Saturday, August 16, 2008

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Temporarily Signing Off

I won’t be able to blog for sometime because a job order is forth coming that will occupy most of my time. My apologies in advance to all my blog pals and frequent visitors, but as Gen. Douglas McArthur once said… “I’ll be back”!

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Olympic Fantasy

Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories. – Sun Tzu

The Beijing Olympic is just around the corner and all participating countries are gearing up, hoping and speculating how much gold medals they will win. The Philippines is no exception. We created programs and spent lots of money with one thing in mind, to bring home that much coveted Olympic gold. From Marcos’ Gintong Alay to the present administration’s dangling of millions of pesos to who ever win that elusive medal, we must have our Quixotic dream.

But let’s face it. We field in entries in almost all events without thinking if we have a chance to even qualify. Not only that, as far as I know, we are the only country whose officials outnumber athletes in its contingent. Unlike the Kenyans, where you can count their group in your fingers during the opening ceremony parade, yet how many gold do they brought home? Five? Six? It speaks volume considering their fewer numbers. That’s because they concentrate in only one, the long distance running events. Their bodies are built for it; it’s their strength so they focus on it.

Except for boxing, Filipinos doesn’t have the body structure to compete in any international athletic event that requires strength, speed and stamina. You know where were good at? Skills. We’re world class when it comes to bowling, billiard and martial arts because it requires skill. We should concentrate more on events that involved skill like archery, gymnastic, synchronized swimming and diving, instead of recruiting Fil-Ams from American Universities for track and field or paying professional basketball players with questionable citizenship.

If we pool in our resources and capitalize where we’re good at, then maybe we will have a chance to fulfill our fantasy.