Never enough

Easy to name outstanding achievers in 2023, the banner year for Philippine sports. Team of the year is the women soccer players, not only for their maiden appearance in the Women’s World Cup, but more so for upsetting the higher-ranked host nation with a singular goal. Inaugural win. History written.

Female athlete of the year is Sarina Bolden who fired the header that pierced through the hands of the Kiwi goalkeeper. Golden Bolden scored the first and only goal of the Philippines in the World Cup, women or women, without reference to same-sex intimacy, but to the men who never got anywhere near.

Bolden earns the highest accolade in the distaff side, despite questions on whether she and her teammates misrepresent the country. They are widely criticized for their inability to speak and look like the countrymen they represent. Valid to a point, but sports representation does not require mirror image, it allows genetic heritage, even naturalization of a total stranger.

Ideally, full-blooded Filipinos better represent the country. Authenticity. For as long as the rules allow though, heritage and naturalized players are here to stay. Or is the only way to slay. It’s not even a matter of blood, adoptive parents attest. More so when these women surnamed foreign have not compromised Filipino interest, unlike natural-born Filipinos voted to public disservice.

Alex Eala deserves honorable mention. The tennis prodigy ranked a personal and country highest at 189 in the world. She won two ITF singles crown and two bronze medals in the Asiad where she punctuated her campaign with a three-sets loss to a Chinese world number 23.

No one comes close to EJ Obiena as male athlete of the year. Hands down. He pole vaulted to gold thrice in a row in the Southeast Asian Games and ended the country’s three-decade track and field medal drought in the Asian Games. With a gold and a new continental record. The first Filipino to qualify for Paris jumped higher than 6 meters twice, the second time when he slivered to silver in the world athletics championships.

But unlike the feisty women of soccer and the marvelous men of basketball, the world number two has no issue with genetic representation. Or mutation. The track hero is every inch a Filipino who continues to pay homage to his home that is Tondo, the one place he says made him who he is today. Or read, the one place that toughened him against the struggles of a national athlete.

Despite the mileage he achieved, no one questions his lineage. Although misrepresentation discourse is a welcome respite from the universal pastime gossip, it is a legitimate subject for debate impressed with public interest, unlike the fuss and the buzz about the price of an engagement ring that would sooner or later mean nothing to the cheating proponent. No matter how cheap, no matter how pricey. The wearer is never good enough for a cheater who can’t get enough.