Basketball for small fries and the blessing and curse of eternal innocence

This story is about my childhood friend Ping who taught me a lot of lessons in basketball, among other things. 

I learned to shoot hoop in our backyard where my Kuya shaped a cord of wire into a ring and hammered it to a stub of langka tree, with a piece of thin plywood serving as backboard.  We used those orange plastic balls that did not bounce much and were prone to being punctured, so dribbling was to be avoided as much as possible.  Instead, there was a lot of shooting, jumping and running around.

When I was about 9 I thought that I was old enough to play in the big court in our plaza, using real big balls that bounce. 

There’s a natural pecking order in the basketball world, and those like me who have just decided to play in the big court occupy the lowest post – we can only shoot the ball when the big guys (or at least those who occupy higher positions in the pecking order) playing 5 on 5, are on the opposite side of the court.  When the ball goes over our side, we are supposed to run like hell so that we don’t get stampeded.  When someone from my level fails to get out of the way on time and in his effort to get away manages to impede the play of the big boys, it would mean that the big guys will angrily tell us to stay away from the court until they are done with their play.  This would scare the heck out of us and we would meekly stay on the sidelines, sore at the kid who did not duck away in time.  In some instances, when we small fries are able to get on the side on time but fail to retrieve the ball away from the onrushing big guys, the result would be the same except that one irate big guy will heave the ball far away, followed by a stern warning and glares from the rest of the big guys.

It was usually the small guy with the weakest shooting arm who volunteers to retrieve the ball.  You see there is still a pecking order even in the basest level.  And we would all stay on the sidelines until one was brave enough to once again shoot the ball when the big guys are on the opposite court.  It was usually Ping who would do it first.  And most of the time he was the one who failed to get out or retrieve the ball on time.

He was fearless in that sense.  Ping was neither our size nor age but he was a regular at the basketball court.  He could play with the big boys except that he prefers to shoot on the side, together with us small boys.

Ping was already a teenager, taller than me and a lot stockier.  He always came to the plaza looking as if he was the most serious basketball player in the world.  He wore short shorts, knee high socks, arm bands, head band and a sando shirt that was neatly tucked in.  I didn’t know any better then but I thought he looked kind of odd.  His neck was thick, his head a bit squarish because of his buzzcut, and his face – with his button-like eyes that were rudely parted by an upturned nose – had a blank stare about it, except that his lips were always pressed into a smile, giving him that curiously happy look.

I was surprised one day to see Ping in a church sporting long hair and wearing a dress.  My mother smiled and told me it was not my friend but a girl who looks just like him.  Ping had Down Syndrome.

Ping was always at the plaza whenever I went there and he taught me my first basketball lesson.  Early on I began to realize that I could jump higher than my contemporaries, Ping noticed this too.  During one of our small fry shooting sessions when the big guys were on the opposite court, he told me “Tarlon…” when the ball went up, and I did hoping to snag the rebound.  But as I was at the height of my leap, he went under me and I fell on a heap.  Ping was laughing and I was mad at him and at myself for jumping with a mischievous tot beside me.  I never jumped high again if he was near me, and especially if he told me to do so.  By then I was discovering that my shooting hand was better than most of the small fries’, and most of the big guys’, too.  And the big guys took notice and began inviting me to join their games when they were short of a player.

I moved up the pecking order, though I have a strong shooting hand, I was still the player who retrieves the ball when it got thrown too far – new class, new rules – the youngest gets to be the goat.  Ping decided that he was to be my coach, and soon he was telling me “shoot mo borla” every time I had the ball.  I shot it when I had to, but most of the time I did other things that came with playing basketball like passing, dribbling and defending.

During summer leagues when we got to play with referees interrupting us, Ping had special instructions for me, “shoot mo trlee points” even when I was on the free throw line, shooting a free shot.  By then I have sort of established my credentials, I may be one of the youngest players but I was also one of the best so I no longer retrieved stray balls.

I graduated from high school and went to college in Manila.  I got to play ball at the plaza during school breaks and summer.  I grew to be an inch above 6 feet while Ping still shot the ball with the small fries during our big guy games.  Because of my height and athleticism Coach Ping had shifted his strategy for me from shooting threes to “dunk mo borla.”  And he would tell me this all the time, whether I was in a regular pick up game or a refereed one.  He loved to give me this special instruction when I was taking a free throw, or during a timeout huddle where he would tell my coach and my teammates to give me the ball so I can “dunk ang borla.”

I went home less often when I started working, and when I did I made it a point to visit the plaza if not to play then at least to hang around and watch the other big guys play and the small fries run to the side.  The pecking order and the unwritten rules that govern the game remain the same.  Ping no longer played though he still wore his basketball shoes, he instead shifted into the role of a referee.  His joints were no longer as supple as before.

