This appears in the Monday April 18, 2011 edition of the Business Mirror.
Heaven is a pitch Part 1
by rick olivares
Dumaguete. The coast city in southern Negros is known for many things. It’s the motorcycle capital of the Philippines. It’s the “City of Gentle People”. It’s a “university town” as it is home to Silliman University, Foundation University, and Negros Oriental State University, nine high schools, and a dozen elementary schools.
And if Allan Cordova, vice mayor of the city, gets his wish, Dumaguete will also be known for its sports tourism.
The annual University Games, the successor to the National UAAP, is held here. Fun runs and marathons are increasingly becoming popular. But the one sport that through the decades has held Dumagueteños in thrall is football.
I am here for a week to cover the Visayas regional cluster competition of the PFF Suzuki Under-23 National Cup. Easily, this is the most exciting of the four regions (including the National Capital Region). The Visayas has had the reputation of being football country in this basketball republic.
A couple of years ago, I spent a month in Iloilo researching and filming the enchantment that the beautiful game held on this island. I traveled from town to town, watched one game after another, and one tournament after another. The game of sinike – football played barefoot on rice fields -- is etched with indelible ink in my mind. In the process, I fell in love with the place and since then there has been an innate desire to see more of the country. If the sport is a universal language that also bridges and breaks down borders, then heaven must be a football pitch.
The irony was I had traveled extensively to so many countries and different continents before I had gone around the country. There is simply more to the Philippines than just Manila, Baguio, and Boracay.
As the saying goes – “better late than never.” And how cool can it be to travel and cover football at the same time?
What I love about touring the provinces is seeing the landmarks, relics, and historical sites of our colonial past. A few paces outside my hotel along Perdices Street, I spot the city’s most famous architectural landmark – the Dumaguete Belfry that was built centuries ago to warn townsfolk of the approach of marauding pirates. There’s nothing like an old church to stir the passions of the Catholic in me. So you can imagine how I felt touring those old churches in Ilocos and Iloilo.
But I have to reserve the sight seeing for later. I have to attend to a different religion. Football. My writing about the sport has opened doors for me and made me meet lots of people. And it sure is fun meeting people who read me all the way here in Dumaguete.
The Mariano Perdices Field by mid-afternoon is packed with close to 200 kids playing football. I am told that this is just one age group. The following day will find an equal number of players only older. And that isn’t counting those youth that play pick up football every afternoon in the Rizal Park fronting the St. Catherine Cathedral. Amazing.
The Visayas leg is said to be the most exciting and hotly contested. Boy, they weren’t kidding. It is literally and figuratively. Playing under the morning sun, the elevens from Iloilo and Cebu traded crosses of the football and pugilistic kind. When the dust settled, the technique and style of the Ilonggos had gotten then better of the Cebuanos who seemed agitated by not getting enough sleep (they arrived at 1am and had to be up before 6am for the eight o’clock kick off) and not earning a bye. Iloilo ripped them for two goals and held them scoreless. The only matter where they were equal were in red cards with one each.
A few members of the Philippine Men’s Football National Team are in town to grace the opening ceremony. Azkals co-captain Chieffy Caligdong, Ian Araneta, Roel Gener, Paolo Pascual, and Yannick Tuason rode around Suzuki motorbikes during a motorcade. And when they entered Filomeno Cimafranca Field in Silliman University, the crowd of a couple of thousand surged forward to ask for photos, autographs, and the shirts off the backs of the national players.
Caligdong, Araneta, and Gener are from Iloilo. Pascual hails from Cebu while Tuason is a Manileño. Many fans ask, “When will a Dumagueteño play for the Azkals?”
That’s the whole point of this tournament. The best players will reinforce the national squad that will compete in the Southeast Asian Games in Palembang, Indonesia in November of this year.
Local boy Morris Tulang, makes himself a candidate just for that when he lights up tournament newbie’s Leyte for four goals in a 5-nil rout. The home crowd does not go home disappointed.
The following day, there are several hundred people in the stands in spite of the home team earning a bye. They root for no one in particular during the Bacolod-Cebu match. The Negrenses deal the Sto. Niño squad their second straight loss. In two days, Team Cebu has more red cards (three) than goals and wins combined.
In the second match, the crowd sides with underdog Leyte. But the Warays are overmatched against the “Brazil” of the tournament – Iloilo. They make short work of Leyte as they blitz them 8-nil. The Warays are unable to check the killer crosses that find teammates inside the box with near unerring accuracy.
After the match, incredibly, it’s as if Leyte has won the match as they all are in smiles. They even close out their post-game huddle with a thunderous roar: “Leyte…. ONE”!
Waray striker Angelo Marzan offers me a wide smile in spite of flubbing two excellent scoring chances against Iloilo, “Laro lang. Laban lang. Ganyan ang football. Pang experience ba”.
The blowouts aside, there’s no other place he’d rather be.
For Team Leyte who play football with a smile.
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