DELIBERATE. INTENTIONAL. Hard.
That was the “FOUL” delivered on Mabalacat Mayor Marino ‘Boking” Morales by his town’s basketball team when it showed up at the opening of the 1st Gov. Lilia G. Pineda Cup SK Inter-town tournament in slippers.
The un-shoed cagers dramatized, indeed tragedized, what they alleged as the abject lack of support from Morales.
Pampanga’s premier potential for cityhood shown ill-afford to provide shoes to its team. The insult impacted in the sarcasm of the very lead of the story in this paper: “Mabalacat town, poised to be a component city, paraded its players wearing sandals…”
Furious, if not fast – owing to the Holy Week just past – was Morales’ response to the insult: A town council investigation of the incident preceded by a strong memorandum to the team manager.
“The insult may have been directed at me but the humiliation, the shame, the disgrace is upon Mabalacat,” Morales said.
So team manager Carlo Dizon, a councilman of Barangay Mabiga, is now being asked to explain why he “instructed (the players) to remove their rubber shoes and wear slippers only.” Such act deemed as “unbecoming of a barangay official and public servant” and thus subject to administrative and maybe, even criminal sanctions.
“I was blamed for the wearing of sandals during the opening. I have not instructed players to do that and I even came late, arriving when the parade was finished.” So was Dizon quoted in the story in this paper, in an all-too-obvious attempt to extricate himself from any responsibility for the fiasco.
Good try but way off the rim for Dizon there. As team manager he should be first to know what his team needs and how to provide for these needs. Indeed, he should be first to know his team. The conduct of his team bears squarely on the team manager.
And for Dizon to come late, arriving at the end of the parade, is no mitigating circumstance but an aggravating one. A team manager failing to make his presence in a team event, so much for team spirit! This Dizon should be sacked pronto for simple dereliction, if not ignorance, of his duty.
Were I Morales, I would have had dissolved that whole Mabalacat basketball team, pronto, and banned all the members from any participation in any town activity, sports or otherwise.
That team carries the Mabalacat name and its members therefore serve as town ambassadors. Everyone knows what an ambassador – be it in sports or in diplomacy – represents and projects: all the best of his land and people.
To cause the shame, humiliation and disgrace of a place and people by their own representation is to betray them. Betray Mabalacat and its people, its basketball team did by parading in slippers. We have to agree with Morales there.
Even granting that the local government failed to supply them with shoes in time for the parade, there was no justification to insult Morales and the LGU with their display of slippers. They had their own personal shoes. As indeed they showed when the next day they played and won against the Sasmuan team, 72-68.
So what really gives there?
“Politics!” So cried Deng Pangilinan, Morales’ self-proclaimed watchdog, barking up at Board Member Cris Garbo.
Garbo’s name not only surfaced in but even peppered news accounts of the incident.
“We almost didn’t make it on time for the parade. The transportation never came. It was Board Member Garbo who saved the day by providing a ride.” So was an unnamed team member quoted in the Punto! story.
Incidentally, in the same story, Dizon said “he had rented transportation to ferry the players… during the opening and last Monday” as “no transportation ever came despite being promised by the Mabalacat LGU.”
Trivial but pregnant with meaning is to ask: Who really paid for the transport: Garbo or Dizon?
Garbo was likewise reported in the story as having said that “the provincial government gave a subsidy of P30,000 per team.”
So who got the P30,000 and how was that spent?
Morales himself referred to Garbo and Dizon as “organizers” of the team.
“The team was all Garbo and Dizon,” Pangilinan said. “No try-outs were conducted. The list of players was practically shoved to the mayor without giving him the chance to know its members.”
Garbo in a separate story denied being an adviser to, much less an organizer of the team. He said he just accompanied the team in a courtesy call on the mayor before the tournament.
He was likewise reported to have “disclosed that the athletes have no intention to cause humiliation and disgrace to the town.”
If so, Pangilinan wanted to know, why was Garbo reportedly “whooping it up” when the Mabalacat team made their slippered entry to the Bren Z. Guiao Convention Center that Sunday?
