No doubt, honesty is the best policy. But alas, Cebu also had its share of bad taxi drivers… a fellow named Batestil who tried to con US Marines from the USS Belleau Wood into believing that they hired him and ended up getting mauled and when the noisy militant left-wing organization took up the cudgels for Batestil, that was the last time we saw any vessels from the US Seventh Fleet visit Cebu. For many of us, it was simply tourism, where 3,000 US sailors would visit Cebu every month for R&R. Batestil comes from Mindanao and because of the heat, he went home, while Cebu suffered, thanks to him!
Yes, when a cabbie is honest, we ought to reward him, just like what Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña did during his first term when he gave Cebu’s honest driver Felix Carin a brand-new Daewoo car for his own taxi as a reward for returning lost US dollars. That the Senate came up with a resolution, authored by Senate President Franklin Drilon, Sen. Edgardo Angara, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile and Sen. Pia Cayetano citing Sulpico "as a symbol of the Filipino abroad: an Asian who is honest and upright, and one whose character any employer can truly trust and be proud of." We can only hope that the honesty of Sulpico has rubbed off on our senators, many of whom need to see what an honest man looks like.
Archery became so popular in Cebu; we had 13 archery clubs, and created the Cebu Association of Archery Clubs (CAAC) founded by the Cebu Institute of Technology’s (CIT) Rudy "Toto" Lizares. But then, as in all other games, things started to falter, though I really had my eyes set on the Olympic games, but I realized that there was just too much politics within the National Archery Association of the Philippines (NAAP) so I dropped archery and sold all my shooting equipment.
The story of Jasmin Figueroa is just one of the many efforts of Pinoys to be world-class athletes, just like Jennifer Rosales who won the Chik-A-Fil golf tournament this year and nearly won the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) a month ago. There’s also Dorothy Delasin, who is also making waves in the LPGA. The problem with us is too much politics ruin our chances to become great sportsmen or sportswomen. Take a look at basketball, the most popular sport in the Philippines. How many of us realize that the Philippines can never hope to win in basketball simply because we’re a nation of short people? Yet, almost all commercials to prop up this sport are concentrated on basketball.
There are far more important sporting activities where Pinoys can shine and yes, we are already world-class when it comes to billiards or bowling, like 9-ball world champion Alex Pagulayan. But what about the other sports? Well, an emerging sport that I also used to play in my youth is badminton, which now has become a nationwide (including here in Cebu) craze and which our STAR president/CEO Miguel Belmonte plays (I saw his photos in the JVC Open Badminton games), quite competitively I might add.
I just hope that badminton won’t just be a temporary craze because this is also a game which the Indonesians and the Chinese have mastered and which we too can master. We can only hope that there will be more tournaments which will help develop badminton into a major sport in this country. I still remember our pelota days, a sport that was purely a Filipino creation, which also became a craze in the 70s. Alas, this sport died down because of lack of support for tournaments by both the government and advertisers.
The keynote address will be given by no less than UP president Dr. Francisco Nemenzo whom we interviewed in our talk show Straight from the Sky on Nov. 25, 2002. Back then, Dr. Nemenzo was toying with the idea of rekindling our Cebuano culture and the response was overwhelming that the UP was finally accepting the diverse culture of the Filipinos… that we’re not just Tagalogs, but Cebuanos, Chavacanos, Ilonggos, Ilocanos or Warays. Best of all, it is time for our ultra-nationalists to realize and understand that you don’t have to be a Tagalog or speak this language to love our country. Cebuanos, Butuanons or Ilocanos love our country just as much as the Tagalogs.