Phil-American Lee Kiefer won the women’s foil fencing gold for the US at the recently concluded Paris Olympics. Four years back she also took the gold in Tokyo. Her grandparents moved to the US 50 years ago with their two daughters, one of whom, Dr. Teresa Kiefer, is Lee’s mother.
Her Lola, 95-year-old Dr. Teresita Bacani-Oropilla, has every right to be proud of her achievement in the sport of her choice. If anyone can rightfully claim Lee’s fencing is in their genes, she is it. Yet, Lola ascribes her granddaughter’s success to the feistiness she got from her mother who grew up brown (colored?) and must excel to survive the prejudice of white society.
I must, therefore, take exception to Filipinos who take pride in Lee’s success claiming it to come from her Filipino genes. For that matter, I take exception to those who are quick to claim as rooted in Filipino genes the success of such champion Phil-Americans as Jordan Taylor Clarkson in basketball, Bruno Mars and H.E.R. in music and Phil-Australian Jason Day in golf, among others.
The logic of ascribing their championship to our Filipino genes is instantly shred into pieces given the fact there’s 115 million of us and just four medals to show for it in the last Olympics. If excellence was in our genes, why so few participating athletes and still fewer medals from such a huge population? On the flip side, the relatively few Phil-Foreigners around have a higher percentage of champions in their chosen sports and professions.
No, Virginia, it’s not in our genes. It is in the culture of the Phil-Foreigner’s adopted country that puts a premium on discipline, integrity and drive for excellence. Thus, our Olympic medalists are doubly to be praised. They attained excellence in spite of our culture of mediocrity.
If you ask me, our failure to excel in international contests, sports or otherwise, can be blamed on our “puede na” attitude and the corruption that pervades all departments of life, including sports, in this country. Often they are intertwined. Puede na, because officials are perhaps taking a cut from the athletes’ budget or only interested in having a junket at the venue of the Olympics? Just asking. And what exactly is the story behind uniforms that arrived late in Paris? What “toxic environment” was lifter Vanessa Sarno nuancing?
What I suspect is the toxicity Miss Sarno deplores and which also swirls around Caloy Yulo’s two gold medals might point to a third culprit to our dismal performance in the Olympics. That would have to be our legendary crab mentality.
President Bongbong Marcos, Jr. paints a bright future for Filipino Olympians. He seems to anchor this prediction on monetary incentives and on Carlos Yulo’s appointment as Olympic consultant. But what can Yulo do to push back on a culture that promotes mediocrity and strives for excellence only if the monetary rewards are worth it?
Excellence and the meaning it lends to our otherwise humdrum lives should be its own reward for doing.