Gilas and the Filipinos’ love affair with basketball

Bert A. Ramirez

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Gilas and the Filipinos’ love affair with basketball
Filipinos’ passion for basketball has historical and cultural roots, and whatever happens to Gilas Pilipinas in Spain will do nothing to change that

 

The Gilas Pilipinas team lost an overtime heartbreaker over the weekend to top-10 team Croatia in its debut game in the FIBA World Cup after 36 years, but our guys made us really proud despite the 81-78 stinger. In fact, had the referees just called an obvious foul on Jayson Castro’s last-second three-point attempt, nobody could tell what would have happened.

Or how about a technical foul called on Castro himself in the closing seconds of the third quarter for supposedly flopping after having been bumped by a guy half a foot taller than him? That play gave the Croatians two free shots plus possession, on which the latter converted a buzzer-beating three-point shot to give the Eastern Europeans an eight-point lead going into the payoff period.

“That’s the difference. If not for that technical foul, we could have won the game. The game wouldn’t have gone into overtime,” coach Chot Reyes lamented. “The refs called a technical. Croatia made the free throws then made a trey at the buzzer. That’s five points and that’s the difference in the game.”

But the Filipinos obviously ended up on the shorter end of the refs’ calls in the crucial moments, and the Philippines went down, albeit gallantly, instead of scoring a first-class upset over the Croatians, one-time Olympic silver-medalists.  

Such heroic stands, like Gilas’ tough showing in defeat to the much taller Greece on Sunday night, have made basketball so moving to the average Filipino that it’s become the national passion that it is. This is despite the tall odds the Philippines goes up against every time the Filipinos set foot on the world stage, and the many heartbreaks like this loss to Croatia that have actually marked their campaign in both regional and international competitions.

Gary David, a 4-time PBA scoring champion from Bataan, Philippines, scores his first basket of the FIBA World Cup against Greece. Photo from FIBA

Perhaps this love affair with basketball, which in a way has taken away from other sports where analysts say the Filipinos have better chances of succeeding since they’re not handicapped in terms of height and heft against naturally bigger nations, can be attributed to the country’s own success on the same world stage it’s now competing.

But even before this, one may trace the beginning of this love affair to the earlier days when the sport was first introduced by a colonial power, the Americans, acknowledged – then and now – as the top basketball power in the universe.

That this love affair has its historical and cultural roots is stating the stark, unvarnished truth. It’s a truth that’s so glaring that whatever happens to the Filipinos’ campaign now in Spain may not do anything to dampen the Filipinos’ passion, or obsession with the game they’re not supposed to be physically suited for simply because of their lack of size.

“I think the reason why (basketball) is so embedded in people’s lives there is it was the first team sport that was widely accessible and popular,” Rafe Bartholomew, author of the best-selling “Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin’ in Flip-Flops and the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball,” told Lea McLellan in an interview with Asia Society Online. “It caught on because early in Filipino basketball history, and also in everyone’s basketball history, they were very good at it. Basketball was introduced there by the US colonial government in 1910. They made it part of the physical education curriculum in the public school system. They built playgrounds, they built the YMCA in Manila and so in that way, the game was promoted.”

“You know a country’s really crazy about hoops when you see a basketball court on almost every street,” digital marketing executive Jonathan Kennedy said as he talked about Bartholomew’s book. “If that’s not enough, how about postponing the elections because there’s an NBA finals game on? Yes, that’s how passionate the Filipinos are when it comes to the game of basketball.”

(RELATED: The day Gilas Pilipinas arrived)

The irony of basketball’s having been embedded in the Filipinos’ consciousness is that the Americans had tried harder to promote baseball to them, with baseball the undisputed national pastime in the US in the 1920 and 1930s. But just like the way they looked at football, which has a longer history in the Philippines, Filipinos considered baseball as a game not as exciting as basketball. They looked at it as somewhat a slow game, where scoring doesn’t come as fast – and is thus not as rewarding – as in basketball, where teams can run up the scores using their players’ speed and athletic skills. 

