A culture of mediocrity?

They say the true measure of one’s character is the ability to bounce back from failure and disappointment. But it’s equally true that success and glory can be revealing.

The past week was easily among the proudest and most joyful moments for the Filipino nation. Carlos Yulo defied all odds by claiming not one but two gold medals for the country, thus catapulting our nation to the top 35 nations in the overall Olympic medal rankings. And mind you, he achieved this in the field of gymnastics, arguably the pinnacle of all sports.

In fact, Yulo’s unfathomable success singlehandedly made sure that the Philippines remained the leader among all Southeast Asian countries. Bronze medals from our valiant boxers, Aira Villegas and Nesthy Petecio, cemented our regional position ahead of both Indonesia and Thailand well into the end of the games. If anything, the Philippines comfortably ranked among the top 10 nations in the entire Asian continent, with the usual “Big Four” of China, South Korea, Japan, and Iran putting up dominant performances in their respective fields of strength. The Koreans did their magic in taekwondo, while the Persians easily reminded the world of their wrestling pedigree. As for China, they got 13 gold medals in diving and shooting alone, with five in both table tennis and weightlifting. As for tiny impoverished Uzbekistan, it easily ranked in the top 15 nations on earth by leveraging its Soviet-era legacy of sports excellence, particularly in boxing and judo. In short, the Philippines was in a rarified company of Asian sporting giants.

It was precisely at this moment of singular national glory that things took a bizarre turn. Instead of pouring over sports analytics and Yulo’s incredible journey to an unprecedented double-gold at the Olympics, the national conversation was seamlessly hijacked by a family feud and personal drama. I’m neither in a position to nor, frankly, interested in pouring over the precise circumstances of private squabbles in Yulo’s life. I’m not here to judge. It’s his private life, and I respect that. The problem, however, is that too many extraneous elements seemed more than eager to cash in on the controversies surrounding our new national hero’s private life. And entrepreneurial vloggers and click-bait media practitioners were the main culprits.

But there was more. Talent managers reportedly angled to handle Yulo’s budding “showbiz” career, while credit-grabbing politicians began flexing their alleged past support for the new hero ahead of next year’s elections. As of this writing, the total amount of pledged prizes in both cash and properties is approaching a whopping 20 percent of the Philippines’ entire annual sports budget. It’s not that Yulo is getting too much—he deserves every million he is getting—but that our total investment in sports is so minuscule. The proposed 2025 national budget decreased dramatically, from last year’s P1.156 billion to only P725 million in the upcoming fiscal year.

If anything, the bulk of new funding in sports is expected to go into basketball, an unquestionably much-beloved sport that is yet to produce an Olympic qualification in this century. Meanwhile, most of our national sportsmen and potential Olympians will have to survive on barely minimum wage level support for the foreseeable future. We clearly have a winner-takes-all culture, which handsomely rewards only those who have won medals rather than those who could win our next ones en masse.

More fundamentally, however, we need to overcome a culture of mediocrity, which prioritizes drama, sentimentality, and showbiz. It’s the same culture that has driven away among the best and brightest in this country, including former Olympians and many of my colleagues, both academics and professionals, who are now instead working at the world’s leading institutions rather than directly helping their motherland.

This year’s memorable Olympics showed us that we never lacked in talent, or in determination.

If anything, a new “golden era” in Philippine sports could be on the horizon. But we need a culture of excellence, which knows how to prioritize investment in nurturing our best and brightest as well as developing a wide range of sports endeavors capable of delivering us Olympic glory. As the 13th most populous nation on earth, we are clearly yet to fully optimize the vast and impressive pool of talent and energy in our beloved Philippines.

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