But he was always happy to see me.  If I played, he was my referee and coach at the same time, and again I would hear “dunk mo borla.”  If I was a mere spectator he would sometimes sit beside me and we’ll do small talk and a bit of teasing.  I would ask him who his crush was and he would sheepishly look away like a 6-year old boy caught staring at a fair lady.  And he would say, “Barwal yan.”

Once when I was just on the sideline watching, Ping sat beside me and showed me a card.  It was a generic identification card that you can buy in any bookstore.  Apart from the space for the ID picture, It contained fields for the name, address and contact details which were all filled up with laborious effort, the way a 6-year old would write when faced with such adult-bound details.  Where the line says TIN, he wrote “fat” across it, because by then he has grown more pudgy compared to his small fry days.

Years have passed and my basketball play became inversely proportional with the responsibilities that came my way.  Ping, along with the simple joys that came with my childhood and growing years have been overtaken by grownup concerns.

I crossed paths with Ping again a few years ago, inside the church where I once served as an altar boy decades ago when I was just a small fry at the basketball court.  I was seated at the back of his pew and I could tell that his body has aged considerably.  He still had the same buzzcut but he had more gray and white hair than black.  He also had a wider girth though he still had not lost his touch of dressing up for the occasion.  He wore a nice long sleeved shirt tucked inside a dress pants that was a bit too wide even for his size.  He was aware of this that he was constantly rearranging his tucked shirt and pulling up his pants.  He was with his father, a former military officer. He was a big man who has retained his rigid military posture.

When it was time to say “Peace be with you,” Ping turned around after kissing his father and when he saw me, flashed a big smile and gave me a firm handshake.  My heart literally leaped with joy and I was overcome by emotion.  I did not expect that my friend still recognized me.  After the mass and on the way out, I again exchanged handshake with him as I introduced him to my wife.  I could tell that he found her pretty as he gazed down like a shy 6-year old.  I asked him if he has a girlfriend, and he put one short finger across his lips and whispered…”barwal” as he motioned to his father.  As a parting shot I asked Ping to meet me at the plaza to shoot a basketball, to which he said “magagarlit” while pointing at his father with his thumb hidden behind his body.

I met Ping again several times at Sunday church.  He was with his father all the time whom he obviously looked up to and who obviously loved and considered him as his little boy.  At times, they were with Ping’s mother who was very frail.  Ping was beside his father all the time.

Though those afflicted with Down Syndrome maintain the innocence and understanding of a young child, their body however age and deteriorate faster than those of normal people.  In most cases, when they reach a certain age – like the age Ping is now – they tend to lose their mental faculties as well.  Ping looks old but thankfully he has retained his mental well-being.

I have longed to write about Ping ever since I rekindled my friendship with him but I didn’t know how to approach such story.  At the back of my mind, I would like to keep my connection with him as my exclusive gateway to happy childhood memories, one that I could access every time I see him.

It is only now that I found the angle from which I can frame his story, and it is tainted with cowardice.  A week ago, Ping’s father died.  And I have to admit, I cannot muster the courage to visit his wake not because I stay away from the dead, but because I cannot bear to see Ping grieve for the only man who stood by him all his living years. 

Children as they say are the most resistant to the pain of a loss because they have a long life ahead of them to make them forget.  Innocence, as they say, is bliss.  But Ping who thinks like a child is no longer one, and will not have a long life ahead of him.  It breaks my heart to think that he would ask what happened to his father, and what will happen to him and find no answers that he could understand, or would soothe his pain.

I hope and pray that in the complexity of it all, Ping will find the simplicity to conclude that life is like a basketball game for small fries.  Sometimes, you just have to have the courage to shoot the ball when the big guys tell you to step aside.

A Hummingbird paid me a visit

The best moments are the least expected.  And these can just as easily pass us by unnoticed because we refuse to acknowledge that there are gifts that can uplift the spirit if we always keep an open eye, and a wandering lust for beauty.

Tonight as I was opening the gate to our house after a 5-hour bike ride, my eye caught a blur.  It was whirring so fast that in the fading light of dusk it seemed like a fuzzy shadow moving about the little orange flowers from one of the varieties of plants that teem in our garden.

I first dismissed it as a wasp.  But no wasp stays out so late.  And besides no wasp likes that flower (same variety as that of the photo), not even my bees go near those little, beautiful but nasty-smelling flowers.

I leaned forward and squinted so I could focus on this fleet-winged creature – it was a hummingbird, a tiny beautiful creature that is no bigger than a wasp.  It had a tiny beak that slips into the tiny holes of the tiny flowers to sip a tiny amount of nectar.  And its wings buzzed so rapidly that I could see nothing but a translucent sliver of vibrating light.

I was mesmerized.  It was the first time that I saw a real hummingbird and it was such a delightful experience, something that I thanked the Lord for for giving me an opportunity to behold such a magical performance.

