Pinoys who believe there is robust sports scene in the Philippines are the same as people who live in a country where the Internet is heavily censored and those people believe they really are experiencing full breadth of the Internet.
SUPPORT INDEPENDENT SOCIAL COMMENTARY! Subscribe to our Substack community GRP Insider to receive by email our in-depth free weekly newsletter. Subscribe to our Substack newsletter, GRP Insider! Learn more |
One of my main themes since I first joined this site back in 2012 is that Pinoy Pride is so unique. Pinoy Pride sees the world through its own unique lens. This lens conveniently omits merit, history , accomplishment, vocabulary, organic growth, and context. I have enjoyed the intricacies of some sports for decades. Those sports have had zero pinoys among their ranks and their audience did not miss a thing. Back in 2018 the final of the World Cup of Football and the All Star Game of Major League played in the span of 4 days. This confluence of two of the top three international team sports had zero pinoys. I have no idea why this country latched its sense of self worth to Jessica Sanchez as I plainly stated in my first contribution to Get Real Post:
If the Pinoy was truly da best, why does a “win” in an American show mean so much? Can’t you be satisfied with what you have in your own local shows since you have such a high opinion of pinoy talent? At least the contestants there tend to be born here. Forget the fact that Jessica has truly little to do with the country.You also can’t have it both ways. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You value the stage of another country but if victory does not come accuse them of all sorts of things like racism and sexism. I will also argue that Jessica is more theirs than yours. She did not grow up on love teams, Kris Aquino and Wow Wow Wee.
It is not just the world of music where Pinoys beat their chest like King Kong. Pinoys celebrated a 1-4 record when I wrote this back in September of 2014. Basketball is the only team sport that moves the meter in the Philippines as I have said many times before. The people want basketball and only basketball as a spectator sport. That is what the people want. All this proud to be Pinoy BS and my detractors can never show me attendance figures or TV ratings of sporting events regularly held here without an orange ball with indigenous people as participants. Pinoys won’t watch pinoys in sports but are proud to be pinoy. To reach the mountain top in any endeavor including sports you have to want it. Local athletes might want it less when the domestic audience does not seem to want to see them. The Pinoy media knows that the National Basketball Association carries even more weight with pinoys than the local PBA so they engage in some coercion of their own in a feeble attempt to get noticed.

“Well, I haven’t been in show business as long as you have, Killian. But I’m a quick learner. So I’m going to give the audience what *I* think they want.”
Ben Richards ( Ben Grimm/ Reed Richards?) in the Running Man 1987
I have said this before and I will continue to say this until the sports organizations of this country prove different. The Philippines is a lousy place for sports. Sports plural. Team sports in particular. Basketball is a sport. This is a lousy place to be a competitor , a viewer and a coach. Put all that together and there is no achievement in high profile team sports . I got news for you , the world does not care about the PBA or any team comprised of native pinoys. The Philippines is so inferior when it comes to culture , discipline , facilities , appreciation, internal competition that blaming your failures on genetics is only for coaches who are inconspicious on the world stage. Pinoys have this common belief that only focusing on basketball is the gateway to being significant in global team sports. Unfortunately they have no idea that every country who wipes the court using Gilas as a mop does not even have basketball as a dominant sport.

The sure fire formula to avoid any kind of excellence in elite team sports is 1) make sure you are born in the Philippines. 2) make sure your coaches are Filipino 3) make sure the bulk of your amateur career is spent competing against other Filipinos. That formula is undefeated. If Filipinos do not care about sports plural then why should the elite sports in the world care about Filipinos? There is always talk about “Filipino blood “ when it comes to KSPs. Why don’t any of them point out the obvious that blood only becomes an issue when the culture on its own can not be competitive with the world ? So Filipino blood pa more since you can’t point to Filipino work. Lots of Filipino blood in the PBA Philippine Cup. How is that working out? Is Filipino blood orange or green? Just admit that we live in a tambay culture so our lack of success where it counts is well earned. The irony is pinoys are so lousy at sports yet they are dying for attention that goes to the achievers in big time sports.


