Back to the salt mines

It was indeed a tiring but enriching four-country, four-day-a-country trip that we just came from and after having spent fifteen days satisfying our wanderlust traipsing from Greece, Turkey, Israel and Jordan, I can say with conviction that “there’s no place like home, there’s no place like the Philippines”.  

Whenever I come back from these yearly treks after experiencing road travel conditions in many countries of different nationalities and cultures, I always get to wonder how come our country is far from the way other countries seem to make an art out of managing road traffic chaos. Countries that have vehicle traffic problems seem to be able to handle their gridlocks in a more organized manner. It’s not easy to describe technically what I’m trying to say here. Travel and see it firsthand and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Considering all the genuine efforts of our government to improve traffic flow, I guess it all boils down to driver discipline and maturity. Something I’m sorry to say, our streets are still wanting of.   

Well, I’m back and despite whatever it was that I saw and liked elsewhere and wished we had too in our country, I’ll still keep on coming back to good old Philippines and thank the Lord that I was born and raised here—my country, my people.

                                            Giving back 

Last year when we marked the 25^th year of broadcast of Sunshine Television’s flagship TV show, Motoring Today, we celebrated the milestone by way of an invitational golf tournament exclusive to those who had in one way or another supported or instrumental in our show’s survival through the years. 

Although we held it in one of the country’s better known difficult golf courses, the Langer of the Riviera Golf Club, everybody, without any distinction between those who played well and those who didn’t, came back to the clubhouse with all smiles—they just enjoyed the game, good play or bad.

Having seen that, I decided right there and then to hold a similar tournament every year for as long as I’ll be able to, just to say “thank you” to all valuable friends and supporters, many of whom are from the auto industry. And although some are not, I hold no distinction—friends are friends, whatever they are and wherever they are from.

The 2^nd STV Invitational Golf Cup presented exclusively by Caltex with Techron was held last Thursday, May 9 at the Couples course (a much friendlier venue) of the Riviera Golf and Country Club in Silang, Cavite. I extend my appreciation to the club president, my good friend Commodore Danny Pizarro for helping us pull this one through once again. Similarly we say thank you to the very lovely lady executives of Chevron, namely; Vero Pangilinan, Len Dalistan and Chai Mendoza for their invaluable support to make sure we get the event together.

It was a small group of friends that came early to register for an 8 o’clock tee off. I arrived with barely 10 minutes before the scheduled official start but not because I overslept as many of my waiting friends that came early were speculating, knowing that I’m a perennial late sleeper. It was because I inadvertently went past my supposed exit at the SLEX, which was Carmona. I was excitedly looking forward to be early that the next thing I knew I was staring at the big exit sign that said Sta. Elena, and that was way past. It was also probably because I was deep into discovering how life is at that early time of the day, when I’m usually in deep sleep slumber or just starting to be on my way to dreamland.    

The group was very intimate where almost everybody knew everybody. I made sure to make mention in my personal invitation that the invite was non-transferable to ensure the exclusivity and intimacy of the event.

It was a modest golf tournament in terms of raffle prizes. I didn’t want big raffle prizes to be the attraction of the event instead of the prospect of spending a wonderful day of golf with friends and close acquaintances. What we did was solicit raffle prize donations from companies that had their representatives playing, mostly from automobile firms. The fun part of the raffle was that you can not win a prize that was donated by your company. Veteran broadcaster Emy Arcilla was adamantly opposing the established rule considering that Cats Motors came up with some desirable prizes, some of which he himself wanted to win. And indeed his name was drawn when a high-tech floor electric fan that can rotate 360 degrees was up for grabs, one of Cats Motors’ donated prizes only to see his name placed back to the tambiolo for re-drawing. Well, Emy eventually won something, like everyone else. It was something that he said he needed like a hole in his head—a laptop bag.

Speaking of raffle prizes, may I take this opportunity to thank all those who willingly sent their valuable corporate items to form part of the tournament’s raffle prizes, to wit; CATS Motors, Isuzu, Kia, Lexus, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Toyota.

There are also those who didn’t have anybody playing in the tourney but just the same made sure that they were part of it, if only as raffle prize donors like; Maricar Parco of BMW, Fe Agudo of Hyundai, Mazda, Anton Cabangon of Business Mirror.

I also wish to thank those who didn’t play or don’t play golf at all but graciously made it a point to be present just to show their support. There was Steven Tan, CEO of Berjaya Motors, distributors in the Philippines of Mazda automobiles who came with Dave “Mr. Mac” Macasadia, VP for customer relations of Berjaya Motors. There was also Timmy Naval-De Leon of Isuzu Philippines and from Mitsubishi Motors Philippines came Arlan Reyes and Rosemary Cruz.     

I didn’t participate in the tournament, first because I was the host and second I’ve stopped playing golf for quite some time now. I just stayed in the clubhouse and waited for the golfers to come for lunch and the awarding ceremonies to ask them how their game was. “It was a perfect golfing day” or “The weather was perfect” were the usual testimonies that everybody would gladly offer. When it became boring for me, I switched to asking them, “So, how was the weather?” That caught many of them off guard, especially those who were expecting me to ask about how they did in the course. But still nobody wanted to talk about their game—typical of most golfers.  

The tournament was a “stroke play,” which was based on the participants’ official Certified Club Handicap. There were winners in the A, B and C classes and an Overall Champion among those who submitted their certificates.

Those that didn’t have handicap certification were grouped together to form the Open Division where the “System 36” was applied.

Well, when there’s a competition, there are winners, and here goes.

Overall Champion: Eric Arpilleda (Kia)

2nd Caltex STV Invitational Golf Cup

Class A

Champion: Boying Soriano (Kia)

1st Runner-up: Quito Da Roza (De la Salle University)

2nd Runner-up: Erlo Tenedero (Isuzu)

Class B

Champion: Orlando Alvarez (Mitsubishi)

1st Runner-up: Glenda Da Roza (Quito’s wife)

2nd Runner-up: Danny “Sir John” Isla (Lexus-Manila)

Class C

Champion: Froy Dytianquin (Mitsubishi)

1st Runner-up: Emy Arcilla (Cats Motors)

2nd Runner-up: Gus Lagman (AAP)

Open Division

Champion: Jeff Reyes (Phil. Star)

1st Runner-up: Klink Ang (Manila Times)

2nd Runner-up: Al “Sir Paul” Mendoza (Business Mirror)

Longest Drive (Hole # 2) Richard Sanchez of Chevron 230 yards

Nearest to the Pin (Hole # 8) Alex Dandan of Melo Konstruct – 12.5 feet

Most Accurate Drive (Hole # 15) Boni Pimentel of Ilustrado Restaurant - 5 inches

Longest Putt (Hole # 17) Carlo Chungunco of Lexus-Manila – 1 pin 3 feet

To all those who participated and to those who didn’t but still opted to be with us in one way or another may I say, Thank You very, very much. Our Lord willing, we’ll get together again next year and the year after, the next and the next…

Happy Motoring!!!

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