Collateral damage

Win or lose, Alex Eala is now the biggest draw in women’s tennis. She attracts biggest attention evident in her Middle East campaign and in Indian Wells, the biggest tournament outside the majors. The fifth grand slam, not on paper, but in depth and magnitude.

Pretty much like the bicameral committee considered the third body of a bicameral Congress, so powerful it can revise version of bills from each house altogether. Or, the unseen hands of the principal by induction. Otherwise known as the mastermind. In sports, the coach. In government, the one who does not appear in the paper trail of corruption. Otherwise known as the big fish.

Indian Wells is not only big fish, it is tennis paradise. Top players and fans cannot afford to desert its luxurious desert setting. In biblical paradise, the first woman on earth was Eve. In the Philippines, Alex is the first Filipino, man or woman, to breakthrough in world tennis. In one year, she jumped from world number 140 to 32. Quantum leap, like appointments that bypass the next-in-rank. Not demandable as a matter of right. First to be considered, need not be the last. Otherwise known as the final choice. No problem, if the appointee is deserving. For when the wrong person is promoted, expect the best to leave.

Conversely, Adam and Eve were the first man and woman to arrive in the planet with a mission to multiply. Populate the world they did, now it is peopled with billions, with India and China most populous, combining for around three billion. Curious question though, if Adam and Eve were the first to bear children. Who did their children sleep with to give them grandchildren? Others outside the first family must have been created, otherwise the human race is a product of incest, a universal taboo, per science and culture. Or the natural law. Let’s leave it to the Bible scholars though.

What is certain is the rise and rise of the Filipina Eve with the voice and noise of the Filipino community. Venom too, not necessarily of the serpent that tempted Eve. The strong presence of live Filipino audience stuns and awes world tennis. Loud and proud. Rabid, some said. Chill, people of the world. You haven’t seen the Filipino voters, many of whom are not only rabid, but dumb and stupid.

Not a Filipino monopoly though, just look at the self-proclaimed land of the free. They elected a leader who continues a foreign policy that pretends their supreme country is world police. It joins the Middle East fray on ground one country threatens it and its allies, only to help stoke oil crisis that adversely affect the dying country and its struggling economy. Save for the untouchable rich in business and politics, the war bears down its full weight on the starving Filipinos. Even Hidilyn, who for life is guaranteed free gasoline, would still suffer in between.