CLEAVING CAGES

WRITTEN BY : Wendell John Ramos

Obiena once again golden victory in the 2022 Golden Fly Series in Schaan, Liechtenstein last September 11. On his second attempt, he successfully cleared 5.71 meters. Olen Tray Oates of the United States and Riccardo Klotz of Austria both settled for silver and bronze. At the Gala dei Castelli competition in the Bellinzona Municipal Stadium in Ticino, Switzerland, Obiena added another gold to his collection before concluding his outdoor season.

Despite the many events Obiena participated in, there are also somewhere the pole vaulter was not able to compete in. Obiena sadly missed the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia due to his fiasco over the alleged misuse of funds with the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (PATAFA). This issue almost caused Obiena to not compete at the Southeast Asian Games and the World Outdoor Athletics Championship. However, when the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) asked the National Sports Associations (NSA) to submit the names of the athletes who will be traveling to Hanoi, Vietnam for the SEA Games, reports of the master list without Obiena’s name were discovered. POC President Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino then quickly expressed his disapproval with PATAFA and Juico’s decision.

Due to Obiena’s recent successes on the field, Terry Capistrano, the new president of PATAFA, formally informed PSC of the association’s decision to reinstate Obiena. Obiena, the third-best pole vaulter in the world, was officially admitted back to the national track and field team on August 17. Obiena was then off the case as last March 30 when PATAFA finally settled the conflicts and misunderstandings between the association and Obiena.

Even with his dispute with PATAFA and a knee operation last January, Obiena has kept his game at a high level, earning him entry into the World Indoor Championships. However, due to PATAFA’s lack of endorsement, Obiena will have to wait at least another two years to compete in the elite championship.

After competing in major international tournaments, Obiena proudly returned home and was conferred by the Pope John Paul II Award for his Outstanding Achievement in Sports on September 29, 2022, at the Buenaventura G. Paredes O.P., Building’s Grand Ballroom. For the next season of Obiena’s career, the pole vaulter is coming back to compete in upcoming international competitions alongside his plan to invite Duplantis of Sweden here in the Philippines for a major invitational pole vault competition in 2023.

With his stellar performance over his past tournaments, the ever-supportive Thomasians are looking forward to more achievements and medals that the Electronics Engineering student will bring home for the next season. As he truly set the bars high this season, the star pole vaulter from the University of Santo Tomas representing the Philippines also demonstrated throughout this season that even after COVID, the US Department of Homeland Security, and PATAFA dilemmas and his knee injury, “I would keep my feet on the ground and keep soaring high for the University, for the country and hopefully make the world a little bit better in my own way”

It is always remarkable and spectacular when a crowd cheers for a sports team. The passion and eagerness from the fans—whether from the roaring cheers in the stadium to the supportive comments on social media—is indeed inspiring. But when things turn south and all the praises of laurels are replaced by words inked by rotten tomatoes, it could not be denied that a team receiving hateful words would not only feel pressure but would also doubt themselves. .

To describe the performance of the Tigers at the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) Men’s Basketball this season as lackluster is an understatement. After snatching the first game, hopes were high for the team, only to slip harder and deeper. The team, too, solely relied on Cabañero during the first half, becoming a onetrick pony. Although the team is indeed relatively new, such reasoning seems to elude the minds of many fans. As a result, words sharper than knives penetrated various comment sections and threads.

But can we blame the fans? In their defense, they only wish for the team to succeed.

It may be true that fans are eager for the team to win, but our men’s basketball team has been on the receiving end of hate speeches even before the games. Such boorish remarks and warped criticisms about them on different platforms had definitely psyched them out. As a consequential result, directly or indirectly, UST had one of the alltime-low points per game (ppg) in the league. This thereupon begs to ask: Should the team listen to such words and prove their haters wrong or should they ignore and play at their own pace?

The performance of the team, with how they handled all the negative words that surrounded them, should serve as a lesson for all other competitive sports teams of our university. It is not bad to read comments and treat them as constructive criticisms. But it becomes toxic when you immerse yourself in hateful words that are below the belt. If possible, athletes should censor themselves from reading any posts related to their game during the run of their competition. They too must pick on themselves the skill of knowing when to listen and who to listen to.

As social media is now deeply integrated within our society, it can make or break any existing social construct, much more a person or a team, no matter how long this would take. And regardless of what effort we exert, we individuals would fail to censor plenty of comments across social media. Thus, learning the value of selecting what to read, or better having the virtue of not reading any comments at all, on social media proves to be the best solution. Only when our athletes begin to take caution and avoid immersing themselves in boorish criticisms can they cleave the cages that their own minds made.