Laban Pilipinas. Puso!

Proud to be Pinoy. One can count with his fingers the number of times this kind of feeling sets in on us Filipinos. If you didn’t feel it, then I don’t know what else can move your Pinoy pride within you. When Manny Pacquiao faced Juan Manuel Marquez four times, we felt it. When the Pacman faced Oscar de la Hoya, Erik Morales, Miguel Cotto, Ricky Hatton and Marco Antonio Barrera, we all united to cheer for the “Pambansang Kamao.” On a smaller scale, when the Azkals played in the AFC Challenge Cup, the Tiger Cup and the AFF Suzuki Cup, again, we all held hands praying for a major breakthrough.

 What a great feeling it is, isn’t it? It all started last year when we hosted the FIBA Asia Championships with the goal of qualifying for this year’s FIBA Basketball World Cup. The game against Korea in the semifinals had to be one of the greatest moments in Philippine basketball history. After beating Korea, we all rejoiced as if we had already won the championship of the tournament. In a way, we did as we booked a ticket to Spain this year. Fast forward to the past six days at the FIBA World Cup. Even before the games started, nobody expected the Philippines to win a game. Moreover, the prognosis was that we would be blown away by the bigger, faster and more athletic teams in Group B: Greece, Argentina, Croatia, Senegal and Puerto Rico. After all, didn’t they all have NBA-level players? Didn’t they have a wealth of international experience that we ourselves saw on TV from our couches? Weren’t we blown away in those pre-tournament friendly games against other World Cup teams?

 The results? 81-78 loss to Croatia in OT. 82-70 loss to Greece. 85-81 loss to Argentina. 77-73 to Puerto Rico. And finally, an 81-79 OT win over Senegal. How fitting it was. We started with an overtime loss, and ended on a high note with another overtime game, this time a big “W.” And what it made it sweeter was the fact that Jimmy Alapag, the team captain and oldest guy on the team, nailed the game-clinching points in the same way his triple staved off Korea last year. And this was his last international game as a member of the Philippine team. (I sure hope he changes his mind for the upcoming Asian Games). Another icing on the cake will make us Cebuanos proud. June Mar Fajardo had his breakout game against Senegal and calmly sank insurance free throws in overtime to rightfully introduce himself to the international basketball world. From Pinamungajan to the world.

 The participation of Gilas Pilipinas at the FIBA World Cup will go down as a historical moment in Philippine sports, and it’s not for winning a game and losing four in group play. By simply making it back to the World Cup stage after 40 years. By finally getting back to the top of Asia. By finally proving that a team short on size and height can make up for these with a huge heart that no one else can match. I’m sure you all saw the size difference between us and our opponents. If they were tall, we were midgets. If they were long, we were short. If they were wide, we were thin. If a game was to be decided on physical features alone, we would’ve lost by a mile (or more). But the team had a personality that one doesn’t see in stats and line-up sheets. The FIBA ought to add another column to their player profiles: heart, guts, and balls. How to measure these though is another story. Sure, the skeptics will always criticize how we missed chances to win those close games. I think they forgot that the script didn’t call for us threaten our rivals. I think they forgot that we were supposed to lose to all our opponents by 20 to 40 points. I think they forgot that we haven’t gotten this far in 40 years, and that we’re practically a rookie in these situations (as coaches and players). I think they forgot that we were playing against players from the NBA and the different European leagues. But even then, didn’t we almost beat Argentina, Croatia and Puerto Rico? Weren’t these losses wins? “Even when I lose, I’m winning,” John Legend sings.

 The bonus of all this is that it proves that we can compete at the world stage in basketball. Remember all those doubters who said we didn’t stand a chance to make it to the top 16 of the world? We’ll take it a sport at a time. We’ve proven to be world beaters in boxing and billiards, and are now at the world stage of basketball. Historical indeed as the country’s most popular sport will now take the lead in pulling up all the other sports to reach for the stars and dream big. And it all starts with……Puso!

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 Time-out: Did I hear you say, “Heart Strong!”