Christmas low downs

It is six days to go before Christmas and the health conscious are now regularly checking their weighing scales to know if all the effort they have put in at the gyms and running around the city have not gone to naught due to the lechon and all other delicious stuff laid down in front of them during parties.

There are just too many parties, too many invitations and yes also too many manito/manita or exchange gifts that you get confused as to who you are supposed to give and how much.

While all the merry making and the frantic rush to buy gifts is mainly to blame for the traffic jams all over the city and of course the pants that seem be tighter, let us not get carried away and hope we can overcome all the excesses when the New Year comes.

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Amid all the fun that people are having, there have been some sad stories this Christmas season in the world of sports.

The trouble that Tiger Woods got involved in feels like being in a bunker that you cannot hack out of yet you don’t declare an unplayable lie.

It could also mean like signing a wrong scorecard that has resulted to many disqualifications in golf tournaments. Many of those accused of doing such often feign innocence saying that they just signed without checking their scores. Hmm...

Well in the case of Tiger, he admitted his mistake. I don’t know if you can consider it similar to a case of finding something wrong with his scorecard before he signed it, but then there are penalties that he has to suffer.

Then there is the case of the seeming lack of interest in the 25th Southeast Asian Games in Laos.

If you don’t know what I am talking about, I am not surprised.

The Philippines is one of the ten SEA nations competing in the biennial event, which our country hosted back in 2005.

As of this writing the country ranks fifth overall, but there really hasn’t been much noise about what is happening.

I just hope that there would be no grandstanding politician, who would try to dampen whatever victories our athletes have achieved in Laos by initiating a senate or congressional hearing.

If there are people who ought to be investigated, maybe these politicians can start by looking at the top of the sports leadership.

This Christmas season is not all fun, but I am not playing Scrooge, so let us continue to look at the bright side.

I wish that Tiger will weather the storm and get back to winning golf tournaments that won him the athlete of the decade title.

I wish that the Filipino athletes would get more television exposure so that sports fans like you and me would be able to see them compete in other nations.

Sometimes our wishes come true, but of course just simply wishing would not get us what we want. It’s just like sports – if you want to win, you have to work for it and not simply manufacture scores.

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MILESTONES: Happy birthday greetings go to Ambec Javillo, Christy Manguerra, Jonas Diaz, Nicole ‘Neekee’ Lorenzana, and Sarah Salera.

Advance birthday greetings to my brother Nino Paolo, who turns a year older tomorrow and also to my friend Oleg Emmanuel Tadlip, who I also hope would get well soon.

Belated greetings go to our former Tac-O, Cavalier Erwin Rio Luga of PMA class 1982, who turned a year older yesterday.

More power to all of you!   (FREEMAN NEWS)