If the NBA final is the only international sporting event that basketball myopic pinoys care about annually then the NBA All Star Game is probably a close second. One day that game might adopt a format change where the best of the American born takes on the best from the rest of the world. Fox Sports generated a hypothetical “World” lineup. Among the countries mentioned : Canada, France, Greece, Slovenia and Lithuania. None of those countries exhibit the sense of entitlement pinoys have about basketball. It is a good thing in the NBA no one cares about what Joaquin Henson ( @thedeanquinito ) thinks since he will stuff the ballot with PBA players knowing his lack of objectivity when it comes to Pinoy basketball. Oh yes , he is one of the quick links in the sports section of Philstar. Pinoy basketball fans, you deserve Joaquin Henson and you deserve your insignificance on the world stage since you mistake his sugar coating for substance.
If you are truly Proud to be Pinoy then reconcile the statement of Coach Yeng . Should we give pinoy basketball players a high chair or trainer wheels because of “genetics “? Here is a guy who was in a leadership position of men who represented our country. He was supposed to get their bodies and minds to produce optimum results. What are his pearls of wisdom ? Reshuffle the zone and ignore geography because the proud to be Pinoys can not genetically compete. Pinoys don’t even have a track record of dominating Asia. The other countries all take their football more seriously. Its not like it hurt them against the team with “puso”. If you will blame geography and genetics then there is your built in excuse in a country that can only see a ball going through a circular hoop yet can not excel in it. Whatever happened to the mentality that if you want to be the best then you have to beat the best?? If there was a world competition on excuse making, pinoys have a natural advantage in genetics. If you want an excuse then ask Yeng Guiao.
- If You Will Blame Geography And Genetics Then Are You Worthy To Play With The Big Boys? - August 21, 2025
- Super Bowl Monday Why It Might Be Fun Even For You - January 24, 2025
- I Guess Pinoys Consider Themselves A Football Nation Now - September 12, 2023
Go ahead tell me where I am right and wrong based on the topic presented. Should you chose to stray from the topic or resort to argumentum ad hominem well…….
How does genetic disparity compare and figure in the debate of whether to mix female and male competitors in sports? Physical traits are subordinate to skills. So there’s a logical gap there somewhere.
Male and female is more than genetics, it is an established gulf of difference that manifests in differing strength levels and other physical aspects. Likening Guiao’s excuse to the question of male and female sports is apples and oranges. The problem is inadequate training and coaching.
I remember when some called for Guiao to be replaced by Tab Baldwin on Gilas. I read this article, forgot if it’s by Gogs too, saying Baldwin or similar would have pushed for teamwork, everyone should be skilled, while Guiao still uses the Filipino formula of have a few superstar players, and every other teammate is second fiddle. The result in the second style is when the superstar players are incapacitated, the team can’t make points. This is probably what explains why Filipinos lose to other countries.
Which begs the question of why genetics is being used as a reason for advantage and disadvantage in the game. If you play for the Philippines, what should a typical Filipino player be like? Is that the issue? What are they really representing?
basketball continues to be the most popular sport, mainly because it is the most pervasive and is widely taught and almost universally played.
like an invasive species, it has taken over the entire pond at the expense of other fish.
but there is hope. one thing that can be done is for the SK to STOP sponsoring barangay basketball tournaments and focus instead on promoting other sports, like football, or at least futsal.
same goes for MILO and that gay big shot CEO guy and the big schools with their big bucks basketball scholarships.
money should be expended to build football and boxing academies and wall climbing and wilderness survival schools.
Who will pay? The US does very well in every Olympics. There is money expended on Olympic sports at the university level. Track and Field, gymnastics, swimming and wrestling. That money does not come from the taxpayer or corporate sponsors. Granted that might change soon. Learn more in this article from Fortune.
One thing I would wish, following that motion described in Fortune, is to have OJT students paid as well.
the government pays.
theres enough money.
believe it or not we are already paying for coaches for various sports in every major city – theyre probably just taking the money and doing something else.
I can’t believe I forgot to reference this and this in the original piece.
i get the point.. the way things get done in the phillipines is kind of fuzzy, plenty of illogical jumps and mental gymnastics along the way.
drives the “classicists” crazy.
the culture is damaged and headed nowhere. and sadly, no one is teaching and making the necessary course corrections, indoctrination even , on the young.
the teachers are seemingly equally, or even more, lost.
that senator guy who is now the head of deped, what has he ever done besides yakking his mouth??
