Yes, he can - 9/09/09

There's The Rub : Yes, he can

By Conrado de Quiros
Columnist
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: September 09, 2009

The thought, or challenge, persists: Can Noynoy do it? Or variations thereof: Is he qualified to become president? Is he prepared to become president? Does he have what it takes to be president?

The question doesn’t just come from Arroyo’s people, who ask it with dutiful sneers. The question comes from readers who ask it with dutiful concern. One e-mail I got put it this way: If you’re applying to become CEO of a company, you have to submit a résumé. What commends Noynoy to become CEO of this country?

I’ve written about this in past columns, but a couple more things need pointing out.

First off, the question, “Will Noynoy be a good CEO?” is a wrong one. The job at hand is not CEO of a company, it is janitor of a building. What this country needs today is not someone to manage things, it is someone to clean up things. What we need today is not someone to make a business flourish, it is someone to make a dwelling place habitable, one whose previous tenant left it in a condition only cockroaches, rats, and real-estate speculators, in ascending order of predation, can appreciate. Who better to do this than Noynoy?

Or if you persist in using the CEO image, the job at hand is CEO, but only of a company that has been bankrupted by a bunch of crooks. Whom would you hire to revive it? An efficiency freak with a long résumé but who has business interests that compete with the company, who is a known tirador or beholden to people who are, and who therefore can only be trusted to efficiently pillage some more? Or someone you can trust?

Again, a no-brainer.

The applying-for-CEO idea presumes these elections are normal elections, or a peaceful transition, or a routine transfer of power like 1992 and 1998. They are not. These are extraordinary elections, a fitful transition, a still uncertain transfer of power. We need in the first place to make the transfer happen—like 1986. The pissing contest of submitting résumés presumes moreover that the contest is just elections. It is not, or it has gone beyond elections. The elections are just a battle, they are not the war. The war is not between candidates offering relative merits (or demerits), the war is between Good and Evil, between yoke and freedom, between oppression and liberation. As with 1986 and last year’s US elections, the cry is the epic “We shall overcome,” not the miserable “We shall underwhelm.”

Noynoy represents the first, the rest of the field the second.

Second off, the question “Can Noynoy do it?” is a wrong one. The real question is, “Can we do it?” To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, what we need today is to ask not what the president can do for us but what we can do for the president.

That’s what makes trustworthiness the most decisive qualification of all. If the president is just an InGlorious Basterd, why on earth would you want to ask yourself what you can do for your president? You would want to ask yourself only what you can do to her, particularly if she refuses to go.

Indeed, that’s what shows the folly, or danger, of the CEO template. A CEO is accountable only to the stockholders, not to the hundreds of men and women employed by the company. The hundreds of men and women he can order around and fire as he pleases. Its political equivalent is that the president is accountable only to the taipans and coniotics who spent for his campaign, not to the citizens of the country. The citizens he can bully around and screw as he pleases.

That may be so for a dictatorship but not so for a democracy.

The power of a democracy does not lie in a strong leader—or heaven forbid, strong republic—it lies in a strong people. The power of a democracy does not lie in excluding the people, it lies in including the people. The folly of our elections is that it is premised precisely on excluding the people, in looking for “presidentiables” who can fill the role of Savior or Padron, who can save us from ourselves, who can spare us the need to apply ourselves to improving ourselves.

Which in any case is a monumental exercise in self-delusion. Or self-flagellation. We demand heaven but expect only hell. We ask of candidates the virtues of a messiah, but expect from the winner only the conduct of a cur or asal aso, as we say. Who seriously believes the candidates with the résumés will deliver on their promises? We get a moderate (the greed) crook, we’re happy; we get an immoderate one, we say, “What else is new?”

We want to change the equation, we change ourselves. We change the way we are governed by including ourselves in our governance. Which is what a democracy is. Look at all the successful democracies and see if they are not premised on an active people, a vocal people, a people demanding to have a say in how they are governed.