The same handicap may have hindered football, although admittedly, the Spaniards didn’t really promote the sport deliberately and focused largely on the conversion of their Filipino subjects into the Christian faith as part of their design for greater control of their old colony. This may be reflected in the fact that throughout their 377-year rule, the Spaniards never taught the Filipinos football, the younger pioneers of the sport learning the game through their own initiative and through interaction with players who learned it elsewhere.

Of course, basketball is also a game that, unlike baseball and football, doesn’t take much to play. It just takes a small space, a goal and a ball and, voila, one can play it even by himself. This is why even the FIBA, the sport’s international governing body, has instituted regional and world three-on-three competitions, where the sport in its most pristine state is played in an unmistakable demonstration of the universal ease and convenience with which it can be played.

Compare that to baseball and football, where one needs a full complement of nine and 11 players, respectively, to be able to compete with another side, and, obviously, a much bigger space to get a game going.

But another, and perhaps more significant, reason the Filipinos took to basketball more than they did to baseball or football is because they were very good at it from the start. While football may have had Paulino Alcantara, basketball had Jacinto Ciria Cruz and, later, Carlos Loyzaga. 

In the Berlin Olympics where basketball first became an event in 1936, the Philippine team led by Ciria Cruz and former Senator Ambrosio Padilla lost only once – to the eventual champion US – and could have won a medal but finished just fifth because of a scheduling quirk. The Filipinos won their first two games 32-30 against eventual bronze-medalist Mexico and Estonia 39-22 before running into the Americans in the knockout fourth round and losing 56-23. The Philippines, however, won the rest of its games 32-14 against Italy and 33-23 against Uruguay for that fifth-place finish, still the highest in Olympic history by any Asian country (yes, higher than any placing by the Chinese).

“Those early successes coincided with the time when (the) idea of the Philippines as a nation was sort of coming into its own also. The Philippine-run part of the Philippine government was starting to try and convince people that they were part of this larger nation,” Bartholomew observed. “They were trying to convince people that they were Filipino, and basketball was one of the things that people had in common across different geographical regions and linguistic regions. Basketball, and probably Catholicism, are two of the things that are most successful at crossing all of those boundaries.

“It was also because they were so good at it first. People really took pride in it. And over the years, over the generations, parents would teach their kids basketball and (these kids) would teach their (own) kids basketball, and it just sort of multiplied over time.”

The cultural part of the sport’s roots is thus well-entrenched, as Michael Tan, a Filipino medical anthropologist, writer and academic, affirmed when he told Bartholomew that basketball has become part and parcel of the Filipinos’ social fabric. “The sport had become not just a pastime for young Filipino men, but a rite of passage,” Tan said. “When boys reach adolescence, they receive privileges. Their mothers begin to allow them to roam their neighborhoods freely, getting into trouble but also learning how to carry themselves as men. Inevitably, these boys end up playing basketball, first in their neighborhood, but then branching out to compete against kids in other areas. These early trials teach them masculine virtues like teamwork, aggression, and machismo… So basketball is there to make friends, build alliances.  It even crosses class barriers.

“Togetherness is one of the most rigid social norms in Philippine culture, and it played a major role in the chemistry of PBA teams. There’s a powerful urge in Philippine society to be part of the group, whether it’s a family, a bunch of classmates, or a basketball team.”

And this explains why basketball, in a way, serves as the great equalizer even among social classes, where a gifted countryboy or probinsyano, for instance, can join a rich kid weaned in an exclusive school like Ateneo or La Salle to team up with him and help their school team win honors in the collegiate leagues, which have served as the breeding ground of local professional talent.

This also applies in the PBA, Asia’s first professional basketball league where a veritable mixture of heterogeneous personalities finds an ideal venue in the name of one single commonality – which is love for the game and its concomitant benefits.

Serving as topping to all these cultural factors, as we’ve said, is the fact that the Filipinos excelled in the sport in international competitions at a time when it was taking roots, partly because the basketball culture in other countries then was not yet as high as it is now, and partly because the disparity in size between the Filipinos and their foreign counterparts was not yet that big.

