It’s the “Day of Candles” again as I write this column, which means I am really getting old. But things have not changed much for the Philippines still. Our politics is still messy. Talks about corruption in high places continue. And this while Marcos Jr. is the president, although I would say this Marcos has exceeded expectations, not necessarily in a bad way.
When Marcos Sr. was president, I decided to join the underground. But time has a way of changing one’s perspectives. I am now a family man and the fire in my belly has burned out. If change will come in the country, it will. But I don’t see it for now. Because change for the better in governance must be a product of collective will. And we still have to form a collective will, politically.
Even world politics is a mess. The United States, for example, is being led by an older Donald Trump who just ordered an attack on Venezuela, a sovereign state. I don’t know what is happening to Venezuela, but it seems like nobody is protesting there, which speaks a lot about how times have changed globally. Still, I hope that change will eventually be for the good.
I actually have tried focusing away from politics, both domestic and foreign. I read and viewed sports on social media and realized how much change has also affected that field. I have written something about how the Filipino diaspora has allowed Filipinos to make a name internationally. Non-homegrown people with Filipino blood were first seen in basketball and our very own pro league, the Philippine Basketball Association, promptly cashed in on this. That practice has expanded to many sports disciplines.
Soon, homegrown talents with skills took center stage also. There was Manny Pacquiao, who took the world by storm and made boxing in the Philippines popular. But after Pacquiao retired, another determined and skilled athlete, Alexandra Eala, is making tennis popular in the Philippines. Now, Filipinos are learning what it is like to cheer for a Filipina in tennis. For the first time a tournament meant to showcase an old sport that is new for Filipinos was launched recently in Manila.
I don’t know how long this “tennis boom” will last, but Alex Eala is only 20 years old. Tennis is an old sport, actually, and I knew of my elementary school batchmate, Nilo Llenes, who wielded a racket to stay fit after he retired. I actually did not think much about it before, but I now have a better appreciation for the sport. Tennis courts are actually everywhere in the country, especially in subdivisions. But it is still an elite sports discipline because of the resources needed to be able to play it.
With Alex Eala’s rise, perhaps it would be good for the government to start finding ways to be able to promote tennis. The recently held Philippine Women’s Open has shown us that local tennisters are badly needing support. Eala won the gold medal in women’s tennis in the recent edition of the Southeast Asian Games, but the other tennisters who competed with her seem to have been sidelined. The government needs to pick up the slack.