I’m perfectly serious in pushing “Noypi,” both in the sense of “Noypi” as “Noynoy for President Initiative” and as “Noynoy’s People’s Initiative.” (I am aghast that another group is using that very name to promote their own political agenda!) We need to unleash the power of the people in everyday life, not just during elections, not just when things have gotten so bad we need to act to save ourselves. We need to unlock the key that makes People’s Initiative—the young and feeling-young Noypi—a force in everyday life.

All this is premised on a president we can trust. All this is premised on a president who does not crave power so badly she or he won’t part with it at all costs, least of all to the governed. All this is premised on a president who is as much willing to believe that the voice of the people is the voice of God as the voice of God is the voice of the people. All this is premised on a president who is one damn good person.

Can Noynoy do it? Believe it:

Yes, he can.

Opinion: Stockton always came ready to play - NBA - NBCSports.com

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Opinion: Stockton always came ready to play
All-time assists leader’s greatest asset was durability over 19-year career
OPINION
By Sean Deveney
updated 8:47 p.m. ET Sept. 9, 2009

Suppose you were a player for the John Stockton-Karl Malone Jazz teams of the '90s, and suppose you were feeling a bit of soreness flaring up in your knee just before a game. Not unbearable pain, but enough to give you a limp. And suppose you took that limp into the locker room. Well, there was one quick cure for that hitch in your step-a Stockton stare.

"That was all it took," former Jazz center Mark Eaton said. "A guy would come limping into the locker room and he would get that look from John. All the sudden, the limp would go away. He didn't need to say anything. But you knew the way things were in John's eyes. If you could walk, you could play, and if you could play, you were 100 percent."

Over the course of 19 seasons, durability was one of Stockton's strengths, and he demanded the same from teammates. He suited up for 1,504 out of a possible 1,526 games, only missing time for two stretches of his career. That's one reason he was able to establish an incredible NBA record for career assists, with 15,806 — well ahead of Mark Jackson, No. 2 on the list at 10,334. It's also a big part of the reason Stockton will get the call from the Hall of Fame on Friday. He played through sore knees. He played through illness. He even played for the Dream Team in the 1992 Olympics despite a stress fracture in his leg.

"I will tell you, there was one year in the early '90s and we were playing Seattle in the playoffs," said Jazz assistant coach Phil Johnson. "John had an elbow injury, and he could not lift his right arm. He spent most of the series dribbling with his left hand. He even considered shooting free throws with his left hand, but he did not want to let the Sonics know that he was hurt. He never told the press, never told anyone. After the season, he had surgery on his elbow. No one ever knew. We knew in the locker room only because he didn't want to hurt the team. But he hated for anyone outside to ever know he was hurt."

There was more to Stockton than merely staying on the court and his famed reluctance to let the media know about his injuries (or to let the media know anything else, for that matter). His toughness and work ethic were big parts of his identity, but they should not overshadow the fact that he was, arguably, the greatest natural playmaker in NBA history and perhaps the best point guard ever to run the pick-and-roll. He led the league in assists nine straight times, from the 1987-88 to the 1995-96 seasons, and put up a record 14.5 assists per game in 1989-90. He holds the NBA career record for steals (3,265), also by a wide margin. And, when needed, he could shoot-Stockton made 51.5 percent from the field in his career, and 38.4 percent from the 3-point line.

"You could say he was the perfect player in the way he handled himself, the way he prepared himself to play," coach Jerry Sloan said. "He is one of the few guys who when you watched him play point guard, from the time he started off as a little guy, he was always facing the basket. He never played with his back to the basket."

Despite his gaudy numbers, Stockton seemed surprised to have been selected for the Hall of Fame. He was, after all, a little-known point guard out of Gonzaga-the first player from Gonzaga to play in the NBA-when he was drafted in 1984 with the No. 16 pick, just after Jay Humphries, Michael Cage and Terence Stansbury. Jazz fans booed heartily at his selection, though it didn't take long for Stockton to change that first impression. In April, when he learned of his impending induction, Stockton said, "Growing up, I never thought about the Hall of Fame," Stockton said. "All I wanted was a chance to go to college."

