Palaro

I wanted to stay in Iloilo and proceed to Antique for the Palarong Pambansa which opened yesterday with no less  than President Digong Duterte in attendance.   Controversies however continue to haunt the Games.  DepEd’s Secretary Leonor Briones voiced concern over the declining interest among the country’s schoolchildren.  Briones noted that among the 1.5 million Grade II pupils in the country, only 3,175 are interested to involve in sports.  Blame it to our losing battle with the computers.  Years back I wrote  that our kids as young as three to four years old were becoming obese due to non-physical activities.  Instead, they spent hours or even the whole day infront of the laptops or tabs.  My three-year old grand daughter has even become an expert in the gadgets.  What a sad story.  My good friend Recha Trinidad said another black eye in the Palarong Pambansa is Imperial NCR’s (that’s the term used by   former PSC chair  Perry Mequi, while reffering to the Manila contingent), domination of the Games.  Manila of course, always wins with athletes not coming from the City but from other provinces with private schools footing the bills. Mequi suggested the Palaro should exclusively be for public school athletes as they are always in the losing end against their rich counterparts “Bulad” versus steak?  As I write this column, gymnast Daniela De la Pisa, bagged three gold medals in the secondary rhythmic gymnastics event, winning one each in the RG rope, hoop and ball.  CVIRAA is hoping to improve its fourth overall standing but I am certain perennial runner-up Western Visayas has other plans.

J. Paul Getty

May first job after graduation was a sales representative for Getty Oil, an oil company owned by then the richest man in the world Jean Paul Getty.  I was assigned in Cebu as a 19-year old and my manager was Sening Villacin, father of Doc Stanley Villacin who is one of Cebu’s football supporters and grandpa to triathlete Louie Villacin.  But did you know the only man ever to knock out world champion boxer Jack Dempsey was Paul Getty?  The two got into a heated row over a girl and the plucky Getty knocked Dempsey out cold  with a left uppercut.  Getty was declared the richest man in the world in 1957 but paid only less than $500 in income taxes.  By the time he was 24 he made his first million.  By 1930, he had married and divorced three different teenaged girls within five years and married twice more.

Did you know?

When world heavyweight contender  Floyd  Patterson took on Sonny Liston in 1962, he must have known he was in for a beating.  Before the match he’d bought a disguise and after his humiliating defeat in just 126 seconds, he slipped past the spectators in his false beard and glasses.