By Joel B. Belinan
At a time when we are being continuously pounded with heavy rains and with news of flooding and damages to properties, we are in a celebratory mode. The reason is not what Pres. Duterte reported in his last State of the Nation Address on Monday afternoon but Hidilyn Diaz’ winning of the Olympic gold. Indeed the almost 100 years Olympic gold drought since we started participating in the Summer Olympics in 1924 is finally over. And it happened on the very day when the president delivered his last SONA in Congress. The Euphoria of her winning the gold can be seen from the fact that it even overshadowed the SONA in all the mass media. One major broadsheet put the Olympic news as their headline, Heavy Load was Lifted.
What even made the gold medal a record not just for us is the fact that Hidilyn Diaz set a new world record in the 55kgs category beating her rival who is a Chinese and former record holder. On the other hand, the gold medal was delivered by a woman and in weight lifting, an event that was long thought by men to be their turf. As said by a netizen, Jet Pascua, as posted on Facebook by former Kalinga Board Member Farnaw Claver: “For a sports-obsessed country, run by incompetent, corrupt and misogynistic men, it seems fitting that the very first Olympic gold medal would be won by a woman. It is also quite poetic and symbolic that she achieved this in weightlifting. Because Filipino women have always carried the immense weight and responsibility of providing hope for their children, their families, and communities, through their selflessness, strength, perseverance, and sacrifices”.
The gold medal of Diaz who is from the Philippine Air Force, might be nothing to countries that are perennial Olympic gold medal winners but for us it is something big. As I have been saying all along, sports maybe just that, but like arts and music, it can lift the morale of a nation. For a people led by leaders whose shameful incompetence and corruption can go down to the lowest level, a morale booster like that gold medal might be what we need for our people to regain our self-respect and live our lives with dignity.
That Olympic news, of course, will not cure what ails our sports sector which almost regularly result in sports debacles every time this country participates in major international competitions. What has been happening to our sports is actually like what is always happening to our government since the establishment of this republic. Thus, we are a country and people that have been hungry for something to uplift our spirit and keep on living or even inspire us to do something to better our individual lives or our communities. Never mind that the President and his army of diehard supporters, who call themselves DDS, and supported by many government employees especially those in the uniformed services are having a heyday trumpeting almost everything he had reported in his last SONA last July 25 (Monday).
Compared to the P20 million that Diaz got when she won the silver medal during the Rio Olympics in 2016, it will be much bigger this time. The windfall keeps on adding up as aside from the P10 million provided by law for an Olympic Gold Medalist, to which the Manny V. Pangilinan foundation will be adding an equal amount, there are other prominent personalities (politicians and businessmen alike) who are openly chipping in cash and properties. I would not be surprised if the estimated P40 million (in cash and property) will go up to P70 or 80 million. It should also be noted that Hidilyn has had some word war with weight lifting officials in 2018 because of certain requests she made for training needs. This led to the usual Duterte government’s lumping up of those people expressing their minds against certain things in government as saboteurs. For sure government spin doctors will have a hundred and one ways to make such stories look different now.
The one gold medal that our country got this time of course is nothing to many other countries that have been amassing golds from the so-called greatest show on earth. It’s really long overdue for this country of at least 110 million people. Compare this to our neighbors in Southeast Asia, and it’s really a shame. Example, Singapore with barely 7 to 8 million people, Malaysia with barely 40 million people, Thailand with around 70 million inhabitants and even Vietnam which started joining the Olympics just more than 3 decades ago were way ahead in bagging their first Gold medals. The reason is obvious, those countries have good sports leaders.
We are crossing our fingers that we will get more golds as we still have the chance in this Olympic. We still have those 3 or 4 boxers who, as of this writing, are just a win away from a medal match. Remember that we have been pinning our hopes of getting that first gold medal from boxing. Despite Carlos Yulo’s debacle in the Floor Exercise where he is the reigning World Champion, he is still in contention albeit in Pole-vault as he makes it to the final. We also have that Filipino Japanese golfer and that rower whose names I cannot remember, but who could surprise us. Who knows they might be inspired by Hidilyn’s gold medal.
We hope that there will be more, and for weightlifting to be looked upon by sports officials in another light. What makes me excited about this aspect is that weightlifting is a sport that is suited to the Cordilleran physique. We already produced two legendary weight lifters, the late Councilor and “Mr. Baguio” Nick Domalsin and Mr. Sammy Ayochok. Both had brought several awards for the city and the Cordillera in national and international competitions. Mr. Ayochoc even won the World Championship in the middleweight division in Australia in 1994. **