Today is the 9^th death anniversary of my Tatay.  I visited his grave on my bike.  I told him I miss him so much.  I’d like to think he paid me a visit, on his little wings.

Of funerals, Dolphy's passing, National Artist award, and the state of Philippine comedy

I’ve been to two wakes just the other day; one wake me and my wife intentionally visited, the other we just chanced upon as we got out of the funeral chapel with clear glass panels and innocently gazed inside another to find a familiar face in a very forlorn state– she lost her father who was a few days short from celebrating his 50^th birthday.

I could have gone to a third because another friend and former colleague lost his father, this time to violent circumstances, except that I have lost my taste for funeral food on the first stop.  There’s only so much grief one can expose himself to in a day before he succumbs to cadaver-viewing fatigue.

Then the news of another death came; one that is expected for months but is just as saddening as any other deaths that come suddenly:  Dolphy, the King of Philippine Comedy, is gone.

From all accounts Dolphy, Rodolfo Quizon in real life, was a well-loved, and deeply respected man who touched countless lives not only through his more than 200 movies and sitcoms stretched over more than a half century of local entertainment history, but also through his warm and genuine persona outside of the showbiz spotlight .  It is ironic then that the man who made so many people laugh has now made so many cry and ponder.

Dolphy is proof that one imperfect man can impact on the lives of so many without resorting to hogging the spotlight or making a fanfare out of his gifts and talents. Many less gifted and less talented have created more hoopla out of their meager accomplishments.  But I guess they have to do that, otherwise they can’t convince even themselves that they are worth even half the fame that they are getting – Ehem-ehemirevillame!  Ehem-ehemice Ganda!  Ehem-ehemoey De Leon!

It is rather funny and at the same time sad that Dolphy is being touted as the next National Artist when he has -- aside from tribute shows for him and the occasional guest appearances in TV shows and obligatory talk show interviews – practically done nothing to enrich local show business or the arts since 2009, the last time he was nominated but surprisingly turned down for the said honor.  Majority, if not all of his rather impressive and extensive bodies of work occurred prior to that year, when he was still able to withstand the rigors of acting before the camera, not after when he was already battling old age and the illnesses that betray his suffering body.

So what’s the difference now and before his first nomination?  Nothing.  Except that he is now  dead and can’t hear the applause, bask in the accolade and retire in the knowledge that he is being honored while he is still alive.  Not that he needed it anyway.  Dolphy was not a man who would insist that he be given such an honor.  He was much too proud, too humble to do that.

Art, as they say, is subjective.  Hence, the distinguished panel of the National Commission for Culture and Arts of 2009 bestowed the National Artist title to Carlo J. Caparas, the comics novelist, the billion-peso writer, producer and director of PCSO teleseryes that nobody watched and remembered, and the famed director of massacre movies of the 1990s featuring the very versatile acting of Kris Aquino whose go-to acting technique of the woman with the wide-eyes, crunched-brows and pursed lips sufficed to convey all sorts of emotions that a poor lass being raped, slashed, stabbed, frightened and/or threatened will go through.

Oh, how that worked.  Brilliant!  And who could forget Caparas’ favorite cinematic effect – the slow motion, shot from several angles, with the blood-curdling scream of the victim slowed down as well to match the impeccable camera work.  That is what you call contribution to national artistry.

Now poor us.  Dolphy is gone.  He stopped doing movies a long time ago.  There was a plan to shoot a sitcom for TV5, but his poor health prevented this from ever materializing.  

The King of Comedy is gone but Philippine comedy is alive and kicking.  There is Joey De Leon – another old but proud remnant of comedies past who refuse to be overtaken by time.  In fact, he still sticks to his gay slapstick tricks that portray homosexuals as screaming faggots that deserve to be laughed at and scorned.  He still treats ordinary people with condescending ire every time they participate in Eat Bulaga’s inane game shows and fail to answer what he thinks are information that everyone should know: Pambihira naman ito, para (right answer) di mo pa alam?

And we have Vice Ganda who, in his daily noon time show, makes people laugh by pointing out the weaknesses, ugliness, and frailties of unwary people regardless if he is a studio contestant or a hapless part of the audience who happens to attract Vice Ganda’s probing eyes and acerbic tongue.

And we have Willie Revillame who, in an effort to show a bleeding heart for the common people, refuses to show common decency and respect to his inattentive, or inept (in his view) dancers, staff or crew.  He has Pinoys laughing while his contestants and studio audience swallow pride and human dignity to make fools of themselves on national TV, to get a handful of cash and at times a dressing down from Willie.

Dolphy portrayed gay characters in his movies and TV shows.  But he showed the human person, not the caricature that others like Joey so often play for a quick laugh.  Yes, he also made fun of imperfections, but mostly of his own.  Yes, he too had a generous heart; one that was not paired with a vocal mouth.

Dolphy is gone but Philippine comedy is still alive.  And that is sad.