Tuesday, August 19, 2008 Obenieta: In light of the L-word By Myke U. Obenieta So to speak
IT’S supposed to make us sigh and feel sorry for ourselves but the last syllable of losing doesn’t sound so disappointing, see? For a while there, that L-word might explain why we’re such a nation—come hell or high water—of videoke belters.
Somewhere boozers and broken-hearted souls gather to unleash their inner amok through their tonsils, someone near may be shaking his head while nursing a nosebleed. That could happen if “Mga Kababayan Ko” would be cranked up like a cosmic joke at rapper Francis M. who’s now languishing away with leukemia.
That pulse-pounding anthem to Pinoy pride, moreover, would be enough for Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III to see red.
Attuned to a dirge during the commemoration of his father’s 25th death anniversary, he lamented: “Instead of moving forward after 25 years, it seems that the country has moved backward.”
Now his monologue and Francis M’s hit song, in the hands of a sound mixer, might have a spit’s weight of reason to its rhythm. Yes, something that our country’s delegates to the ongoing Beijing Olympics might have played by ear all along.
Such a sonic stew would make sense, come to think of it, if one hears the gnashing of teeth for Philippine sports as an offbeat echo to our country’s state of governance down the line.
While so many world records are getting broken in Beijing, losing again ad nauseam does sound like a broken record for Filipino athletes. Since starting the hurrah for the Philippine delegation in Paris at the 1924 Olympics, we have managed only a pipsqueak of a footnote in the annals of world-class championship: nine medals—seven bronzes and two silvers.
To dream of an Olympic gold, it seems, is to hear the show-stopping aria of the Man from La Mancha until our ears grow green with mold.
No longer miserable Olympiads we’d be if only the medal tally would count the achievements of videoke contenders. There’s no dearth of hopefuls, yes, among the legion of us who feel like we’re bound for a booking at Carnegie Hall after scoring a 100 in spite of squinting the lyrics that would blow proofreaders over with an attack of aneurysm.
Or else, if they would continue to be an exception to the rule of an Athenian ideal, our government and sport authorities might as well train themselves instead to the Special Olympics for “people with exceptionalities.” Then again, those calling the shots for Philippine sports from their sphincters would be way out of league of special people who can be trusted to rise above their physical and mental difficulties.
Our applause goes, too, to motivational speakers on steroids who’d suck us off our socks with the zest of cheerleaders. Let them soothe us with a quote straight from Churchill (“Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”), or a matter-of-fact assurance from Robert Schuler (“Failure doesn’t mean that you’re a failure... it just means that you haven’t succeeded yet.”)
Let’s hear and see, quick and for a change, a Greek chorus for comedy.
