Trash talk

How would you feel if someone from an exclusive high school basketball team called your son who plays for a non-exclusive school “Squatter”? How would you feel if a player from a team based in the middle east said to you: “your mothers are domestic helpers” during an entire basketball game.

These are real incidents: one which was told to me by a team member, happened recently during the game between La Salle and JRU (Jose Rizal) for the Pambansang Palaro eliminations, and the other happened about a year or more. I don’t mean to embarrass officials, coaches or schools for that matter, but I strongly believe that when a high school player has no problem insulting people based on their financial level, someone needs to call it more than a “foul”.

When players on a team gang up and ridicule a foreign player because of his color or culture, coaches should act on it or be fired. Unfortunately, not many people are bold enough to speak against the racial slurs, the insults based on class or the fact that some coaches even encourage trash talk and hooliganism in sports. Some pathetic coaches have even been known to develop “brusiers” and “attack dogs” for the sole purpose of causing injury or provoking fights with players on other teams. They’re not coaches, they’re losers.

It is bad enough that we have yet to see laws being passed against the inaction of schools regarding bullying, but the silent cowardice that surrounds trash talk, racial slurs and hooliganism in sports in high school and college, cannot, and should not be tolerated. To say nothing or do nothing about it is equivalent to approving of such behavior.

While everybody is paying to watch the games of the PBA as well as the collegiate tournaments, is there a truly active and involved body in the NCAA and UAAP that’s paying attention to the proper education of players? How many teams, team managers and alumni have meddled and prioritized the playing time of players instead of study time. In one case I heard of, a player was doing so badly in his academics that the coaching staff felt it necessary to bench the star player of an exclusive high school. But when the alumni learned about it they turned green with rage like the Hulk and forced the coaching staff to continue using the kid for their games.

Methinks there is more to the games than just an athletic program. Is it possible that large bets are now being placed even on high school games? Why else would you throw away a kid’s education just because he’s the star player?

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I’m glad to learn that the officials of the DPWH have finally come to realize that the entire stretch of EDSA needs to be reconstructed and not just repaired. Because of decades of patch jobs and repairs the EDSA no longer qualifies in terms of international standards for road surface and safety. The only reason most people don’t really notice how bad EDSA has become is because traffic is usually slow and bumper to bumper. Drivers know where the holes are and avoids them, but during the Christmas holidays, many of us realized just how bad Edsa has become because there was no traffic to block our view.

Yes, it’s time to rehabilitate EDSA but I would not support an “immediate” undertaking of the project until certain necessary actions have been taken.

Before the DPWH is given the green light on this project, they should make public where and how they will get the funding for such a massive project. Will the funding come from savings or some major loan abroad? Will the project be subject to assessment and evaluation of an independent international engineering group? This would be one way of insuring that international standards are met and that the project does not become another milking cow for corrupt officials and contractors like in the past.

Another question that needs to be answered is if the EDSA rehabilitation is a higher priority than the NLEX-SLEX interconnection project, which if completed before the EDSA rehabilitation, could actually make the work of the DPWH and the MMDA a lot easier in terms of giving commercial vehicles an alternative route. I’m also curious to know how the DPWH EDSA rehab would compliment or link up with the projects of the Pangilinan Group and the San Miguel group. The last thing we need is duplication and congestion because all three groups did not even talk about linkage and improvements. Perhaps the DPWH leadership under Secretary Singson should start going out and explaining the entire project in order to educate people, because the one thing that frightens people is change, especially change that inconveniences them.

For the moment the authorities, mainly the MMDA should permanently enforce the expanded truck ban within Metro Manila particularly all areas within two kilometers of EDSA. This would certainly free up space for other vehicles. In conjunction, the MMDA, DOTC (LTFRB/LTO) should once and for all clamp down on all colorum vehicles going through EDSA including tourist and provincial buses.  These policies should be enforced for at least a year before and ground breaking on the EDSA is done.

While the MMDA is to be commended for strictly enforcing their bus segregation scheme and their landscaping improvements, perhaps it’s also time for them to start arresting people for Jay walking and getting off in prohibited areas. We cannot always put the blame on bus drivers and Jeepney drivers; there comes a time when we need to make citizens responsible for contributing to traffic.

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