This is not about the "blame game." Rather, it is about the side -- but nonetheless very important -- issue highlighted by the reported incident post our Gilas Pilipinas's loss to Qatar in the men's basketball event of the 2014 Asian Games. This is really more on the semantics about our Pinoy sense of identity.
Coach Chot Reyes's threat that
"we'll go all-Filipino" (which he subsequently made good of versus
Korea) is a misnomer and discriminatory, as even center Marcus Douthit has
become Filipino by virtue of naturalization. Perhaps Reyes should have said, in
reference to all his athletes, that "we'll go all-homegrown
Filipinos." But, that is also misleading, as Jimmy Alapag, Gabe Norwood and
Jared Dillinger all grew up and first played ball in the States. Or maybe
"all full-blooded Filipinos"? Well, Norwood and Dillinger’s respective
fathers are both Americans. And Marc Pingris has a Frenchman for a father.
Likewise, consider Jeff Chan and Paul Dalistan Lee’s Chinese ancestry.
The accurate and safe statement
would have been this simple: "If you don't want to play, Marcus, we'll
play without you."
Now Douthit, who began wearing
the Team Philippines color in 2010, has contributed greatly to our resurrection
to a respectable level in international basketball. And, in spite of the recent
report on his attitude in the match versus Qatar, I believe that he has always
played as a true and proud Filipino athlete the moment he was granted our citizenship
in 2011 -- already a year since he began representing our nation. He has proven
his immense worth to our national team in spite of occasional dips in his
athletic performance, which befall all athletes, elite or otherwise.
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