As A Mindanawon organization of educators, the Educators’ Forum for Development (EFD)-Mindanao extends our deepest condolences to the families and communities touched by the tragedy involving the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) basketball varsity players.
Our hearts pour out for Rene Baterbonia--- from a poor village in Mindanao, and for Divine Adili, from a country of the Global South.
Our collective grief is compounded by the lack of transparency on the part of Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU). The school’s curated actions – marked by prolonged silence and rare written statements – underscore the public’s demand for accountability at every level and most especially at the highest levels.
Beyond the sorrow, this loss represents the shattering of a young dream — the hope that excellence in basketball might lift a family out of hardship. That dream has now been broken, leaving behind only questions that demand answers.
But, in the light of their deaths, are we only to demand that poor kids be allowed to fulfill our telenovela culture – that of fairytales and rags-to-riches stories come true? That Ateneo should be made to account for dashing those dreams?
The deaths of Rene and Divine in a supposed strength-training are not isolated incidents but a stark indication of the urgent need for transformative education, particularly with the country’s sports development program.
Beneath the immediate sadness lie deeper structural realities that we cannot ignore. Our national sports development program is commercialized, not nationalist, and not mass-oriented, a reflection of the general state of our educational system.
It is not mass-oriented because it does not uplift the sports capabilities of the masses of Filipinos across the country and pins success on exceptional individual skills. It concentrates resources on a few promising talents rather than democratizing training opportunities and making them accessible to all Filipino youth. In a mass-oriented sports agenda, sports becomes a tool for promoting people’s health, constructive competition, nation-building, and a source of collective national pride.
It is commercialized because our school sports programs are integrated into the larger “sports industry” where big business is motivated by profits from advertising, merchandising, large events, and other commercial enterprises. The welfare of students takes a backseat as long as young talents continue to be produced, and sports entertainment yields profits. The big university sports programs are multi-million-peso engagements backed by established business brands in the country.
This alone is a pressure point fueling cut-throat competition among big universities and colleges, impacting on their individual training programs. Rene’s mother has decried that her son was not training as a soldier but as a basketball player, and Ateneo’s off-campus training has been described as a “boot camp” — a methodology borrowed from military instruction rather
than pedagogy centered on student development. This culture, in fact, is pervasive in campuses
with the fascistic program of the ROTC and the tacit promotion of hazing.
EFD reminds AdMU that it needs to step up to expectations of transparency and accountability.
It is called to genuinely adhere to the Jesuit and Ignatian values of producing “men and women for others.”
Its national prominence in the country’s educational system and in Philippine society demands its leadership by example based on these values. If these values remain unfulfilled, the public will only detest what it perceives as hypocrisy, elitism, lip-service, and a serious disconnect from the people’s sentiments – including those of Rene’s and Divine’s families.
At the same time, EFD recognizes AdMU’s significant historical role in advancing transformative education since the time of Martial Law. Now is the time to uphold that place in history rather than present a tone-deaf response to a crisis considered by many Filipinos as symptomatic of a larger social system.
AdMU should continue to position itself as a transformative force rather than be seen as part of a system that perpetuates our social disparities.
EFD’s call to look at the broader view goes without saying that this tragedy must not be exploited for partisan political purposes. Political camps fanning regional sectarianism (e.g. Mindanao versus Manila) clearly have sinister electoral motives and seek to divide instead of uniting us against real systemic problems.
At the same time, they hide the fact that their camps are associated with interest groups facing cases of extrajudicial killings, corruption, human trafficking, and child abuse, as well as the neglect of the country’s educational system during their term.
Ultimately, it is the Philippine government that should take account of the root causes that have led to the tragic deaths of Rene and Divine.
The greater tragedy lies in when sports are left off as a capital investment rather than a social investment. School-year, in and out, tragedies visit our classrooms, teachers, students, and sports, rooted themselves in government neglect, misprioritization, and misdirection.
Only through honest confrontation of these deeper issues can lasting change truly emerge.
