Even the heavens weep

As I write this, the lashing rains that turned our skies grey for much of the morning and afternoon have calmed down a bit. But Pagasa says it’ll be raining for the next few days, which doesn’t augur well for all those trekking to the area of the Lapu-Lapu Monument at Luneta this morning.

They will be there to express—by their presence, by their numbers, by the sheer effort of will and indignation—to show their extreme displeasure (to put it mildly) at the planned burial of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani next month.

Of course, there is talk that what will be laid to rest in the heroes’ cemetery are not the physical remains of “The Apo,” but merely his wax effigy, which is what tourists visiting his mausoleum in his hometown of Batac, Ilocos Norte, are said to be viewing.

But it matters little, it seems, what exactly will be laid beneath the ground in the Libingan. For, doubtless, the Marcoses, whose desire to return to real political ascendancy would seem to have been foiled by Bongbong’s unsuccessful run for vice president, will use this burial as a validation, even a valorization, of FM’s dictatorial rule. To be buried with him, it seems, is the truth itself, especially the truth of the crimes, the human rights violations, the lies, the thievery, that attended Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos’ time in power. Even the heavens weep at this historic travesty.

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On her homecoming last Thursday, Hidilyn Diaz was cut down to size. TV footage of her silver-medal-winning performance at the women’s weightlifting event in Rio gave the impression of a muscular, pumped-up athlete lifting the barbells with seeming ease. But photos of her upon arrival, flanked by her visibly proud parents, showed a more human, accessible, less formidable young woman. Certainly not the amazing amazon we had come to expect.

But her smile was of gigantic proportions. One couldn’t help but beam along with her, and also to share the palpable joy she must have felt, along with her family and neighbors and all Filipinos rejoicing with the winner of the first Olympic medal for the Philippines in 20 years.

Certainly, in the overall scheme of things, Hidilyn’s silver pales beside, say, American Michael Phelps’ fourth gold in swimming which brings his total Olympic medal haul to 13 individual golds and 26 medals overall. Hidilyn’s silver even seems puny beside the record expected to be set by Simone Biles of the United States. The diminutive gymnast has just won gold for the women’s all-around, and is expected to add more gleaming metal with her finishes in individual events, especially in the beam, vault and floor. Already, she is being called “the top gymnast in history.” Asked how she feels being ranked among the “greats” of the Olympians, the 19-year-old Biles said simply (but truthfully): “I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps, I’m the first Simone Biles.”

But we have Hidilyn. And when we caught a glimpse of her decidedly Spartan training quarters—a shed near her home in Zamboanga City—we couldn’t help but marvel at how far she has come, and how, with sheer grit, she overcame the odds to rank among the world’s best in her sport.

* * *

For now, it is not just acclaim that awaits Hidilyn.

During the press conference after her arrival, she was handed a check for P5 million from the Philippine Sports Commission, the promised “incentive” for Pinoy medalists in Rio. When asked what she planned to do with this windfall, Hidilyn said she planned to buy the land on which her training shed stands and build a bigger and perhaps spiffier training facility where some of her younger relatives and neighbors could continue their training.

Perhaps Hidilyn—and Philippine sports officials—could learn from the experience of boxer Onyok Velasco who won silver in the 1996 Atlanta Games. To this day, Velasco has yet to get the full amount the government and private sponsors promised him when he came home with a silver. He told reporters that while he readily posed for publicity shots with sponsors and their giant replicas of checks representing his incentives, after the publicity died away, none of those giant checks could be encashed. Maybe that’s why it was considered significant that Hidilyn’s check came in regulation size, meaning the money was serious and real.

* * *

As neighbors we can also take a bit of pride in the victory of Joseph Schooling who represented Singapore, not exactly a sports power in the world, in the men’s 100-meter butterfly and came away with a gold.

Even more significant, Schooling won at the expense of Phelps, who, so sports writers say, has always considered the 100-meter butterfly his “waterloo.”

In his home country, Schooling was for a time the center of a controversy over allegations of “foreigners” representing the island-state. But though he is currently studying and training in the United States, Schooling is a third-generation Singaporean, albeit of Eurasian ethnicity. He is the only child of May and Colin Schooling, his mother a Chinese-Malaysian and his father a businessman who was born and educated in Singapore, his grandfather being a British military officer who married a local Portuguese-Eurasian.

Who would have expected a young man from the Far East to beat the world’s most famous and indeed most accomplished swimmer—if not athlete? The Philippines may have, so far, but one lonely silver medal to account for its participation in Rio. But considering the odds against our Olympic delegates, and the harrowing journeys they had to embark on to compete against the world’s best, we have every reason to be proud of our own sports heroes.