Lessons from the SEAG

The games are over, but the lingering aftertaste of our hosting of the SEAG will always be the Cebuano's triumph. Yes, there were controversies but thru the collective efforts of all those involved, the games were a success. Congratulations everyone !

Of course, success and victory doesn't come cheap. Allegations of cheating, rigging and biased officiating floated in the air like a super-expelled fart. Hello gar-SEA! There are lessons to be learned from all of these. Lessons about life, people and relationships.

The boxing finals at Bacolod was an example. There were questionable results and Negrenses say victory was stolen from us. Well, this teaches us that nothing is forever and we don't win games all the time. Let us appreciate what we have now for we don't know when we might be losing it. And never, ever take family and friends for granted because today is the only gaurantee that we have them. Surely, we have made friends among the foreign athletes. Treasure the friendship.

Insinuations about cheating made the headlines and was boosted by the pronouncements of one Asian head of state, hinting that the games were rigged and we were only concerned of winning medals. That we fielded inillegible and foreign players added to the noise. Yes, those athletes were born and raised elsewhere but their skin color is as brown as Bohol's calamay, their breath smells durian, they are as tall as you and me and they speak their mother tongue. Well, there were some fair-skinned individuals who had caucasians as fathers. Don't fault us if our women speak excellent English compared to most Asian women.

Lesson? Greed is the root of all evil. We aspired to make our dreams come true no matter how high they may be. Our athletes trained long and hard and the results speak for themselves. Let us not feel guilty about our success and victory, but never let an obsession with achieving our goals lead us to engage in questionable activities.

As a result of the unproven allegations of rigged games, we were ridiculed and mocked by the foreign media. Well, it teaches us that nobody is perfect, that no two people are alike. Let us accept them for their merits and be tolerant of their mistakes. They have no control of their flaws. We have encountered people who are different from us during the games. Did we judge them by how they look, act or talk? We should have based our opinion on the contents of their hearts.

As the saying goes, no pain, no gain. And there were lots of pain during the games - injuries, broken egos, broken dreams, heartbreaks. The state of being human is fragile. By protecting and taking care of our bodies the best possible way we can, it's the only thing we can be sure to have forever.

Surely, grudge matches are in the making for the next edition of the SEAG. Grudges teaches us that we all make mistakes. There were instances that we were wronged in some events, and the most virtous thing to do is forgive the offender without conditions. Forgiving is the most difficult and courageous thing a man can do.

Finally, we have reached our ultimate goal. We got the overall championship. Let us bask in the glory but not get carried away and let success get into our heads. Now is the time to train longer, harder and smarter. We should make good in next year's Asian Games at Qatar and prove to Asia and the rest of the world that our achievements on the SEAG was not a fluke. With all the right support, we can be internationally competitive.

And let us also show to the people of Thailand when we again go to battle on the 24th SEAG, that even in their own turf, we can still dominate and whip their butts. Pinoy tayo! Go Pilipinas!

E-mail at [email protected]