I too was a bit irked by this guy, this photo below. I saw him spit on the floor. How gross. Just saying :)
And I thought my posts about Gilas Pilipinas were over.
I was supposed to go back and write about Janet Lim Napoles and my thoughts on how she did her P10 Billion David Copperfield trick, but something came to my attention that made me postpone it.
I see that many of our fellow Pinoys, who are still hurting from the loss that Gilas Pilipinas had under the hands of the powerful Iranian team, are not yet moving on from that pain and sorrow. Funny, that all the players and coaches of Gilas Pilipinas are very ecstatic with their silver finish and their entry to the FIBA World Cup after 30 years, but still may of our kababayans are still devastated and they personally mourn the loss of Gilas, feeling that we as a nation were raped by the Iranians and that’s why in behalf of this ravaged country of ours, they will exact vengeance with their own hands and try to ambush many Iranians as they can.
We are still living in an FPJ movie. Many of our kababayans feel like they are FPJ looking at the casket of a fallen comrade and uttering the immortal words: “Igaganti kita.” (I will seek revenge for you.)
So with that responsibility on their hands, they go to the villain’s hide-out and trash their place down. And in this case, it was the Iranian monster player, Hamed Haddadi’s.
Yes, Hamed Haddadi broke our hearts that night in SM MOA Arena, but as far as I can remember, when I was watching my TV that night, I only remember a big Iranian man with his very talented team making it hard for our Pinoy players. I am thinking that some of our fellow Pinoys were watching a different scene altogether. They might be seeing a scene where Paquito Diaz or Max Alvarado killing the poor farmers and laughing their trademark demonic laugh (“Muwahahaha!”) and when Haddadi makes a dunk (as I see on my screen), other Pinoys see it as Bomber Moran beating up FPJ. Seriously people, we need to buy the same TV sets.
And after the game, many Pinoys flock to Haddadi’s Official Facebook Page and posted unflattering remarks. Even up to today, two days after the game, some Pinoys are still leaving nasty remarks.
I cannot post here what Pinoys are posting there because what they are posting really stinks. Not fit for an educated Pinoy to say, I tell you. And not to mention the profile pictures of the ones posting are either wearing their school uniforms or work uniforms, I suddenly pity the parents of these guys because they wasted their parents’ tuition fee. As I say, in school, Science, English or Math should not be the core subjects. GMRC should.
What I see there are not Filipinos who displays their patriotism or love of country. But what I see there are Filipino bullies. How can we be the underdog, if we are the ones bullying?
Our game against South Korea the day before was a fairy tale, a story fit to make a movie out of it. Because I see there Filipino values, unity and valor. It shows the greatness of the Filipino.
But the day after, like an evil Siamese twin, the ugly head reared out. Some of our kababayans showed traits of being a sore loser, crab-clawers and worst of all being racists.
When foreigners say something bad about our country, we get all mad and petitions for persona-non-gratas are flying left and right. We say that it is not right for them to maltreat us Filipinos that way, even if we are just a poor country compared to theirs. But how can we explain what some Pinoys did to Haddadi after the tournament?
Remember how foreigners equate us with the words brown (Hello Lucy Liu?), prostitutes, small men, housemaids, dirty (Hello Dan Brown?), corrupt etc. It hurts doesn’t it? Let’s show them we’re better by not doing the same.
And true enough, many of our fellow Pinoys did. Many of them didn’t go down to this disgusting level. In fact, they did something better.
When you visit now Haddadi’s page, you see there Pinoys saying sorry to Haddadi. Many Pinoys there, in behalf of some of their ignorant kababayans, are apologizing to Haddadi where in fact, they don’t have the responsibility to. Many Pinoys are now reprimanding their fellow Pinoys if they see a Pinoy posting a derogatory remark. We are now policing our own ranks. We are now MMDA, cleaning Pinoy Garbage out. And finally, many Pinoys are now showing their appreciation to Haddadi, that because we are really a Basketball-crazy nation, we appreciate talent when we see one, whether here at home, or in the US, and in other countries as well, even Iran.
And one Iranian even replied at the gesture: “Thank you for the kind words. I know Filipinos are not racists. I know you to be hospitable because I stayed there for a long time and I treat the Philippines as my second home.”
And another one: “Thanks to the Filipinos who asked for respect and did offer kind and respectful words. Your country has been a champ for years through the history of Asian basketball. You are still a great team and great people.”
You see, Saturday was an inspirational story when we won over South Korea. Sunday, it became a horror story when some Filipinos lost their brains and became zombie apocalypse, but Monday, the Good and real Pinoys came to the rescue, showing the world that we are not really racist.
And that’s what you call redemption.
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