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Philippine Showbiz Today
Spectator
By Al Mendoza
I admire the guts of Chot
Reyes.
For accepting the job as
coach anew of Gilas Pilipinas, this
time for the SEABA Basketball
Championship, he had put his
name on the line. Again.
How many are like him?
You can count them with your
fingers.
With his recent decision,
Chot is immediately saddled by
two deadweights:
One, he also serves in a
concurrent capacity as president
of TV 5. That is no easy task,
TV 5 being an entity, infant as it
still is, struggling, grappling, for a
much-coveted place in the highly-
competitive world of network
wars. I envy him not.
Two, he plunges into SEABA
preparation without a reliable
naturalized player anymore. Both
Andre Blatche and Marcus Douthit
are not duly accounted for, their
whereabouts as unknown as The
Beatles’ Nowhere Man.
The SEABA event is barely
April 22 - May 7, 2017
Basketball
Chot faces 2 challenges of
curt contrasts
three weeks away, on May 12-18.
If
there’s
one
major
consolation for Chot, the
tournament is to be held on
home grounds—at the Smart
Araneta Coliseum. As always,
the hometown crowd assures a
massive moral support for our
boys.
He also is clothed now with
ceilinged local players that could
battle toe-to-toe with some
decency against their Southeast
Asian counterparts.
Without a doubt, June Mar
Fajardo has metamorphosed into
a giant threat at the middle to
many, if not all, of his Asian foes,
except, of course, the behemoths
of China.
But the SEABA has no
China so that Fajardo, at 6-foot-
10 almost very nimble now and
with a LeBron-like confidence,
can impose himself at will in the
hopes of leading us to victory.
Because Fajardo is but one
of 20 PBA players in the national
training pool where the bulk of the
national quintet will come from,
Chot should find it relatively easy
to prod his prized possessions in
capturing the SEABA crown.
It is after the SEABA outing
where Chot’s chief assignment
really matters: the Fiba Asia Cup
in Lebanon on Aug. 10-20.
Either a victory or a runner-
up finish in Lebanon, similar to the
Philippines’ second-place result
in Manila in 2014, would send us
The old fears not the future
THE man in the mirror
turns a new leaf today.
Give him a break.
Stop needling him.
He deserves his peace.
For sure, he’ll look back.
Habit.
Umm. The year past
was good. Health A-OK. No
hunger. No thirst. No pain. No
misery.
Some wrinkles, of course.
Imperfections make one better.
They open doors. Clear clouds
of doubt.
Some kinks he created,
some he didn’t.
Quickly mended were the
created. As always, forgiveness
was the key.
External storms?
Can’t
control
them
completely. Only in God’s time
will they heal, be healed.
The man in the mirror says
he made many happy during
the last 12 months, including
complete strangers.
“This year, better to make
merry more strangers than
acquaintances,” he says.
But money can’t really buy
happiness. Only love can.
He quotes a book: “Eat.
Pray. Love.”
One losing appetite to eat,
the waiting lounge won’t be that
far.
One stopping to eat, the
pre-departure area is at hand.
When one prays constantly,
he’d soon be Mr. Prayer himself.
Like St. Padre Pio.
When one loves, bliss brings
bonds eternal.
Now, did the man in the
mirror feel he grew older today?
“Not really,” he says.
He quotes Bernard Baruch
when Baruch turned 85: “To me,
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