Perpetuating harshness

“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.” – Martin Luther King

There has been so much noise surrounding the preventable deaths of Rene Clert Baterbonia and Divine Adili. Much of it is hatred towards Ateneo de Manila as an institution, its officials, and even the players who’ve been traumatized by witnessing their teammates’ and friends’ deaths. While we understand the outrage, for our part, we can confine the discussion to where it should be.

Firstly, it is a basketball issue, and if we stop placing blame and instead ascertain responsibility, then we know who did it, which seems to be clear. The buck stops with the head coach. He was in charge; he designed or at least approved the program. Even team manager Epok Quimpo was merely a conduit for the resources the head coach required. He did not have the seniority or stature to overrule his coach. He could not overrule his coach. Quimpo, who was overseas when the tragedy happened, manned up and stepped down, for which he has this writer’s respect. And the players were merely following orders to keep their spots out of need for scholarships and so on.

Secondly, it would be silly to blame Ateneo for hiring Tab Baldwin 10 years ago. In any organization, you choose the best possible people for the job, and set goals for them. How they achieve those goals is usually their prerogative, and, for the last decade, with four UAAP championships, the Blue Eagles have been successful on the basketball court. But it is another matter to put your players in an uncontrolled environment and expose them to life-threatening risk. That shifts the matter to a possible criminal one involving authorities and society at large. As of this writing, the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) has recommended the filing of charges against Baldwin and 10 others connected with the team, under Republic Act 11053 or the Anti-Hazing Act. This conclusion was made because, apparently, the training was in aid of determining the final composition of the team.

Also, why punish the school’s entire sports program? If a father commits a crime, does the whole family tree go to jail? What do the hundreds of other athletes, coaches, trainers and support personnel have to do with what happened? The crux of the matter is the rule of the UAAP which prescribes men’s basketball as a mandatory sport. If a member school cannot field a team in the said event, then the school’s entire participation is scrapped for the season. The same applies to having a women’s volleyball team. Therefore, it is ultimately in the hands of the UAAP to decide how this goes.

Ateneo has been handling the consequences of the deaths mostly outside public awareness, though public perception demands that they should have named a representative sooner. Absent a direct channel, a face to speak to, the outrage sprayed all over the place. Then again, this is not something that you can prepare for. Besides, no one outside the basketball team knew what was going on.

Now here comes the fork in the road. Will the UAAP bring the hammer down on Ateneo, which is already hurting, and inflict damage upon an even bigger community of innocent athletes, or will they embrace Ateneo as a member of long and good standing, and say “You are one of us; we’ve got you”? Will they show indifference, or compassion? We understand that other schools have been sanctioned in the past, but this is an extraordinary circumstance essentially created by one person. And should we continue to do things the old way just to even some invisible score? “If it was done to me, it should be done to you, too.” Somehow, that way of doing things no longer seems apt. As the saying goes, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. This goes beyond trying to outdo each other. This is an opportunity to show humanity for those who are blameless.