the Filipinos’ six-decade Asian Games title drought in Hangzhou in 2023.
But when Brownlee didn’t commit to the FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers, Cone still refused to see the red flags, stubbornly waiting for him to arrive despite having a naturalized player in Malick Diouf available to suit up on very short notice.
A lack of leadership, foresight and political will also hampered Alas Pilipinas’ preparations for the Asian Games. With the Philippine National Volleyball Federation meted out a suspension by both local and international bodies due to governance issues, the Philippine Olympic Committee took over, deploying a poorly prepared squad that looked lost and didn’t stand a chance against the elite teams of Asia.
In the end, Alas’s Japanese coach, Taka Minowa, apologized, admitting that they didn’t have the energy and the winning mindset to get the job done — two crucial factors that can be gained from a well-planned program, longer preparation and trust in a proven system.
The losses of Gilas Pilipinas and Alas Pilipinas are not just ordinary entries on Team Philippines’ record sheet. They are a national disaster that serves as a painful reminder that tragedy will unfold if sports officials feed our athletes with the misguided belief that they can just simply walk into battle and collect the trophy.
Until sports leaders are held accountable for their complacency and structural failures, our national teams will remain caught in this disastrous cycle of losing.
The athletes did their part by playing their hearts out on the court. Now, it is time for those sitting comfortably in the boardroom and in their hotel rooms to answer for this national disgrace — or step aside for leaders who actually care about winning.
