54 These bakla fans also managed to score a prominent role in one of Roe’s favorite PBA memories. A few years back, when Roe was playing for the Coca-Cola Tigers, he kept hearing someone call his name during warm-ups. “Ell-ees! Ell-ees!” He remembered, “Just by the way he was saying my name, I knew something was funny. I knew better than to look, but I’m laying the ball up and he’s right under the basket. So as I come down, I just happen to look. Gay dude, just had breast implants, whipped them out and showed me. I knew right then, I done seen it all.”
55 Even Compton once found himself on the verge of becoming a Fil-sham. The first team to recruit him out of Cornell was a PBA franchise, and negotiations went so far that Compton was twice told to pack his bags and head to the airport, where tickets to Manila would be waiting for him. Both times, the tickets weren’t there. When Compton, upset and confused, called his then-agent for an explanation, the agent explained that the paperwork had hit a snag: He couldn’t play in the PBA because he had no Filipino blood. No worries, he told Compton. It would just take a few extra weeks to prepare documents that made it look like his biological mother was a Filipina who died when he was young, and that his actual mother was his stepmother. Compton refused to go along with the hoax and thought his dream of playing overseas was dead, until the MBA offered the born-in-Manila exception.
56 If true, this would be quite an honor. I never made it to Samar—the closest I got was neighboring Leyte—but judging by some of the rough roads I traveled on, the country’s worst roads might be able to shred the tires of a truck after a quarter mile and turn entire vehicles into slow-rolling fireballs somewhere around the first mile marker.
57 Actually, the second time. The first time I was turned away for trying to enter a government building while wearing shorts, or “shortpants,” as the blockhead guard who sent me home called them.
58 Since 1992 there have been three governors of Rizal: Casimiro Martin Ynares Jr.; then his wife, Rebecca; then Casimiro again; and now their son, Jun Ynares.
59 Back in 2007, Nic’s bio on the Alaska Web site claimed he hailed from North Carolina, which, as far as the team was concerned, was more or less the same as California.
60 One lesson Tim surely took home with him concerned hair care. Veteran imports knew to bring a girlfriend or cut their hair short before going overseas. In the Philippines, as in other countries where expertise with black hairstyles was scant, finding a barber or stylist could be close to impossible. Tim arrived with his hair in cornrows and never managed to meet someone capable of undoing and rebraiding it. This forced him to endure a month of tropical heat without a chance to adequately wash his hair. As the sweat slowly pickled his scalp, he tried covering the unruly, pungent mess with an ever-present do-rag, which helped but couldn’t totally prevent wisps of stray hair or traces of stink from escaping the wave cap’s seal.
61 Yes, I am also guilty of signing autographs, sometimes as Coke guard John Arigo and sometimes as other names that popped into my head—Tiger Woods and R. Kelly became my regulars—but I never lost sight of the fact that I was actually nobody, while Neil seemed to embrace faux-fame wholeheartedly.
62 The long fuse leading to the May 2010 elections started with a horrifying bang last November, when fifty-seven people en route to file the candidacy papers of a gubernatorial candidate in southern Maguindanao province were waylaid and massacred by a private army believed to be working on behalf of a rival office-seeker.
63 In 2010 the country planned to switch to an SAT-style ballot, where voters would choose government officials by filling in bubbles, and optical scanners would tally the votes. Less than a year before the election, however, the government was still unsure if it would be able to implement the scheme. If they pulled it off, it would be a major step toward ending the tyranny of the jingle. Then again, the government’s voter education campaign about automated elections was disseminated via a jingle sung by the Sexbomb Girls, so perhaps it’s naïve to think that jingles won’t survive the electoral change.
64 This is why, during the 2002-2003 Fil-sham hearings, Senator Jaworski reminded PBA players that he was still one of them, even though he was in his mid-fifties. Such reminders were knowing winks to the masses of Filipinos who worshiped Jaworski and delighted in the senator’s refusal to announce his retirement. This running joke between fans and the great old-timer continues today.
