EVEN with a win that dropped the ax on the league-leading Far Eastern University (FEU) Tamaraws, the Bulldogs of National University (NU) are not out of the fire yet in their struggling passage into the Final Four of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP).
The La Salle Green Archers are still alive, and knocking at the very same door as the Bulldogs. The fourth and last slot in the semifinals is very much a toss-up between these two teams. It has come down to this: a titleholder that only rediscovered its courage, its form, late in the elimination phase, and a highly touted contender that somehow could not consistently aim straight.
Judging from the intense, unpredictable action so far, no team, even the league-leading Tamaraws and the Growling Tigers of the University of Santo Tomas, is untouchable. No one will be spared the terror of this cutthroat competition.
But who would be?
It has been more than 24 hours after we learned of that unspeakable assault on humanity, not just on Parisians, last Saturday, and I am still reeling. I’m shocked beyond words. When religion is made to justify such carnage, then the world is living in a time of unmitigated terror. I scanned the New York Times for some edifying comments, and the reaction that caught my attention was a message posted on its Facebook page by two friends visiting Paris. “We’re safe,” they told their families. “But is anyone safe in this crazy world?”
We used to believe that only ideology and guns combined to produce revolutions to liberate peoples. And now it is religion fired up by hate that unleashes violence across national borders to shatter lives—but for what? The Islamist terrorists hit the innocents, randomly and wantonly, which only made attacks on an unsuspecting city and its people all the more horrific.
Another letter-writer, a Muslim, commented in the same paper addressed to the extremists who were responsible: “Who gave you the authority to act in the name of my faith?”
It is incomprehensible, even inconceivable that religion in this century has been used to justify terror, and the mass, random killings of bystanders whose only crime was to belong to humanity, in this case, designated by history and national culture as French.
The attackers hit several cafés crackling with laughter; a concert hall, where an American band played to a capacity crowd; and a sports stadium, where a football friendly between France and Germany was in progress. The president of France was in the crowd of fans. Then two explosions shattered the evening, and mayhem broke loose. The German players spent the night in the stadium, trusting perhaps only each other. It was the safest way to spend the night.
I don’t know if NU Coach Eric Altamirano was even aware of the predicament of the German footballers. Even if he did, even if he saw the larger picture, on that Saturday he kept his focus on the small niche in this world that he occupies. Animated by the scent of the final qualifying slot, the Bulldogs went for the kill late. With 33.5 seconds left, Gelo Alolino hit the Tams in the jugular. He scored the game-winner, a jump shot.
These Bulldogs in adversity were an incredible image of dogged determination. If one has a championship to defend, one really doesn’t have must choice except to become savage—on the hard court. There is only one way to go, and it is to continue to believe in one’s capacity for redemption, one’s ability to survive.
“We really talked about having an unwavering faith in each other, in the system, and they showed it tonight,” Altamirano said.
This was not a giveaway from a team as hard-hitting as the Tamaraws so as to eliminate the surging UE Red Warriors, and to keep the Green Archers on tenterhooks. The Tams had been hard to hit all season long, so difficult to wrestle down. Only three times did they fall in all 14 games. Even owning now the twice-to-beat advantage in the semifinal round, FEU Coach Nash Racela pushed his boys to get the Bulldogs’ scalp. “Our objective was to win the game,” he said.
University of the East (UE) had earlier shot down the Blue Eagles of Ateneo. But to qualify for the semis was a decision out of their hands. It would be decided by the Tamaraws, in the other half of the doubleheader. Imagine the Warriors’ dread, waiting on the sidelines for hours, and egging on an FEU team to get this win for them. It didn’t come to that end.
On Wednesday the Tamaraws will decide another team’s fate—that of the Green Archers. The two teams will clash—and who should be praying for an FEU victory at the sidelines but the Bulldogs themselves?
The final games of the UAAP season have indeed, come down to this, unpredictable, a cutthroat passage to some promised land. The action, on which so much is at stake, will pack dynamites and the players’ elbows will carry hand grenades, to borrow a phrase from the sports columnist Teddy Benigno.
At least, no one in the gallery will have none to fear. No one will be the target of those explosions. They only have to check one thing: their hearts.