He got that, of course. And much, much more. Stockton remains the NBA's gold standard for playmakers, and it's hard to imagine someone even nearing his assists record. "When I am asked about John," Johnson said, "I go to what (late Jazz owner) Larry Miller used to say: John Stockton is exactly what you would want him to be."

© 2009 Sporting News

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US Open to Federer for 5th straight

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Federer wins 5th straight U.S. Open title

Champ beats Andy Murray of Britain in three straight sets for 13th title

The Associated Press

updated 10:44 p.m. ET Sept. 8, 2008

NEW YORK - The handwritten letters and the e-mails, the care packages and — get this — the instructional DVDs began reaching Roger Federer early in the season, after a bout of mononucleosis precipitated the end of his streak of 10 consecutive Grand Slam finals.

The volume increased after Federer lost the French Open and Wimbledon finals. From all around the world they arrived, some to his parents’ house in Switzerland, some to his agent, some to his hotels. They came from retired players and from current coaches, from doctors, from fans. They offered good wishes, medical advice, even tennis advice.

Everyone figured Federer needed help, and everyone figured they knew how to help.

Turns out Federer was just fine. Turns out he still knew how to win a major tournament. He proved that Monday night, easily beating Andy Murray 6-2, 7-5, 6-2 to win a fifth consecutive U.S. Open championship and 13th Grand Slam title overall.

“I felt like I was invincible for a while again,” said Federer, the only man in tennis history to win five straight titles at two major events.

He moved within one Grand Slam title of tying Pete Sampras’ record of 14.

“I always knew that if I were to get one Slam under my belt, especially the last one, things weren’t looking that bad, like everybody was talking about,” Federer said. “I didn’t feel I was under pressure to prove myself in trying to win here, but this definitely feels very sweet.”

Nothing like the bitter taste left by his lopsided loss to nemesis Rafael Nadal in the French Open final. Or by his heartbreakingly narrow loss to Nadal — 9-7 in the fifth set in fading light — in the Wimbledon final, denying Federer a sixth straight title there. Those, plus a semifinal loss at the Australian Open, were among Federer’s 12 defeats by August in 2008, more than he had in any entire season from 2004-07. He also arrived in New York with only two titles from minor events, and allowed Nadal to end Federer’s record 4½-year reign at No. 1 last month.

“Maybe you can’t win everything,” said his father, Robert Federer. “After the French Open, you could see many (negative) comments saying, ’Federer is gone,’ ’Federer will never win another Grand Slam.’ And Federer proved the opposite.”

His son heard those comments and thought about them.

“I was aware of it. I mean, I’m a bit disappointed. Sometimes, to a point, a bit annoyed,” Federer said, mentioning the letters he received.

“People come out of the closet and think they can start helping me now. It’s just a pain,” he continued. “For me, this sort of puts them to rest a little bit, and calms down the phones at my parents’ (home) a little bit.”

Whatever motivation he might have derived from perceived slights, Federer was absolutely superb against Murray, stretching his winning streak at Flushing Meadows to 34 matches.

The sixth-seeded Murray upset Nadal in the semifinals to reach his first Grand Slam final, and entered Monday with a 2-1 record against Federer. But Murray never really had a chance.

“I came up against, in my opinion, the best player ever to play the game,” said Murray, who tried to give Britain its first men’s major champion in 72 years. “He definitely set the record straight today.”

At 21, here’s how young Murray is: Back when Federer was winning his first U.S. Open title in 2004, Murray was taking the U.S. Open junior trophy.

Federer, coincidentally, also was 21 when he played his first Grand Slam final at Wimbledon in 2003. Except Federer beat Mark Philippoussis that day and continues to win major championship matches against everyone except a certain Spaniard: Federer is 2-4 against Nadal in Grand Slam finals, 11-0 against anyone else.

Against Murray, he accumulated a 36-16 advantage in winners and won the point on 31 of 44 trips to the net. His volleying might have been helped by his work winning a gold medal in doubles at the Beijing Olympics, a result he also credited with boosting his confidence.

Murray — whose ranking rises to No. 4 — stood about 10 feet behind the baseline to return serves, exactly the way he did against Nadal in their two-day, rain-interrupted semifinal. And Murray displayed flashes of the get-to-every-ball defense he used against Nadal, including one pretty flick of a lob by Federer with his back to the net.