65 Of course, this was hokum. Marcos’s family and cronies, the police and the military, and American corporations, all operated above the law in the dictator’s authoritarian kleptocracy, but public displays of force like jailing Crispa and Toyota reminded the public that disrupting the social order would not be tolerated. Basketball players were not the only celebrities who were made into examples of state power. A similar urban legend concerns Ariel Ureta, a comedian and television host who publicly ridiculed the martial law slogan, “Sa ika-uunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan.” It means: For progress of the nation, discipline is needed. Ureta repeated the catchphrase, then substituted bisikleta for disiplina. It was a harmless phonetic gag, but soon afterward, Ureta was invited to Camp Crame and forced to spend an entire day biking around its perimeter.
66 I returned to the Ateneo de Manila library to dig up old articles in Champ and Atlas Sports Weekly about Marcos’s connections to basketball. Aside from the newsprint images of spectators’ legs dangling from tree branches, I stumbled across a misguided attempt at political correctness in a feature devoted to the Special Olympics with a subtitle that joyously proclaimed, “Retardates are Beautiful!”
67 That’s not all. When BTV first went on the air, the channel was a hoops geek’s wet dream. Put aside the fact that I saw more televised NBA games in Manila than I ever saw on basic cable at home. The midday filler was a scatterbrained grab bag that included classic NBA games like Reggie Miller’s 25-point fourth quarter against the Knicks and the 1995 Finals game where Orlando’s Nick Anderson choked four straight foul shots; episodes of NBA Inside Stuff from the early nineties that were heavy on Dana Barros and Craig Ehlo highlights; Australian and European leagues; and the occasional championship game between Manila elementary schools.
68 Students and alumni of the equally venerable, public University of the Philippines, Diliman, are quick to point out that their school is actually more selective and academically rigorous than Ateneo or La Salle, but since U.P.’s basketball program is famously inept, the Maroons don’t make a dent in the hoops scene.
69 When Typhoon Ondoy hit Manila in September 2009 and floods submerged entire neighborhoods, Pangilinan dispatched a helicopter to deliver food and supplies to Ateneo guard Jai Reyes and his family, who were stranded in the top floor of their home.
70 Before graduating from Ateneo, Tiu had already been elected to his neighborhood council. When I taught a sports writing class at the college, I included John McPhee’s profile of Bill Bradley at Princeton on the reading list, and my students all agreed that Bradley reminded them of Tiu.
71 Binibini, aside from being a phonetic fiesta, is the literal translation of the titular “Miss,” as in “Miss Philippines.”
72 Purefoods guard James Yap, the reigning MVP during the season I followed Alaska, may have been the PBA’s most popular player, not because of his three-point accuracy but because he had recently married Kris Aquino, the country’s biggest television star and Ninoy and Corazon Aquino’s youngest daughter. Kris had a well-known, star-crossed infatuation with basketball players that included very public failed relationships with two already married PBA titans, Alvin Patrimonio and Joey Marquez, the latter of whom, Kris admitted on national TV, gave her chlamydia. Aquino’s marriage to Yap has also been plagued by rumors of Yap’s infidelity, but compared to her previous trysts their union has been a picture of tranquility.
73 Benjie Paras, a two-time PBA Most Valuable Player, also appeared in Show me da Manny as one of Pacquiao’s rivals.
74 In Metro Manila there was no better way to freshen up than a quick dousi
ng with rubbing alcohol. It’s a shower in a bottle.
75 The YouTube comment pages on my scenes contain an astonishing variety of reactions delivered in English, Tagalog, and the hybrid Taglish. For example: “Bakekang’s a slut!” “Wow! Good for you Bakekang! You got two amerikanos, coffee and milk!” “LOL! SHE DID BOTH OF THEM!! THEM GUYS TALK HELLA FUNNY!” “Wow! That Brad is phenomenally BAD! (I’m referring to his acting.)”