The 6-foot-3 Caloy Loyzaga bannered the 1954 Filipino team that won bronze in Rio de Janeiro, the highest finish any country outside America and Europe has achieved. Photo from Wikipedia

For example, Loyzaga, the greatest player then in what could be regarded as basketball’s golden era in the Philippines – the ‘50s – was just 6-foot-3 and weighed 200 pounds, but he could do battle with the world’s best while playing center for the country’s national team. Nowadays, Caloy’s size would just be good for a guard as other teams’ centers would be 6-10 and up and weigh in the vicinity of 250 pounds.

But “The Great Difference,” as the legendary Loyzaga was called, was probably the main factor in spawning the love affair that Filipinos are now keeping with the sport. In the 1954 World Championship in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Loyzaga led the Philippines to the bronze medal, a finish that to this day remains the highest any country outside America and Europe has achieved in this quadrennial event. This team, which also included such legends as team captain Lauro Mumar, Tony Genato and Pons Saldaña and other stars like Francisco Rabat, Mariano Tolentino, Rafael Barretto, Florentino Bautista and Nap Flores, won six games and lost three, once to eventual gold-medalist US and twice to the silver medal-winning host team Brazil. The Filipinos beat Paraguay 64-52, Formosa (Chinese-Taipei) 48-38, Israel 90-56, Canada 83-76, France 66-60 and Uruguay 67-63 while losing to Brazil 99-62 and 57-41 as well as the US 56-43. 

(RELATED: Looking back: The 1978 World Basketball Championship in Manila)

There was no doubt that the driving force behind this landmark accomplishment was Loyzaga, who was named to the All-Tournament Team by a panel of 48 sportswriters who covered the event alongside the US’ Kirby Minter, Uruguay’s Oscar Moglia, the top scorer in the tournament with an average of 18.6 points, and Brazil’s Zenny de Azebedo and Wlamir Marques. King Caloy finished third in the tournament in scoring with 16.4 points, scoring 31 points against Uruguay, the second-highest in the games behind only the 37 that Canada’s Carl Ridd scored in their loss to the Filipinos.

The Brazil conclave highlighted Loyzaga’s stature as the greatest player the country has ever produced, a player who can play both big and small according to the esteemed late scribe Tony Siddayao. “Loyzaga is that rare basketball player who can play equally well in any position,” Siddayao wrote in a cover story for The Asia Magazine on June 9, 1963. “He is powerful at the rebound, where the game is sometimes won.  He can score skillfully, carrying the ball. Leading his team, he is an aggressive court general. Ever since he burst into the court limelight in Manila 15 years ago – when he was a skinny, nimble-footed teenager – Loyzaga has been unique in Philippine basketball. For he is the tall, heavy man who can play like the small, fast man. On the court, such an unusual quality can be devastating.

“For an Asian of his height, Loyzaga has amazing agility, speed, (and) cat-quick reflexes. Considering that modern basketball demands all-around skill in guarding, shooting, rebounding and playmaking, Loyzaga has hardly any peer in Asian basketball today… Loyzaga’s all-around value to the team – his height and vast experience; his explosiveness from all angles – particularly from under the basket – puts him in a class by himself.”

Though neither Loyzaga nor the Philippines would quite duplicate that singular feat in Brazil again, the Filipinos would remain competitive in international basketball the rest of the decade and into the early ‘60s. The country placed seventh among 15 teams in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, won the basketball gold medal in the 1958 Tokyo Asian Games, finished eighth among 13 squads in the 1959 World Championship in Santiago, Chile, won the inaugural Asian Basketball Conference tournament (the forerunner of the FIBA Asia Championship) in 1960 in Manila where Loyzaga was named to the All-Tournament Team and where teammate Carlos Badion was named MVP, took the gold in the 1962 Jakarta Asian Games, the last of four the country has won in the region’s premier quadrennial event, and topped the 1963 ABC tournament in Taipei.