But Federer, who had an extra day to rest because his semifinal wasn’t affected by Tropical Storm Hanna, was simply too much for Murray.

Too good.

Too smart.

Too experienced.

Too, well, Federeresque.

“Seeing him play like that made me very, very happy for him,” said Federer’s part-time coach, Jose Higueras, “because he’s a great champion and he’s gone through some rough times.”

Only once did Murray throw a scare into Federer, taking 11 of 12 points to go from 2-0 down in the second set to 2-all and love-40 on Federer’s serve.

On the second break chance, a 14-stroke rally ended with Murray missing a backhand. TV replays, however, showed one of Federer’s shots should have been called out — had it been, Murray would have led 3-2.

“Not necessarily would have won the match or anything,” Murray said, “but it would have given me a bit of confidence.”

But there was no call there, and no reprieve, because Federer stayed steady and held serve.

“After that,” Federer said, “I began to play freely, the way I usually do.”

In the next game, Murray began clutching at his right knee and looking up at his substantial support group in the stands, a gathering that included his mother, two coaches and two trainers. Murray, though, said the knee had no bearing on the outcome.

This is what made the difference: “He made very few mistakes,” Murray said.

Federer closed the second set by extending a 10-stroke point with terrific court coverage, and then — shifting from defense to offense in a blink — delivering a forehand passing shot. Federer turned to his guest box — which included his pal, Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour — and bellowed, punching down with his right fist.

This is how he is supposed to play.

This is how these Grand Slam finals are supposed to go.

When Federer broke serve for the seventh time, ending the match, he rolled around with glee on the blue court. Instead of heading into the offseason wondering what went wrong, the 27-year-old Federer can look ahead with optimism.

When the men met at the net, Murray felt compelled to share a thought with Federer.

“I told him that he had, you know, a phenomenal year,” Murray said, “regardless of what anyone said.”

© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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The San Beda - Ateneo Rivalry

