The Philippines had its best Olympics ever

But we're no good with celebrating, so instead we fought over things—toxic familial ties, politicians showing off, whether we should just give up basketball altogether...

I never thought I’d be saying this, but… the Philippines now has won three gold medals at the Olympics.

The first one was in 2020 (well, 2021, because, you know). That was when Hidilyn Diaz lifted 224 kilograms in Tokyo and delivered the country’s first ever gold medal—a moment that certainly brought all Filipinos, battered by COVID-19 and an admittedly flimsy response to it, together.

And then, three years later, within a span of half a week, we won two more gold medals, thanks to gymnast Carlos Yulo, who won in the men’s floor exercise and men’s vault events in Paris. That makes the Philippines the best-performing Southeast Asian country in this year’s games.

Back in 2021 it was surreal to hear “Lupang Hinirang”, our national anthem, on the Olympic podium for the first time; in 2024, it is just as surreal hearing it happen, not once, but twice.

I’ve talked about how the Philippines is generally a country starved for international recognition—and the world’s largest sporting event is certainly a sure-fire way to get it. Sure, this isn’t the first time we did it on the sporting front. We did have Manny Pacquiao, at one point the world’s greatest boxer. During his heyday the country stopped whenever he had a match. Broadcasts on television were delayed, no thanks to the many sponsors, so paid screenings at cinemas and auditoriums across our major cities made a killing. A lot was made out of our traffic and crime rates going down to almost zero whenever he was fighting in Las Vegas or elsewhere.

Perhaps more critically, Filipinos’ adoration for him didn’t really dull as he collected more championship belts… at least until he decided to enter politics. He represented Saranggani province while still actively boxing, before becoming a senator and then attempting to run as president. It wasn’t the march of time, and its toll on one’s physical abilities, that made him less of a favorite, but his decision to “pursue a career in public service,” as everybody who’s intensely popular in the Philippines says at some point—and perhaps also the fact that all we saw of him was how rich he has become, and in return, how out of touch he was becoming with the common folk.

But I suppose that was inevitable. The Philippines is predominantly Catholic and that means a lot of terribly conservative social views. It’s hard to say whether his views on the LGBTQ community were ones he always held, or ones he developed as he progressed throughout his career, but nobody thought of them then, and people can’t help but think about it now. I mean, interviews on video live almost forever on the Internet these days. You calling same-sex marriage as “mas masahol pa sa hayop” (worse than animals) says more about you.

Perhaps things will be different this time, though. I mean, two Olympics medals! Not to minimize Hidilyn’s win in the previous games, but that was just one medal! (And in any case, it’s much better than us kind of attempting to claim credit for Joseph Schooling, who won Singapore’s first Olympic gold at the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro, by talking a lot about his Filipino nanny.)

True enough, it was the case, at least in the beginning. There were some admittedly heartwarming posts on social media about how Diaz’s and Yulo’s victories shattered gender stereotypes—you can be a strong female, you can be a flexible male. There were brands rushing to get social media engagement by congratulating Yulo for his wins, which were accompanied by Filipinos snarking over how badly they jumped on the bandwagon. There were, inevitably, politicians and businessmen trying to capitalize on the win to get their name in the public arena, primarily through all these cash incentives and other rewards. A common question when Yulo won his second gold was, “does this mean he gets double the cash?”

But wait—it gets worse.

It began when GMA News picked up on social media comments made by Yulo’s mother, Angelica, seemingly disparaging her son despite winning the golds. I mean, those were bubbling in our social media feeds around the same time, but it takes a news organization with a really wide reach—GMA is the country’s largest broadcast network, at least since ABS-CBN lost its franchise to broadcast because, again, politics—to just tip things over. Someone just had to indulge the Filipino’s obsession with family drama.

There are disagreements. Supposedly about the cash incentives the younger Yulo won previously? About the older Yulo being a “mom-ager”, a “helicopter parent”? Honestly, I did not follow any of these things. I don’t really follow a lot of sports—more on that later—and I was also busy with the day job to even consider obsessing over every little detail of this thing. But you can’t really escape it. Carlos Yulo won two Olympic medals within the space of three days, and all we’re talking about is whatever is going on in his family, or how he and his girlfriend first met, and how it means things are better when the woman makes the first move.

Sure, moments as monumental as this end up becoming a vehicle for us to express whatever else we feel about some other things. Say, this whole thing about toxic familial relationships, the whole “in the end, she’s still your mother” thing that Filipinos, especially those with more traditional views, cling on to. “It’s great that we’re finally talking about how cutting off all contact with your family can be a healthy decision,” I saw someone say. Nothing wrong with that. It’s just sad that, for three days or so, all we really talked about was this drama. Angelica Yulo had a press conference! Carlos Yulo had to answer back via TikTok! And remember, there are more pressing things we have to talk about, like the fact that we we have several oil spills, thanks to Gaemi (or Carina, as we call it) and the monsoon it enhanced.

