Paul Lee, the amazing basketball dreamer from Tondo

Out of our suffering we emerge. Our struggles are really our only hope. —  Bryant McGill

Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Even those who are not basketball fans were elated last week to hear news that our Philippine team won the FIBA Asia Cup tournament’s bronze medal or third place by dramatically winning over host China with just one point due to the last few seconds’ heroics of new national player Paul Lee who shot three consecutive points.

The YouTube video of Paul Lee with his cool heroic efforts in that match was among the Philippines’ most watched, with views exceeding even the videos of ABS-CBN 2’s The Voice Kids semi-finals.

Jaemark Tordecilla, executive editor at GMA News Online, tweeted that night of July 19: “One last tweet for the night: So proud to have come up with ‘Angas ng Tondo’ nickname for Paul Lee. Way to make us proud today #AngasNgPilipinas.” The Tagalog slang word angas means “cool,” “awesome” or “badass.”

Sports TV host Ronnie Nathanielsz said: “With the win over China, on Paul Lee’s last-second heroics in cooly sinking three pressure-packed charities, he has earned a place in the World Cup.” His Rain or Shine teammate in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), Chris Tiu, tweeted that evening: “Pass to Paul Lee, shot fake and gets the foul from the 3pt line with no time left. Paul calmly sinks 3 FTs to bring home the bronze...”

Philippine STAR sports columnist Quinito Henson once tweeted: “Spoke 2 paul lee on fone, sed caguioa n wade his idols, 1st played at 4 yrs old with green-white milo ball altho hes not milo best product.”

I admire Paul Lee not only because of  his outstanding basketball prowess and iron determination, but because he’s my grandnephew or the grandson of my late first cousin Alfonso Lee from our paternal clan. Similar in some ways to my personal experiences, I admire his overcoming life’s difficulties with grit and pulling himself up by his own bootstraps.

Although our paternal ancestors were pioneer lumber entrepreneurs and philanthropists since the 19th century, not all of the many descendants in our clan have inherited material wealth or businesses. It is also a reality in our clan, or perhaps it’s part of Chinese culture, that we’re quite individualistic and tend to fend for ourselves based on individual merit rather than depend on relations for support.

Why did our clan become based in Tondo, perhaps Metro Manila’s most heavily populated urban center, which in modern times has become associated with poverty, gangsters like Asiong Salonga, and nearby seaports? My late father lost his father at only age 25 and became leader of the family; a few years later, he boldly bought five hectares of land in the Gagalangin area of Tondo, Manila for expansion of the sawmill business and family members started moving there in the late 1930s. Historic and tough Tondo became my hometown, our family’s hometown, too.

My side of the clan became lower middle-class with our father’s demise when we moved out of Tondo and my late widowed mom worked as a teacher. Many relatives remained in Tondo.

Paul Lee as pedicab driver, carrier of tiles & tennis ball pick-up boy

I learned that Paul Lee’s late grandfather was sickly and not well-off, working in the past as a sales agent and also as checker of lumber inventories in our clan’s sawmill in Tondo, Manila run by our other relatives. His grandmother told me that she once worked overseas for 10 years in Taiwan.

Paul Lee’s parents Edwin and Helen married when they were young and they also struggled economically; their attempt at doing a small business had failed, so the three kids were transferred from private schools to public schools when Paul was still a child. His dad is now pedicab driver in Tondo. His mother Helen once worked briefly as caregiver in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. They still live in a small home.

As a kid who grew up in the tough environment of Tondo, Manila, Paul — whose nickname to his family is “PJ,” short for his full name Paul John — never asked for money from his parents and never wanted to be a burden to his family.

If Paul wanted money, he’d go work as a pedicab driver in Tondo. As a kid, he once worked with other poor kids carrying, counting and sorting out ceramic tiles coming from containers. He once even worked as “pulot boy” at a tennis court, picking up balls for tennis players who were practicing and getting paid P20 for his efforts.

When I asked his parents why Paul seemed to possess so much determination in playing basketball, my nephew and his dad Edwin replied: “From 12 to 14 years old, our son PJ was already playing here in Tondo against older players who were bigger and older at age 17 or 18. He’d join many of the basketball competitions in various places all over Tondo, from here in Gagalangin to Velasquez and other places, sometimes three games in a day. His coaches in school told us that our son was always the earliest to go to basketball practice every morning.”

Dreaming of greatness via basketball

His mother Helen recounted to me that when Paul was only nine or 10 years old, while watching Michael Jordan playing basketball on TV, he suddenly told to her: “Mama, someday you will see me on TV.”

From high school to college at University of the East (UE), the then lean and lanky but driven Paul Lee got full scholarships and even free board and lodging due to his passion for basketball.

During years of researching my own paternal family history, I learned about Paul Lee, the basketball whiz and dreamer, and have been following his amazing basketball career ever since he was still at UE. I know the history of his side of our clan. I understand and empathize with the fire in his belly, his iron determination to create a better future for himself.

Although, like myself, Paul Lee has not inherited wealth from our illustrious paternal immigrant forebears, he reminds me of the dramatic stories of guts, grit and perseverance of those dreamers in our clan’s history who sought liberation from poverty through rugged entrepreneurship and a boundless capacity for hard work.

I admire my grandnephew Paul Lee as a positive role model for the youth, for his guts, grit, talent, his dreams of overcoming poverty through basketball, his extraordinary passion, discipline, perseverance, hard work, and character. I wish him and the whole Gilas Philippine team good luck in the FIBA World Cup basketball championships in Spain.

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