Several weeks back, after the Philippines gave Croatia, its first opponent, a mighty scare in the FIBA world cup, I wrote enthusiastically (which is to say sincerely) that we have finally matured enough to make ourselves felt in the global stage of basketball. At the time, it did not matter to me that we lost. It was enough that we made a good account of ourselves. It was a time for heady national pride and I was beside myself with patriotism.
As I was to find out much later, it is very difficult for patriotism to thrive and flourish on a bed of losses, where the only watering it gets is a sad and sorry tear. It is even harder if the losses come after games that are all but won, which was virtually every game but the one with Greece. The lone victory against Senegal was a fluke, compliments of time running out. That game followed the same pattern as the others -- we had it and then blew it.
I do not normally borrow quotes of others because I like to speak for myself. But I have to give it to Anthony Taberna of ABS-CBN who described the Philippine basketball team as "palagi lang muntik -- muntik nanalo dito, muntik nanalo doon." The series of near-wins in the FIBA, which is really a series of losses, has now extended to the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea.
I feel sorry for Manny Pangilinan who has given so much to this team. I am sure Mr. Pangilinan is too refined a gentleman to say anything negative about the losses. But Mr. Pangilinan is not superman. He is not impervious to disappointment. As a human being, that disappointment will manifest itself in his quiet moments. He will have no regrets, or course. But regrets and disappointment are two entirely different things.
To be sure, losses are part of the game. But if given a choice, I would pick winning all the time. And do not ever take comfort that it is not how you lost but how you played the game. Winners need no comforting, only the losers do. In fact it is never about how you played the game because if only you played the game better, you would have won.
Good if we lost once, or twice, or even thrice or four times. But to lose every game except one, which we also nearly lost, that is too much for even the most avid of patriots to bear. How can one stay a patriot when the record books tell a consistent story of games nearly in the bag but eventually blown in the end. I will not go to the extent of saying so, but I am sure there are others who will actually think the losses were treason.
I am very sorry, but I just cannot force myself to say our boys did their best and played their hearts out. To say so is to diminish what the other teams accomplished against us, and the effort that went into that accomplishment. Somehow, I have come to the conclusion that there is no other outcome than victory when your best is given and your heart is played out.
If patriotism is like love, then winning is like making love. You can look into the eyes of your one true love forever, but what is so terrible about winning a few times. Your love for basketball, or any other game for that matter, needs a little winning from time to time to keep things interesting. But if all you ever do in a game is lose, might as well save everyone the hassle and get forfeited.
I do not hate the members of the Philippine national basketball team. But I sure do pity them. When there is nothing that you can do except to lose, I am sure it begins to take a toll on your person. You begin to question your game. You begin to question your skills. You begin to question your teammates. You begin to question your coach. You begin to question your equilibrium.
It does not help the sad and sorry state of Philippine basketball, after we have been led to expect so much, to just wave everything off and charge it to experience, like the way Chot Reyes tried to be magnanimous in defeat. You are magnanimous in victory, not the other way around. So Chot Reyes cannot just say he is taking the blame for the losses. That is getting himself off the hook too magnanimously. It is not as if saying sorry erases everything.
But I do not want to blame Chot Reyes either. I just don't want him saying sorry and that's it. That is taking the easy way out for something that has been very difficult for everyone. In all the venues from the FIBA in Spain to the Asian Games in South Korea, Filipinos turned out in droves and screamed until they can scream no more. I cry for how they all felt going home to whatever is home in a foreign land.
A victory would have made them walk the streets of their adopted lands with heads held high. They would have become the peers of everyone. Patriotism would have sustained them in their terrible longing for loved ones. There would have been reunions across the seas in knowing every Filipino was watching wherever they may be. Alas what a feeling it is to lose. No, a loss anyone can take. What a feeling it is to blow it. What a feeling to multiply the feeling everytime.
Of course, we may still snatch a win. Unfortunately, it has come to a point when nobody cares anymore if we win. Any win henceforth will be nothing more than a fluke. It has come to a point where everyone is tired. When our boys come home, they will still be feted and paraded. And I do not think there will be a handshake whose firmness is diminished by insincerity. But there will be an emptiness that pretense cannot hope to fill. There is still no substitute for winning.