No unintentional foul there.
That was the “FOUL” delivered on Mabalacat Mayor Marino ‘Boking” Morales by his town’s basketball team when it showed up at the opening of the 1st Gov. Lilia G. Pineda Cup SK Inter-town tournament in slippers.
The un-shoed cagers dramatized, indeed tragedized, what they alleged as the abject lack of support from Morales.
Pampanga’s premier potential for cityhood shown ill-afford to provide shoes to its team. The insult impacted in the sarcasm of the very lead of the story in this paper: “Mabalacat town, poised to be a component city, paraded its players wearing sandals…”
Furious, if not fast – owing to the Holy Week just past – was Morales’ response to the insult: A town council investigation of the incident preceded by a strong memorandum to the team manager.
“The insult may have been directed at me but the humiliation, the shame, the disgrace is upon Mabalacat,” Morales said.
So team manager Carlo Dizon, a councilman of Barangay Mabiga, is now being asked to explain why he “instructed (the players) to remove their rubber shoes and wear slippers only.” Such act deemed as “unbecoming of a barangay official and public servant” and thus subject to administrative and maybe, even criminal sanctions.
“I was blamed for the wearing of sandals during the opening. I have not instructed players to do that and I even came late, arriving when the parade was finished.” So was Dizon quoted in the story in this paper, in an all-too-obvious attempt to extricate himself from any responsibility for the fiasco.
Good try but way off the rim for Dizon there. As team manager he should be first to know what his team needs and how to provide for these needs. Indeed, he should be first to know his team. The conduct of his team bears squarely on the team manager.
And for Dizon to come late, arriving at the end of the parade, is no mitigating circumstance but an aggravating one. A team manager failing to make his presence in a team event, so much for team spirit! This Dizon should be sacked pronto for simple dereliction, if not ignorance, of his duty.
Were I Morales, I would have had dissolved that whole Mabalacat basketball team, pronto, and banned all the members from any participation in any town activity, sports or otherwise.
That team carries the Mabalacat name and its members therefore serve as town ambassadors. Everyone knows what an ambassador – be it in sports or in diplomacy – represents and projects: all the best of his land and people.
To cause the shame, humiliation and disgrace of a place and people by their own representation is to betray them. Betray Mabalacat and its people, its basketball team did by parading in slippers. We have to agree with Morales there.
Even granting that the local government failed to supply them with shoes in time for the parade, there was no justification to insult Morales and the LGU with their display of slippers. They had their own personal shoes. As indeed they showed when the next day they played and won against the Sasmuan team, 72-68.
So what really gives there?
“Politics!” So cried Deng Pangilinan, Morales’ self-proclaimed watchdog, barking up at Board Member Cris Garbo.
Garbo’s name not only surfaced in but even peppered news accounts of the incident.
“We almost didn’t make it on time for the parade. The transportation never came. It was Board Member Garbo who saved the day by providing a ride.” So was an unnamed team member quoted in the Punto! story.
Incidentally, in the same story, Dizon said “he had rented transportation to ferry the players… during the opening and last Monday” as “no transportation ever came despite being promised by the Mabalacat LGU.”
Trivial but pregnant with meaning is to ask: Who really paid for the transport: Garbo or Dizon?
Garbo was likewise reported in the story as having said that “the provincial government gave a subsidy of P30,000 per team.”
So who got the P30,000 and how was that spent?
Morales himself referred to Garbo and Dizon as “organizers” of the team.
“The team was all Garbo and Dizon,” Pangilinan said. “No try-outs were conducted. The list of players was practically shoved to the mayor without giving him the chance to know its members.”
Garbo in a separate story denied being an adviser to, much less an organizer of the team. He said he just accompanied the team in a courtesy call on the mayor before the tournament.
He was likewise reported to have “disclosed that the athletes have no intention to cause humiliation and disgrace to the town.”
If so, Pangilinan wanted to know, why was Garbo reportedly “whooping it up” when the Mabalacat team made their slippered entry to the Bren Z. Guiao Convention Center that Sunday?
No unintentional foul there.
