IF THE news on radio saying that President Duterte would give more money to Hidilyn Diaz are true, I say, hep hep hooray!
Just right.
The sacrifices she has made. The sleepless nights she had to go through. The days spent at the gym. The control to eat more to keep her in the 53-kg weight limit. Abstentions from malling. And many more. They are punishments more severe than self-flagellations.
Already, she has been assured of P6 million in incentives.
But Mr. Duterte, aware of Hidilyn’s untold training miseries, deemed it fit to give her P2 million more.
Here’s a glass to that.
Hidilyn deserves everything that comes her way.
When Onyok Velasco won a boxing silver in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he got a house-and-lot on top of a Nissan car, plus a cash bonanza.
Did Hidilyn also win a house-and-lot when she grabbed the weightlifting silver in the 2016 Rio Olympics?
She did. According to Yannie Saberon, the sports editor of SunStar Davao, Hidilyn received a house-and-lot for her Rio silver from 8990 Holdings.
How about a car?
None.
She didn’t whine.
Not even a whimper.
And so, she plowed on. Persevered. Not thinking of a rain of bonuses coming her way.
The result? She won the gold that got away in Rio, stashed away by a Chinese through sheer dint of luck.
With that, the Jakarta joust for us just suddenly became conquerable.
Hidilyn’s feat has remained a lone gold for us as we continue to struggle, grapple, with the reality that, painfully, mercifully, we are truly that far behind our neighbors.
As of last count, our solitary gold has tied us with Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Macao and Jordan in the 45-nation meet being paced dominantly by the 53-gold haul of China thus far.
Japan was a far second with 23 golds and South Korea farther back with 15 golds at third.
But look at this: Tiny Taiwan was in 8th place with five golds, with Mongolia waiving three golds as both “provinces” of China continue to seek their place in the Asiad sun.
After Hidilyn’s weightlifting gold, we continue to rely on the gold prospects in boxing and golf, and even on biker Ricky Caluag, who gave us our lone gold through BMX in the 2014 Incheon Asiad.
For us in the Asiad, the glitter of gold has always been that elusive. Sad.