DECEMBER 8 - DECEMBER 14, 2019


4 OPINION EDITORIAL


Recognition


feather on its cap. This is the second year in a row that it has been named as Sports Tourism Organizer of the Year in the government category during the 3rd Philippine Sports Tourism Awards in Manila.


The City of Dumaguete just got another


It was given in recognition for the City’s hosting of several sporting events from Little League Baseball, Beach Volleyball, and several other events. With the award in the bag, the city officials and a few others left for China. Maybe in their haste to leave for China immediately after the awarding, they were unable to recognize our athletes who were competing in the games, as a true supporter of grassroots sports would. Our home-grown archers like Jennifer


Chan, Phoebe Nicole Amistoso, Pia Elizabeth Angela Bidaure, Gabrielle Monica Bidaure, and Carson Francis Hastie; and our very own Eleazar “JR” Barba in mountain biking. It was, therefore, no surprise for many to read a post on social media about Dumaguete athletes competing in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games who did not get any support from their City prior to their departure for the Games. The omission became more obvious as


ATTY. WHELMA SITON-YAP ECON 101 whelmayap@yahoo.com


JR Barba started getting recognition from all over the country after he won a silver medal in the Mountain Biking - Men’s Downhill competition. True to what some netizens guessed, the City scrambled to recognize Barba and the other athletes on its social media page, with a promise to give them their due recognition and incentive. While we are proud of what our athletes have accomplished in the SEA Games, we cannot help but wonder if their performance could have been better had they been given recognition or a proper send off prior to the Games. Recognition could have come in many forms, not just in terms of financial support. The knowledge that their own community is rooting for their success would have been a big thing. This will not be the last time our athletes will see action in international sporting events. We can only hope that things will get better next time around.


Everyone should engage in sports towards health and fitness, more importantly, for children and young people to develop good habits they can continue into adulthood. With television and social media capturing people of all ages and turning them into couch potatoes, the thrusts to get up and move is extremely vital to prevent obesity and its resulting consequence of pathological overweight issues.


A


re you engaged in any kind of sports? Does age matter?


as people make more sensible, healthy changes in their lifestyle.


important for the youth in their physical and mental growth. In the formation of character, sports inculcates good values, advancing career growth. In addition, sports has become a good means of earning a living. The person who does well in his sporting field earns for himself a good


Being engaged in some sports can improve mental health, as well as physical health, with exercise being helpful for people with depression and a range of other mental health issues because it releases good chemicals into our brains. Sports also makes people feel better about their bodies, which can make them happier; it reduces the risks of eating disorders and crash dieting,


name, some fame, and even wealth -- especially when be becomes a hero after a lot of hard physical work.


offering career opportunities. It is a even a mandatory subject in the curriculum of the Department of Education. To highlight the country’s interest in sports, the Philippines was admitted to the Southeast Asian Games Federation in 1977. After a gap


JG UMBAC THE WAY IT IS bjplug@gmail.com


Member, Philippine Press Institute


ALEX REY V. PAL Publisher & Editor-in-Chief (On-leave) IRMA FAITH B. PAL Managing Editor


JOEL V. PAL Online News/North America Editor RICHLI D. AVES Cartoonist


2018 National Awardee: Best in Photojournalism 2017 National Awardee: Best in Photojournalism 2017 Best in Visayas: Best in Photojournalism, Best Editorial Page, Best Edited Community Newspaper 2016 Best in Visayas: Best in Photojournalism, Best in Environment Reporting, Best Editorial Page, Best Edited Community Newspaper 2007 National Awardee: Best Editorial Page


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around a small table staring at a hand-drawn map with an X written so many times that it’s almost through the parchment. They were reassuring, or more closely, convincing each other they have pin-pointed the location of the treasure buried by the Japanese Imperial Army as it retreated from the advancing American troops during World War II.


I


t was a dark evening in the middle of nowhere. Some men were huddled


spot. With sweaty hands, they held their shovels, their hearts beating fast, their anxiety almost unbearable. Each of them had the same visions, just not in the same order. Whatever was first or last: cars, new houses, best universities for the kids, jewelry, a new motorcycle, a jet ski, a power boat, a vacation to Europe or America, women, for those


None of them could say what the treasure consisted of, but each wanted to believe that it was gold bars. These men were all glassy- eyed, each living in his own fantasy world, fueled by an almost tangible vision of glistening gold bars in their hands. Nothing could pry them away from their fantastic waking dreams of riches beyond their wildest imaginings. Dreaming is free and these men know how to max it out. Not even the sky could put a limit to their waking dreams.


