Champ’s bonus for rehab

TACLOBAN, Philippines – Ramon (Niño) Franco Jr. said the other day he will use his P100,000 incentive for winning the karate gold medal at the recent Southeast Asian (SEA) Games to rehabilitate his parents’ home that was swamped by neck-deep waters from the Yolanda storm surge and vowed to stay strong in the wake of the devastation.

Franco, 28, was training in Tehran with the Philippine karate team when the super typhoon struck this Leyte capital city. He monitored the damage through intermittent connection on facebook and was consoled by news that his parents, two sisters and brother survived the onslaught. Franco never lost focus. Since making his international debut as a 17-year-old cadet athlete in 2002, he’s always dreamed of someday capturing the gold in the SEA Games. He claimed the bronze at the 2007 SEA Games in Thailand and took a silver in the team event at the 2011 SEA Games in Indonesia. Now, his collection is complete.

Aside from Yolanda, Franco endured another distraction during the 2 1/2 month training in Iran. He lost his prized tablet to a thief. “Somebody stole my gym bag with all my gear and my tablet which my father is still paying for through credit card instalments,” he said. “I promised to pay back my father for the P26,000 tablet. I couldn’t believe it was stolen. My coach (Ali Parvinfar) saw how distraught I was and gave me a replacement. I’m lost without my tablet which I use to watch videos of my opponents on YouTube, play games on line and listen to music that my father influenced me to like, songs like ‘Respect’ by Aretha Franklin, ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ and Stevie Wonder’s hits.”

Franco flew back here last Dec. 23 with his father, a licensed international karate referee who was also in Myanmar for the SEA Games. They took the flight from Manila to Cebu then the ferry to Ormoc and travelled by land to this city. Franco’s heart fell when he saw the damage wrought by Yolanda which has claimed over 7,000 lives and left thousands more homeless. In Myanmar, he wept after beating Brunei’s Muhammad Fada’iy Sanif, 8-6, in the finals. He wept even more after seeing his hometown transformed into a vast wasteland.

Franco said most of his medals and trophies were saved from the invading waters but his SEA Games bronze medal from Thailand was badly tarnished. The family home is a three-bedroom bungalow so there was no second level to seek refuge in. The raging waters burst into the house and ruined computers, appliances, gadgets and irreplaceable souvenirs. Franco’s father said he’s still looking for his external hard drive where videos of his son’s bouts are stored.

“I never thought about the incentive in Myanmar,” said Franco. “I don’t even know how much I’m getting. For me, all I wanted was to bring home the gold.” Franco’s father, a coach with the Philippine Sports Commission the last two years, said he was informed by Philippine Karatedo Federation secretary-general Raymund Lee Reyes that the P100,000 bonus is ready for pick-up.

“I’ll give half to my father and I’ll keep half but everything will go to repairing our house,” he said. “We’ll have to prioritize. We lost all our belongings, TVs, a laptop, a desk top, our stereo components, everything. We still don’t know if our refrigerator works because there’s no power in our area.”

Franco’s father, 55, started coaching karate in 1981. His gym was destroyed by Yolanda in the City Convention Center. “I train about 15 students in Tacloban with the help of Mayor (Alfred) Romualdez,” he said. “Not too many are interested in karate. More kids are turning to taekwondo. But with God’s help, we’ve been able to qualify contenders for the national championships. In Myanmar, our karate team was made up of six men and three women. Michael Budil and my son and Jianna Mayilanan represented Tacloban so three of the nine came from our city.”

Franco was a reluctant athlete as a boy. “He grew up in a house next to the gym where I used to train karate,” said his father. “In the crib, he would kick out like a karatista. At two, he was making karate moves. But as he got older, he lost interest. I tried to bribe him to train, adding P10 to P20 to his daily allowance. Finally, after losing his bike at the age of 12, he started to train seriously. In karate, I always stress two things – flexibility and distance. I taught Nino the basics. He learned quickly and he’s very intelligent.”

Franco fractured his right hand during a tournament in 2010 and sat out a year, missing the Doha Asian Games. But he came back with a vengeance. What brought him all the way to the top was his uncompromising self-discipline. From his first international appearance 11 years ago until today, he has fought within the 55 kilogram limit, not allowing his body to put on weight. That’s proof of his determination to stay in peak condition.