“As far as possible, without surrender, be in good terms with all persons.”
That’s my favorite line from Desiderata. And so, let it be.
This piece is about what Arthur Ashe, Jr., former World No. 1 tennis player and the first black player ever selected to the US Davis Cup team and the only black man to ever win the singles title at Wimbledon, the US Open, or Australian Open said: “We must reach out our hand in friendship and dignity both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy.” And I add: without surrender.
In July 7, 2007, with the support of the Foundation University Administration, I founded the Institute of Youth Sports for Peace or IYSPeace. IYSPeace is featured in a book published by the United Nations in Bangkok in 2008 entitled, Innovative Practices is Physical Education in Asia.
“The IYSPeace is an experiment in peace-building through the creation of a ‘culture of children and youth sports’ in Negros Oriental and its environs…IYSPeace is a concept, an experiment, designed to test the validity of utilizing sports as a vehicle for social change and to counteract the negative practices currently besetting Philippine sports. There is an urgent need to correct the cheating, violence, substance abuse, lack of respect for authority and disregard for the age-old traditions of fair play and sportsmanship, camaraderie and friendship that seem to be part of school and commercial sports. Education is the key to effecting this change–sports education for children and youth development and formation, and for producing a new breed of sports teachers and leaders who, like the founder of the Modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, believe in the power of sports to unite peoples in a peaceful world.”
IYSPeace, as much as possible, without surrender, will reach out to those who would be friends and to those who would be enemies in Negros Oriental. Examples of these can be gleaned from these text messages sent by two football coaches, reprinted here but with names deleted to protect the innocent.
From a distraught coach of a football club based in a town south of Dumaguete City: “gi tawagan manko ni (name of football official)…Ug mo dula daw sa F.U. Silang (name of player) and (name of player) hasta akong mga players dha F.U…iya iPa blacklist sa PFF (name of the coach’s football club)…Daun Dili nami kadula sa mga tourney basta NORFA magpadula…yawa kaau ni (name of football official)…mag Bo-ot man nuan namo!…Dili unta alahigon ang akong mga players…ug makig kontra cya sa F.U. Dili unta Nya alahigon akong mga players…Dba?” Despite the threat of having his players blacklisted by NORFA, this coach will send five of his girls to the tryouts.
The other coach of a high school team in Dumaguete City after being asked by FU to allow U16 girls to try-out for the national team to be held in Bacolod on August 20-21, sent the following text message to FU football coach Geraldine Cabrera: “Inyo FU players asa man diay? Kaingun kog maayo inyo sports program, nhya dili mo ka send sa inyo own. Naunsa naman na.”
Because of this nasty response of the coach to FU’ invitation, FU coach Vladimir Villacora talked to the parents of the girls to make sure that they would not miss the opportunity to realize their dream of becoming members of the national team. Two girls, permitted by their parents, will join the FU tryout. One mother, whose husband is a member of the NORFA Board, sent this text message to us: “Thank you for the opportunities you’ve given my children and team to play.”
It was this text message of a mother of football players and whose family, she revealed to me recently, “spend almost P1m annually” to maintain a football club, that made me write this piece.
Upon receipt of this mother’s text message, I called a meeting of IYSPeace staff and coaches and gave them the instruction that, in keeping with our institutional mission to promote peace in Negros Oriental through a culture of children and youth sports, we will henceforth, reach out to all sports stakeholders in our locality, most especially to those who had boycotted the recent FU-organized futsal and football tournament, and offer them our hand of friendship, solidarity and peace…in dignity and without surrender.