“that senator guy who is now the head of deped, what has he ever done besides yakking his mouth??”
absolutely! yeah, deped was way so much better before that senator guy. a lot of things happening… the best!
I’m still wondering if Filipinos still say the “Proud to be Pinoy” BS whenever Wesley So wins a chess championship. If they do, then it’s cringe because Wesley So was betrayed by Philippines by not giving him the money they promised which is why he migrated to the USA. The USA took better care of him than the Philippines ever did. Maybe Filipinos have chance to rise if they’re smart enough to look for significant sports they fit in and if the country takes good care of them which we all know that it doesn’t take care of people at all.
You might remember one of my Olympic blogs . One of the proud to be pinoys was counting so called half pinoys that carried the flag of a different country as a medal for the Philippines. Maybe it was fencing.
I remember that. It’s so stupid that Filipinos say “Proud to be Pinoy” only because someone with a Filipino blood won something even though their citizenship is not Filipino yet Carlos Yulo is a legit Filipino who won multiple gold medals in the same Olympic year yet Filipinos ostracized him all because of the feud which became public. Family matters are private matters, but Filipino IQ is horribly low to understand that. I think Carlos Yulo should just migrate to Australia because the very society he represented in Olympics is treating him like an outcast. Filipinos also don’t understand that parents are not always right which shows that Filipino society is full of imbeciles, so instead of celebrating with him, they just canceled him. It went so far that they attack his height.
flags and countries are useful, but artificial constructs.
in the end, we are individual organisms looking out to optimize resources for maximum returns.
There are so many things wrong with the Philippines. You would think with AI people would start asking questions to get rational answers.
Instead…… the Philippines will Philippines (it will become a verb to “fail” at some point.
So now NAIA is raising the fee to fly out of Manila to other airports INSIDE THE COUNTRY! I always hear about they want to increase tourism within the country…. so why would you increase the fee to fly to other airports in the country. If you want to increase the fee to fly out of the country, that is fine (I disagree with it, but I understand you want money for the airport), but increasing the ticket price to fly from Manila to Tacloban or wherever just seems insane.
Also, the Philippines will never excel at sports until they 100% embrace half Filipinos. The soccer team is a prime example.
The Philippines Football Federation gets a new president (Guiteriez I think is his name) who wants to push for local players. I understand you want local players, but the best Filipino soccer players in the world are those that did not grow up in country. It is simple.
So needless to say the soccer team is not doing well. A few years ago the women’s team went to the world cup and beat New Zealand in a game. A week ago the women’s team lost to Myanmar.
get the people in the slums and the barangays to play football.
build the obsession, fuel the fire.
start with the 10 year olds, free training every day, the same way theyre doing with basketball now.
every province and capital city already has a sports complex with a track oval and a pitch.
in any other country, this should be quite simple for the government to do.
but you know, philippines.
Megget, the point of pinoy culture is you can lead a horse to water but you can not make him or her drink.
am just saying, it can be doable
i believe every person starts blank,and the culture provides the programming.
so we start with the 10 year olds, indoctrinate the young, if necessary.
Tim, that is my point since I put pen to paper. The full Filipino does not care for the game or to even see the sport played at a high level. They rather watch noontime shows for whatever good that does. Doing lousy at international events is truly what we deserve. The Philippines is a lousy place for sports. Lousy place to be a fan, player, coach or even TV programmer. Pinoys will embrace good results regardless of the source. They don’t seem to care about working for it themselves.
How about bringing back sailing sports and sea navigating? I’m pretty sure we are genetically excellent at something.
the bajao would be good at swimming or free diving, but theyre now too busy begging in the streets
How about flipinos dump these bullshit sports activities and actually clean up the shit hole that is the country, how about you pick up the trash first?
Looking at peenoys obsessed about mixed sports personalities makes me think that their national strategy is to pimp out the women to whitey
Filipino males confirmed for cucks
speaking of cucks, president guy bobby M went to amerika and became donald trump’s bitch.
sitting there with donald’s hand so far up his ass making him talk like a sock puppet.
should have stayed home and used the PHONES.
it was hilarious and painful at the same time.