Okay, at the very least, we needed something to occupy us before the next batch of Filipino Olympians took the stage. We don’t really have a big team, so unlike in the United States, we don’t get a daily drip of updates about how great we are, or specifically, how great the world should be seeing us. Eventually we won two more bronzes courtesy of female boxers Nesthy Petecio and Aira Villegas, and we almost got two more via golfer Bianca Pagdanganan and pole vaulter EJ Obiena. (Sorry, world: not everybody was talking non-stop about Jeremy Allen White—I mean Cillian Murphy—I mean Armand Duplantis.)

And then there was this weird point where some claimed American fencer Lee Kiefer’s gold as ours since her mother immigrated from the Philippines as a child.

That brings me to that other discussion that always comes up whenever we see sporting success. The Philippines is—was?—basketball country. We were introduced to the sport when we were an American colony, and truly fell in love in the 1970s, with the founding of the Philippine Basketball Association, the first professional league in Asia. We had our own Celtics-Lakers rivalry in Atoy Co’s Crispa Redmanizers and Robert Jaworski’s Toyota Tamaraws. Followers of the Ginebra team, in its many guises, is the closest we have to a fanatical devotion. (There is even a song about it.) Even now that pro basketball isn’t getting as much love as before—a combination of changing viewing habits, TV5’s walled garden approach to sports rights, volleyball transforming into a ratings juggernaut, and the dominance of the profit motive within the PBA—we still follow the sport, rooting for collegiate stars and following them throughout their careers. (I am a graduate of the De La Salle University, home of one of the country’s most prominent student athlete contingents… and I never really followed the Green Archers’ fall and rise, all happening in my three years as a student.)

That said, while we Filipinos are scrappy are limber, basketball favors the tall, and no matter how much we yell “puso!” (“heart!”) at the top of our lungs, we just can’t crack it internationally. (We hosted the most recent FIBA Basketball World Cup, and we didn’t even make it to the final rounds.) Yet, since we collectively love the sport—and the drama that comes with it—a lot of financial support from the government and industry goes there. So, the argument goes, why should we continue plonking all this money into sports where we don’t even have a chance at winning gold internationally? Why devote all this time and attention to a sport where we rely heavily on imports to be excited?

Why not focus instead on boxing, where we have won most of our Olympic medals? (Memories of Onyok Velasco at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta come bubbling back. Vague ones. I was seven.) Why not gymnastics, or weightlifting, where we actually won gold medals? Why not athletics, where we almost won medals? Why not football, the beautiful game, the favorite sport of all the world except for us and the US and China? The Azkals—the team formerly known as the Azkals, ugh—aren’t doing badly internationally, although the task of rebuilding is, of course, difficult.

Well, isn’t that an egotistical argument? It’s less about how we can develop sports in the Philippines, and more about how we can get more of those medals. There are legitimate questions about how our sports leaders find themselves more embroiled in internal politics instead of focusing on actual development efforts—but we’re really just playing the same game if we’re just about the gold.

Also, those arguments smack of elitism, the whole “the sport I follow is better than the sport you follow” bit that always comes up. We can’t help but be gatekeepers, don’t we? I’d like to follow sports—I don’t plan to be fanatical, but it’d be nice to understand what’s going on, but several times I am stonewalled by people who say I shouldn’t ask them questions because I won’t understand anyway. Am I conflating my own experience with the mindset of a whole country? I don’t think so. Sports, universally, is an opportunity for us to boast that we’re better than other people—I support the right team, I support the right game—and that inevitably shuts out people, whether they be interested in watching, or actually participating.

In the midst of the brouhaha over Carlos Yulo’s family drama, political analyst Richard Heydarian complained of a “cultural crisis” because we all only talk about the drama and not about the athlete’s path to greatness. Actually, sir, there is, and they all got drowned out. Rappler—the media outfit founded by Nobel laureate Maria Ressa—resurfaced an interview they did with a 12-year-old Yulo, as he was preparing for the 2012 Palarong Pambansa. (Side note: that interview was done by a friend of mine, now one of the country’s most prominent tech vloggers.) And ABS-CBN—again, the network without a franchise—had this excellent report on his career, leveraging on their archives. (Side note: I am not related to the reporter on this piece.)

This reminds me—thank heavens Caloy did not give up. I can’t imagine the sacrifices he had to do, pursuing the sport he loved despite the lack of support, despite having to be far away from his loved ones. No mean feat. You know, if we perhaps changed our attitudes towards sports in general, maybe we would have more winners—and I’m not just thinking of trophies and medals, but rather, more people pursuing worthwhile things. But I guess we can’t help but fight over trivial details, so I’ll personally settle for getting over how surreal it is to have, in the Olympics medal tally, a number that’s not zero—and not one—on the first column besides the Philippines.

Well done to all of our athletes, medalled or otherwise. I cannot do what you have just done.