76 Galen Young, the San Miguel import, had actually been Cone’s first choice for Alaska that season, but on opening day Young was still in Washington, playing for the Yakama Sun Kings of the CBA. After winning the CBA title, Young was ready to come to Manila, but Alaska already had Roe. Instead, Young landed with the Beermen and helmed their mid-season turnaround.
77 Once in a while the show produced a jaw-dropping Susan Boyle moment, wherein a paunchy, middle-age tricycle driver unveiled his silky falsetto and belted out a Stylistics tune superior to anything sung by local cover bands.
78 Willie Revillame, by many accounts, is himself an avid pickup baller.
79 Throughout the 2006-2007 All-Filipino conference, Hatfield created a wrestling persona, “H-Bomb,” and delivered halftime and postgame interviews in character as if he were auditioning for the WWE. His pièce de résistance was a ninety-second diatribe after Ginebra clinched the title, in which he referred to Coach Uichico as “Jong U-Cheeks” and team executive Henry Cojuangco, a member of the powerful Cojuangco clan, as “Big Bank Hank.” After thanking teammates and the Ginebra organization, Hatfield most of all thanked himself for being the only one who believed in himself two years ago, when he was at home in Michigan “with a bag of Milk Duds and some Doritos.”
80 In 2009 the team was rechristened the Burger King Whoppers, but they have since reverted to Air 21.
81 According to Cone, the ball boys were the one faction within the Alaska organization who actually looked forward to the crowd throwing coins. Once the spectators emptied their pockets and it became safe to step onto the hardwood, the ball boys would scurry across the floor collecting as many pesos as they could carry.
82 The societal ills of this behavior are self-evident, especially in places like Batanes, an isolated island province halfway between the northern tip of the Philippine mainland and Taiwan. During typhoon season, the islands are continually battered by some of the region’s most violent storms, and people wait out the tempests by tippling a bottle or three in the safety of stone-walled houses. Local health officials have estimated that the province of about 16,000 people consumes 2,600 bottles of liquor—mostly gin, most likely Ginebra—per month.
83 Dodot, widely considered one of the worst players in PBA history, surely deserves a spot in the Pantheon of Philippine nepotism. His father supposedly drafted him to raise Dodot’s public profile in preparation for a career in politics. It worked; Dodot won Pasig City’s seat in Congress in 2004. Unbeknownst to Dodot, he also played a complementary role in Nic Belasco’s journey from Division Two college ball to the PBA. A Filipina exchange student convinced Nic he should join the PBA. “Dodot Jaworski is this fat, short guy,” she said, “and he’s a big-time superstar over there. He wouldn’t even be able to play in open gym with you!” Nic’s confidante failed to inform him of one essential detail—Jaworski’s pedigree—and her encouragement set Nic on a path to becoming one of the league’s pioneering Fil-Am big men.
84 Remember, the PBA played three conferences per year back then, so those six championship series occurred over just two full seasons.
85 Pektos is such a part of Philippine basketball’s standard operating procedure that when Nic Belasco arrived from California in 1997 to play for the Pop Cola Bottlers, he baffled his coaches and teammates by shooting plain layups with no spin. Even though the shots went in, Nic’s teammates took time after practice to enlighten him on the proper way to rotate his wrist: “Do it like you’re unscrewing a lightbulb!”
86 “Mr. Excitement” indeed. Alaska drafted Alvarez in 1989 and had high hopes of pairing him with Jojo Lastimosa to form the league’s deadliest swingman tandem. But Alvarez was a one-on-one artiste who struggled to fit in with Cone’s triangle offense. Alaska eased him out of the lineup in the early nineties, shortly after Alvarez was shot in the butt outside of a massage parlor.
87 Besides his springiness and length, which are pretty standard traits for basketball players, Laure’s flexibility could probably earn him a contortionist’s role in Cirque du Soleil. When he stretched in the locker room before games, Eddie would sit in a natural split and lean forward until his chest reached the ground. Once, while standing under an eight-foot-tall overhang, Eddie, who’s about six-foot-three, began swinging his right leg back and forth to loosen his hip. His foot moved up and down a pendulum arc like the passenger car in a carnival ride. After five or six swings there was a sudden thud, and everyone in the room turned to see what had happened. Eddie had kicked the ceiling and left a dark rubber smudge behind.
