How we should remember them

You have to care about people, about this world. That’s not easy to deal with sometimes, but what we do is never about the easy way out. That’s what separates us from everyone else. – Andrew Horton as Brandon Sampson, “Jupiter’s Legacy”

Publisher and editor Gus Villanueva and former De La Salle and Batangas Blades forward Maoi Roca both passed away on Friday. This adds to an already staggering list of Filipino sportsmen who have died in the past year. But for this writer, it was an even more painful occurrence, bookending two important chapters in my career.

Just to give you a background, when this writer started in sports broadcasting in 1986, the landscape was totally different. Sports was the unwanted stepchild of television news, an inconvenience that nobody tried to understand. To this day, early evening and late night news programs don’t even carry sports news daily, save for PTV. You had to find stories, fight for them to be aired, and pray that they didn’t get bumped off for one reason or another. And that was only half the story. At the time, TV sports reporters were not taken seriously by many in print. They considered us overpaid hacks who didn’t work as hard. (Ironically, we’re the ones who have to be physically present to record actual moments).

This was where Gus Villanueva made a huge difference. In that uncomfortable and discouraging situation, he made me and succeeding TV sports beat reporters feel welcome. Whether it was the PSA Forum or other press conferences, we got the same seats at the table as everyone else. He and Sim Sotto respected us as fellows in the industry. That made a world of difference. And even when we scooped the competition and jealousy abounded, that did not change. Gus was a calming, generous presence. He was always there to give advice, to help navigate the politics of sports. We will not forget him.

Fast forward to 1998. Maoi Roca was on a strong initial Batangas Blades roster, before Rommel Adducul and Alex Compton transferred and made them a championship team. A standout as a Green Archer, he provided a stable presence for the young team. He was one of the players hometown fans in Lipa came to watch both for his skill and his looks. He carried himself with leadership and dignity. And long after the Metropolitan Basketball Association folded, he kept in touch with this writer. Very few players did. Maoi reportedly died of multiple organ failure as a complication of diabetes.

In this era of successive losses and forced detachment, I choose to remember Gus and Maoi as they were in those days, when Gus had little gray, and Maoi was just coming into his strength as an athlete. I choose to relive the memories, the turning points where they made an impact on others. This blunts the loss, freshens the emotions. I am grateful for having known them. This helps ease the ache of not having been able to say goodbye.