Caloy also skippered the Philippine team that took part in the international invitational tournament that replaced the fourth World Championship in Manila in December 1962, which was cancelled on account of then-President Diosdado Macapagal’s refusal to issue visas to teams from communist countries. Even in this tournament that was to be his last against teams beyond Asian shores, Loyzaga stood out. The brash, critical coach of the winning US team, Les Lane, had good words for the Filipino superstar, rating him “the most outstanding Asian in the tournament.” 

When Loyzaga retired about a year later in 1963, it was no coincidence that the Philippines started its downward spiral in international competitions. It also didn’t help that other countries even in Asia started to catch up with the Filipinos in terms of basketball skills and technology. In 1965, the country lost the ABC championship to Japan, finishing just second after bowing to the Japanese 71-65 in the competitions held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In 1966, a rookie-laden Filipino squad finished sixth, its worst to that point, in the Asian Games as Israel, Thailand and South Korea took the first three places in the games held in Bangkok, Thailand.

But the Philippines, with Loyzaga this time coaching the so-called Dirty Dozen, regained a measure of pride when the Filipinos, led by Robert Jaworski, who by this time was starting to create his own legend, the late Narciso Bernardo, Edgardo Ocampo and Alberto Reynoso as well as Danny Florencio, beat the legendary Shin Dong-pa and host South Korea 83-80 in a classic championship battle to regain the ABC championship in 1967.

The country, however, continued to be challenged in the Asian region and would not regain its supremacy again save for short stretches. This was particularly the case with the formation of the PBA in 1975 as the commercial teams that had served as source of talent for international competitions broke away from the Basketball Association of the Philippines, the forerunner of the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas. This state of the game would continue even when the pros began to be eligible to play for their countries and latter-day stars like Ramon Fernandez, Alvin Patrimonio, William Adornado, Allan Caidic, Avelino “Samboy” Lim and Johnny Abarrientos would establish their niche. This was because a new Asian power, China, emerged to assert itself with its sheer size and wide pool of talent, estimated at more than 400 million, which has produced such NBA-caliber players as Yao Ming, Wang Zhizhi, Yi Jianlian and Sun Yue (pronounced Yu-A).

Reflective of the new order is the fact that China has long surpassed the Philippines in terms of championships won both in the Asian Games and the FIBA Asia Championship. China now has seven gold medals in the Asian Games compared to the Philippines’ four (all won in the Loyzaga era), South Korea’s three and Israel’s two. The Chinese also have a whopping 15 golds in the FIBA Asia tournament as against the Filipinos’ five, Iran’s three, and the South Koreans’ and Japanese’s two each.

But nothing seems to dampen the Filipinos’ love for the game as the local pro league and the collegiate circuit continue to enjoy wide support from fans, sponsors and the media alike. One just has to look at those TV contracts to realize that the game remains the most commercially appealing vehicle to corporate marketers and the most attractive sporting activity to the average man on the street. Attendance in PBA games, for example, may experience a downturn every time the country’s national team flounders in international competitions but it would invariably pick up soon enough.

This is why we have no qualms in saying that whatever happens in Spain in the next fortnight may not do anything to change that affection for basketball that Filipinos have. And the game’s current movers and shakers can only thank yesterday’s heroes for that. – Rappler.com 

Bert A. Ramirez has been a freelance sportswriter/columnist since the ’80s, writing mostly about the NBA and once serving as consultant and editor for Tower Sports Magazine, the longest-running locally published NBA magazine, from 1999 to 2008. He has also written columns and articles for such publications as Malaya, Sports Digest, Winners Sports Weekly, Pro Guide, Sports Weekly, Sports Flash, Sports World, Basketball Weekly and the FIBA’s International Basketball, and currently writes a sports column for QC and Metro Manila Life as well as, until this summer, a weekly blog for BostonSports Desk. A former corporate manager, Bert has breathed, drunk and slept sports most of his life.

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