Tuesday, August 12, 2008 Obenieta: They got game By Myke U. Obenieta So to speak
EVEN cats and dogs will likely agree, rub each other’s paws and point out the finer points even of fierce creatures.
Particularly, leaders who can look better, more intimate and less intimidating as spectators than as competitors.
See, for instance, how cameras now on coverage at the spectacle in Beijing bask in the presence of President Bush. Catch him cheering for and taking pride of American athletes gunning for glory at the ongoing Olympics, so ordinary among the audience and far from the madding solitude of duty.
There you see him no different from you and I, caught up in the celebration and the wow of witnessing the speed, grit, strength, and grace of pitting each other’s personal best. Right there where one-upmanship goes beyond the barbarity of clawing each other’s eyeballs.
It must be humbling for the head of the world’s most influential country to scream his hair into standing on end and stomp his feet in support of the home team.
Now, something’s ablaze, too, in the small island of Cebu while the rest of world beholds the torch aloft at the standards of sportsmanship and solidarity. Look, between City Hall and Capitol might as well be a parade of referees and cheering squads through the splatter from a tomato-throwing marathon.
Aren’t you entertained?
Too bad, the fascinating exchange of putdowns carried out with such finger-pointing force isn’t up the alley of the Olympics. Sayang, that’s one spectator event dangling a potential for us to finally grab and hold that long-cherished gold.
That would could have been “Garbo sa Sugbo” raised to the power of two—the mayor and the governor, rubbing off each other and sending up sparks just by keeping their distance.
As far as their mutual enmity is concerned, it seems as if the island is a universe apart from such blood-curdling concerns like terrorism or global warming. The way they flaunt how feisty they could be in each other’s face, it seems like they’re expecting scorecards to count their hits and misses along with the sound of trumpets blaring from the gallery.
If the sky’s the limit to the fireworks of their reciprocal rage, don’t look now, we might yet see them raising their points for YouTube viewers to mull over. To make it more dramatic, who knows, they might even choreograph themselves like combat-giddy gladiators in a coliseum.
And if that should happen, this “Fiesta Island”— in the words of the vice governor—would then add another feather to its “believe it or not” hype on the heels of the world-famous dancing prisoners.
