The whole trouble with the Ateneo is that it is perceived (fairly or unfairly) by the Philippine public to be an elitist institution even in the best of times. The Ateneo, after all, is an expensive institution of learning to be a part of. Its fees are beyond the reach of the vast majority of Filipinos and, as such, members of its student body come from the crème de la crème of Filipino society. An Ateneo education brands you for life; essentially guaranteeing its students and alumni privileged access to an über exclusive social and business network that opens doors to society’s most plum and most lucrative opportunities and circles.
This reality should have been a key consideration in the public relations management surrounding a recent tragic incident in which varsity basketball players Rene Clert Baterbonia and Divine Adili died during a team activity in Baler, Aurora province. It’s Day 3 since the incident was first reported and a public clamour for answers continues to ratchet up. A lot of this noise fills what many have described as a communication vacuum of the Ateneo’s own making. Its official comms on the incident have so far been both thin and tone-deaf (as many critics point out). As a result, people have become reliant on social media posts, podcasters, and the sparse news “reports” from mainstream media outlets for information on the matter. This is a disturbing situation as it leaves the space open for people to politicise the tragedy.
A key personal presence in the midst of all this is the mother of Baterbonia, Rovelyn Baterbonia who has been consistent since Day 1 sharing her grief with the public (and to whom the media have swarmed around on account of her being the only individual directly impacted by the incident putting up a public face). Becoming a very visible public figure from the very beginning, plus the fact that no report of any direct face-to-face contact between her any high-ranking official from the Ateneo has so far surfaced (a fact the mother Baterbonia herself has been highlighting) has compounded the PR nightmare the Ateneo now finds itself in. Whilst the victims of the tragedy have a persistent human face available for the public to relate with, the Ateneo, on the other hand, has so far only faced the public behind its Blue Eagle logo — a symbol relevant only to members of its elite community.
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Al Jazeera correspondent for the Philippines and Asia-Pacific Barnaby Lo in a post on social media site X came forward to make a call already long-overdue by then…
With all due respect, Ateneo officials and its basketball coaching team need to say something already. It’s been a couple of days and we see the anguish of a mother who is looking for answers and closure. Why did Rene Baterbonia’s mother have to learn about her son’s death on social media?
Understand Ateneo wants to let the investigation run its course but they have people who were there when its student-athletes drowned and died. They can provide facts rather than let speculations and conspiracy theories run wild.
The more the school stays silent, the more it looks like they’re evading accountability. Whether they like it or not, it’s not an internal matter that they can sweep under the rug.
A cohort of celebrity endorsers sharing their respective two-cent feelings on the tragedy aren’t helping either. Former players, seemingly on behalf of their alma mater, appealed to the public for fairness in this time of grief citing their own experience training under similarly harsh conditions. However, these were met with scorn by a public, by then, already dug into perceptions they had already formed likely as a result of the PR debacle officials of the Ateneo had created — further testament to the imporance of timeliness in the field of PR management.
For his part, singer Gary Valenciano — an alumnus of La Salle (the famous singular rival of the Ateneo in most endeavours) — issued a particularly tone-deaf post on X…
Netizens were quick to zero-in on his leading statement — an opening remark that suggests Valenciano took the time to make it about himself first before getting to the important part of his message. Suffice to say, a proper PR response from the Ateneo would have distracted from the Amateur Hour din of messaging coming from these arguably well-meaning people. This is, after all, a collective of elite voices speaking elite sentiment to the powerless (the opposite of “speaking truth to power”). Already, the fact that Baterbonia and Adili really are, in the scheme of things, outsiders as far as the tony circles of the Ateneo community are concerned had gone a long way towards fuelling public speculation around how this matter may have been treated differently had the victims been insiders.
Indeed, the Ateneo needs to get its act together pronto if it is to stem the steady encroachment of noise and conspiracy theories into a space that it should have been on top of had it done things right the first time. With privilege comes greater responsibility — perhaps a responsibility the nature of which the Ateneo could have worked harder to understand better.
- The public relations debacle the Ateneo finds itself in following the tragic deaths of Rene Clert Baterbonia and Divine Adili - June 11, 2026
- The way the Ateneo de Manila University issued its official statement on the deaths of Rene Clert Baterbonia and Divine Adili seems to suggest a cover-up - June 9, 2026
- The Philippine Senate has become a serious liability to the Filipino people and needs to be trashed ASAP! - May 28, 2026