Stories to tell from Palaro

By Al S. Mendoza

 

NCR aka Metro Manila again topping the Palarong Pambansa is not the story in San Jose, Antique.

It never is since NCR had practically topped all Palaros—always, in runaway fashion yet.

Why, because NCR (National Capital Region) athletes are the most pampered before, during and even after the Palaro—an annual sporting battle among elementary and secondary students nationwide.

Pampered not only in a sustained supply of good food but many other perks as well.

Name it, they have it:  Scientific coaches.  Correct, expensive training gear.  Allowances big time.

They pay no tuition and matriculation fees.

They are given that much leeway in training and preparation that skipping classes for them is as common as hearing a rooster crowing at dawn.

They’ve got tutors as well to keep their grades in check.

So, wonder no more if they amass gold medals wholesale year in and year out.

In fact, if they could not collect three-fourths or more of the gold medals staked, bad-bad.

Their winning margins are as wide as an elephant’s waistline it’d be horribly unbelievable if one NCR winner won by the skin of his teeth.

But how about our athletes from the provinces?  Boondocks?

Well, some athletes would be lucky if they ever got to the stadium.

A father and a mother displayed exceptional bravery and support when they brought their athlete-son to Antique from Mindanao on board their tricycle.

“My wife and I will do everything just to see our son fulfill his dream,” said the father.

Even when the father’s friend, who substituted as a driver, got sick midway into the journey, that didn’t stop them from proceeding to Antique—arriving there after two days.

They practically loaded their “house” into the tricycle:  cooking utensils, rice, condiments, stove and even a huge plastic cum blanket and trapal serving as their sleeping paraphernalia for the night.

Their son is a boxer.  I do not know if he won the gold or not.

But by his family name alone, I know he’d make for a potential Manny Pacquiao someday.

The kid is surnamed “Tapang.”

And among the struggling kind from the boondocks, one or a couple—on sheer courage—would emerge surprise winners.

A barefoot girl won the grueling 3,000-m, crossing the finish line with her feet bleeding from blisters all over.

Another Leyte girl of 14 crowned herself the fastest in the 60th Palaro.

And right after ruling the 100-m dash, she confessed she went to running to avoid hunger.

“I get to eat every day because of my scholarship,” Bianca Jade Combate, from the Leyte Sports Academy, told the Inquirer’s June Navarro.

The youngest of three siblings (her mother’s a widow), Bianca said: “As for my family, I don’t know their source of income and how they manage to survive.”

Take that.

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