88 I remember noting, with amateur anthropological pride, that Miss Gay 2006 of Barangay Masaguitsit, Lobo, Batangas, was crowned underneath the backboard of the town basketball court.
89 In Tagalog, this was roughly equivalent to calling the game the “Midget-Homo Showdown.”
90 I will always have a soft spot for Paul McMillan and his sour puss. Throughout his 41-point explosion, McMillan dutifully poured in seven-foot bank shots while shrugging, slouching, grimacing, and looking generally homesick. It had to be among the most ho-hum monster scoring games in basketball history, and his dolorous body language became a running joke between me and Ravi, my fellow Boracay import. The gag became legendary the following week, when Ravi was driving me home after a pickup game. We passed Chili’s and spotted McMillan standing outside the entrance. Ravi stuck his head out the window and screamed, “P-Mac! You’re my idol, bro!” True to form, McMillan acknowledged us with a lethargic wave.
91 The sweetness of this historic achievement was dulled considerably by the fact that San Miguel’s third title coincided with a coup attempt on President Corazon Aquino’s government. In a weeklong rebellion that began the day after San Miguel took a 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven series, an alliance of disgruntled armed forces leaders and pro-Marcos soldiers seized military bases and airfields and occupied nearly two dozen high-rise office and condominium buildings in the Makati business district. They attacked the Malacañang Palace—the Philippine White House—with air force planes and helicopters, until larger progovernment forces quelled the insurrection. The PBA Finals resumed after the coup, but for once, the shaken nation’s attention was not focused on basketball.
92 This was another indirect swipe at Willie, who had neglected to have his ankles taped before practice—a mandatory precaution—and suffered a mild injury.
93 Many of the games were called close on both sides, with the teams whistled for as many as seventy-four fouls combined. Of those seventy-some violations, roughly ten more would go against Alaska than the Beermen. Cone believed that even a perfect fifty-fifty split on fouls gave San Miguel an edge when the referees called that many, because Alaska shot poorly from the free throw line, largely due to Roe’s 50 percent average.
94 Every Alaska player, for example, received an extra month of salary for reaching the semifinals and then the finals. The team’s championship bonus was two extra months of pay.
95 Alaska traded Duremdes to Santa Lucia in 2003, shortly before injuries, age, and weight gain reduced Duremdes to a bench player. By the time Roe arrived in 2007, “Captain Marbel,” as Duremdes was known, was still cashing checks worth more than $10,000 per month, and his contract, which was signed before the league lowered max salaries, had become a battered souvenir of out-of-control spending in the PBA’s recent past.
96 Franchises that spent so freely on their rosters justified the expense of doing so by comparing their team budgets to the amount it would cost to purchase print and television advertising equal to all the free ink and airtime their PBA teams re
ceived. For even the most gilded lineups, the ad costs would be almost double the basketball expenditures.
97 Team manager Joaqui Trillo, point man for Alaska’s contract negotiations, once told me about a player who asked what kind of perks came with their offer. Trillo’s response: “Maybe we can give you a few cases of milk?”
98 The maturity gap between Sullinger and Roe was so large that the title seemed destined for the more experienced import. I remember seeing Sullinger at a Manila nightclub late in the season. He wore a pink polo shirt with the collar popped and matching pink sunglasses, and he was bouncing around the dance floor in frat-boy glee. This was hardly unexpected, since he was just a year removed from the Big Ten bacchanalia of Ohio State University. In contrast, when Roe hit the town, he tended to play the sidelines, observing the revelry from behind the anonymity of a custom-made fedora. There was nothing wrong with Sullinger’s frolicking; he was having the kind of life experiences expected of a twenty-something traveling the world. But based on their behavior on and off the court, Roe seemed the calmer, more serious man. The one who had no time for vivaciousness. The one who was focused solely on the finals.
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