UPHS 85

I spent practically the whole day yesterday with a bunch of people I literally grew up with during our high school days.

My high school class from the University of the Philippines College Cebu came home yesterday for our silver jubilee celebration and I even almost forgot to write this column due to the hectic schedule and lots of reminiscing.

Our school did not have and continuous not to have the best facilities, but beyond the facilities and the people make the school. To our teachers who molded us into what we are now and to all our classmates who we spent several years with, getting together after 25 years was worth it and we hope to do it some other time again in the future.

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There are two more games left for the World Cup 2010 in South Africa – the battle for third between former winners Germany and Uruguay and the championship between Netherlands and Spain, who are both yet to win their first title.

Many people have asked me for my pick to win the title. If I want to be very technical about it and do an in depth analysis, I might go for the Netherlands, but rooting for a team in sports is beyond the statistics and results.

Rooting for a sports team also includes following your heart’s desire. This is the reason why sports fans are passionate and they even cry when their teams lose.

Yes, it is manly to shed a tear when your team loses in big matches and we’ve seen many such incidents in the World Cup.

Filipinos will have to wait for many more years before we can see a team qualify for the World Cup and I’m sure that whoever would be around by then would be as passionate as the fans we see today.

Maybe there would also be a Larissa Requilme, whose passion for the Paraguay team has been one of the more interesting sidelights of this year’s tournament.

You must know by now that she’d going to push through with her stunt. Unfortunately there are no further details that I can share with you.

After this weekend, I hope that all the gains of football in the World Cup would trickle down to the grassroots level in our country.

Yes we can make it to this tournament, but we can’t make it by continuously bickering, we need to work towards a common goal.

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MILESTONES: Birthday greetings go to Gilbert Suribas, Felix Guanzon, Wesley Chiongbian, and Jonathan Yu, who are all turning a year older today.

Advance greetings go to Dharyl Stephanie Aballe and Me Blanco, who are celebrating tomorrow.

Congratulations also to my classmates from UPCC High School class of 1985. We made it this far and we hope to continue doing the good deeds.

More power to all of you! - THE FREEMAN