So at the crack of dawn, they headed to where X marked the


afflicted with carnal longings, whatever it was, it paraded in their minds. These things seemed so


inexhaustible. Midday and they were still at it, creating a pile of dug earth big enough to have buried a pickup truck. Finally, they began to tire, their excitement no longer strong enough to sustain them. Their shovels now showing their shiny metal selves, their outside paint long worn away with every stroke. Just as strongly as it came


Destroyer of lives


attainable; they could almost feel having them already. The hard ground was no match for the excitement that drove the shovels into it. They dug a main hole and other, smaller ones around it, expanding the spot that the X marked. That way, they were sure, they surrounded the treasure, leaving no chance of them not finding it.


Excitement proved better than protein at fueling their bodies—it seemed


flooding in, their excitement began to ebb, reluctantly, but surely taking with it their dreams and aspirations, their imagined riches, leaving them emotionally crushed. The dug earth would have to stay where it was forever. There was no more energy to put it back in the holes it came out of. With nary a smile, they


bade each other goodbye. They did not talk about a next time. All they know is that they were so wrong this time.


Sports has great potential in Sports is particularly


of 14 years, we are now playing host to the 2019 SEA Games, now ongoing until Dec. 11 in various venues in Luzon, involving participants from 11 countries in Southeast Asia. Founded as the South East Asian Peninsular Games (SEAP Games) on 22 May 1958, delegates from the countries in the Southeast Asian Peninsula attending the Asian Games in Tokyo, Japan had a meeting and agreed to establish a sports


Is sports important?


organisation. The SEAP Games was conceptualised by Luang Sukhum Nayaoradit, then vice-president of the Thailand Olympic Committee.


that a regional sports event will help promote cooperation, understanding, and good relations among countries in the Southeast Asian region. Six countries, Burma (now Myanmar), Kampuchea (now Cambodia), Laos, Malaya


The proposed rationale was


(now Malaysia), Thailand, and Vietnam were the founding members. They agreed to hold the Games biennially in June 1959, and SEAP Games Federation Committee was formed thereafter. The first SEAP Games were


METROPOST


held in Bangkok from 12–17 December 1959, comprising more than 527 athletes and officials from Thailand, Burma, Malaya, Singapore, South Vietnam, and Laos participating in 12 sports. East Timor was admitted at the 22nd SEA Games in Vietnam in 2003. *****


Locally,Dumaguete has been awarded this year’s Sports Tourism Organizer (Government). Indeed , the City is not only a City of Gentle People, but a City of Sports-Minded People as well, as can be seen in the widespread support for sporting events like triathlons, marathons, fun runs.


to hosting the 2020 ASEAN School Games, perhaps it is never too late for each of us, young and old, to take up a sport, and strive to be good at it. So get up and move it! Brisk walk, jog, dribble, box, dance, scuba dive, climb mountains, sail, surf, skateboard, lift weights, swim, bike, run! Just do it!


this (treasure hunting)? This was the thought in most of the men’s minds.


As the City looks forward


Real things started to fade in—the bills due tomorrow, groceries, children’s tuition, etc. Why did I quit my job for


another rumor of another treasure somewhere, to stoke their uncontrollable urges to waste yet more of their time and money, betting on nothing but a dream. These men are amazing, at best, and stupid, at worst, relying on a future supported only by the raving lunacy of the thought of impossible riches. They are the treasure hunters. Everyone revels in the thought of enormous wealth, but most know that unless you’ve already been hit by a chest of gold that fell from the sky, it is the most unlikely thing to happen in your life. If we could use dreams to buy our way through life, why work? Sadly, that is not the case. In order to buy the next meal, we must have money, real money, at the very time that you buy it. We could not dream a plate of food unto a table to eat. We could not sit somewhere and dream that somehow our electric bill will be paid, or for the school to issue us a receipt for tuition payment they received through our dream. How special we would be if it were the case. Instead, we work to pay our way through life. It doesn’t matter—we have our own business or are employed—it’s


TO PAGE 7


Yet, all it would take is


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