Betting and referees

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.

WE know that many sports competitions have been marred by gambling, particularly, in basketball and in boxing events. It’s so typical of Filipinos. Each time there’s a basketball game or a boxing match, inveterate gamblers make a bet and sometimes become unruly when the referees slip in their calls to the disadvantage their pick, often ending in a fistfight between the gamblers and officials, spoiling what could have been a beautiful match. These have happened before and continues to happening today. These addict gamblers, when they lose, blame the referees and accuse them of being bribed.

I have observed this to be true particularly if the pairing of teams is evenly matched. You can expect huge betting. Tens (if not hundreds) of thousands would be lost and won. This has been the observation as well of veteran basketball organizers Seato Gonimil and Manny Gatchalian. They expect heavy betting again during the coming 2010 PRISAA-UCAAP cagefest that will start on July 22. The two share the belief that in the event the hard-court officials become remiss in their calls, especially in the semifinals and the championship stages of the games, we can again expect the expected. Violence would tarnish the league’s image all because of heavy betting.

Gonimil said it’s the job of the league commissioner Angel Gumarang to stop this illegal practice or at least minimize it. Gonimil is confident that Gumarang can do the job if he’s really firm on it.

But can he?

To me, maybe he can check and minimize these the betting and the violence that accompany it but cannot totally curtail it. Gamblers are gamblers and would bet on anything. I don’t want to name names but I have known some coaches and managers of teams themselves who agitated and encouraged violence on the courts. They fumed when their teams were losing and intimidated the referees if they made wrong calls. Well, I cannot blame them sometimes. Prestige and money are at stake. Pero kawawa naman palagi ang mga referees. Sa kanila ang bagsak ng lahat ng sisi. It is true that some of them are competent yet many of them are still immature. So it’s important to have class A referees in the semifinals and in the championship matches.

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Congrats to Ana Julaton for recapturing the World Boxing Organization female super bantamweight title. The Fil-Am boxer Julaton, nicknamed “The Hurricane”, scored a split decision over Mexican Maria Ellena Villalobos in a match held June 30 in Ontario, Canada. Julaton’s parents are from barangay Villegas, Pozorrubio. Like Manny Pacquiao, Julaton is being mentored by world famous trainer Freddie Roach.

We Pangasinenses should be proud of her for being the first female Filipino world champion and the second Pangasinan boxer to win a world crown. The first was the late Roberto Cruz of Bugallon.

Likewise my kudos to Haridas Pascua of Mangatarem Pangasinan for placing 15th (out of 74 bets) in the prestigious Asian Boys and Girls Chess Championship held recently at Chennai, India. Sharing sixth to 14th place after the penultimate round, I expected him to win or at least to score a draw in the ultimate round to land in the top ten. Unfortunately he lost.

Better luck next time, ‘ika nga. I’m still proud of you. You’re only seventeen. You have a lot of room for improvement.

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