The thin red (and blue) line

THE foot of Chino Roces Bridge offers a remarkable, if not revealing, dichotomy of the history of this place. There are the ever-present barbed-wire barricades meant to keep out a seemingly never-ending horde of protesters who have taken issue with almost everything under the sun. During the rumble years of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), it was like the Maginot Line—it was meant to prevent rival schools from unwanted intrusions. Yet conversely, the bridge was designed not to keep the people in, but to send them to and fro. The road sign at the foot of the bridge confirms this: Avenida and Divisoria to the south, Santa Mesa and Makati to the east, and the US Embassy to the west. Again there’s the dichotomy—if the demonstrators were kept away from Malacañang Palace’s doorstep, there was always that long-accused edifice of imperialism along Roxas Boulevard where they could vent their lung power. But the bridge is there to send off the graduates of the schools of the area to supposedly greener pastures. Next to Malacañang, the words of the prophets lie inside those Benedictine walls of San Beda College. There is pride in here—you can feel it as soon as you step in. There, too, is a rich history written with the names and deeds of famous alumni on its sanctified halls, in its literature and in its awe-inspiring trophy room, where the one and only Crispulo Zamora Trophy stands as the centerpiece. Should you sift through the trophies or even the Bedan, you will see how intertwined this school’s history is with an erstwhile foe that has long since left the U-belt for the sprawling lawn of Loyola. The early Ateneo-University of the Philippines (UP) rivalry dissipated when the latter left to form the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) with University of Santo Tomas (UST) and National University (NU). As the Blue and Whites took control of the cage crowns, the Red and Whites (teams were then called by their colors) announced their arrival by matching Ateneo every step of the way and it was a white-hot rivalry. As it was written by a Bedan sportswriter in 1946, “One very commendable feature about these Ateneo-San Beda games is that despite the intense rivalry, the games are very clean. The Ateneans are good sports. For them, last Sunday’s double-header must have been a hard one to drop. We know what that feels like. But there was no whimper or complaint. They have shown that they can win and lose.” A couple of decades after that was written, that statement would have been untrue for it was the increasing violence that bedeviled not just between the two schools but also the league that saw both bolting the NCAA. After an Ateneo win, one player allegedly have said: “The Lion is not dead. It only has been tamed with the Eagle riding majestically on its back.” When San Beda turned the tables on its foe, the reply was just as telling: “The Lion was seen walking regally chewing the last bits of eagle flesh in its massive jaws with blue feathers flying in the sunbeams.” The two schools interchanged their own threepeats in the 1930s and later got in each other’s way time and again en route to more glory. Ateneo was stopped by San Beda in its attempted threepeats in 1955, 1959 and 1978, while the former returned the favor only once in 1953. There was drama in the rivalry. The Red Lions’ very own Bonnie Carbonell and Lito Bangoy were from Ateneo de Davao and were earmarked for Loyola until a run-in with a Jesuit who wasn’t too enamored with the attention that athletes got. And the two made the Loyolans pay for the snub in a grand way. They took the ’52, ’53 and ’55 cage crowns, with the latter culminating with the awarding of the Zamora Trophy. Before the ascension of the Loyzaga as the Golden Age of Philippine basketball’s star, there were the feats of Ateneo’s Luis “Moro” Lorenzo. During the game’s infancy in the country, Lorenzo’s 33 points in one game were deemed to be an unbreakable and unattainable record until Loyzaga arrived. And as San Beda romped through the field seemingly unbeatable in the big games, the giant-killing Blue Eagles of 1953, with Frankie Rabat, Mike Littaua and Rusty Cacho felled the Red Lions in what many Ateneans of yesteryears call perhaps the greatest team to wear blue and white. “You don’t understand who Caloy Loyzaga was,” venerated Ateneo Sports Hall-of-Famer Ding Camua, who played in Ateneo’s ’61 champion team and is currently the manager for Pharex’s Philippine Basketball League team. “He was a cut about everyone else. He was like a god, yet we showed his mortality that year.” Upon returning home from the 1954 World Basketball Championships in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a contingent of Bedans met Caloy Loyzaga, Tony Genato, Pons Valdez and Rafael Barretto at the airport. The Philippines placed third in the competition and the National Team returned to a heroes’ welcome, yet the first thing Loyzaga asked his Red Lions’ teammate Carbonell was, “So tell me, how did you lose the [1954 NCAA] championship to Ateneo?” “My friend,” greeted Carbonell as he clasped hands with then dubbed the “Great Difference,” “we were waiting for you.” Loyzaga, third in the tournament in scoring, led the Philippines to a third-place finish in the tournament, the highest an Asian team has ever reached. The late Poch Estella went to Mendiola for primary and secondary education before he moved to Ateneo for college. There he battled first Valdez then Loyzaga inside the paint. Ramon and Bobby Rius, the scions of Bedan great Arturo (whom they affectionately nicknamed “Lulli”), played for the late 1960s Ateneo teams that ended with the title of ’69. Every time one of the Rius brothers touched the ball, they were booed mercilessly by the Bedan crowd. The sons of Caloy Loyzaga, Chito and Joey, both went to Loyola for their elementary years before transferring to Mendiola. While in Ateneo Grade School, Loyzaga found himself teaming up with Steve Watson, but the two would later meet as opponents in the title games of ’77 and ’78. The exodus of the fabled Red Cubs to schools like Ateneo, La Salle and UP would continue as San Beda floundered after its departure from the NCAA in the early 1980s. It didn’t help when later coach Orly Castelo began an aggressive recruiting program from the provinces and other schools that only further disenfranchised its high-school players. The bleeding only stopped after its alumni decided to ensure that their players would come from within its walls. After the 1978 win over La Salle, it was a 30-year wait for San Beda. There were the painful and harrowing misses of 1991 and 1996. And had Philippine Christian University’s Beau Belga had the presence of mind to dump the ball in the post to teammate Gabby Espinas, who scored earlier on the defensively challenged Yousif Aljamal, the waiting might have been longer. After endlessly waiting to exhale, the Araneta Coliseum exploded in song and tears. They’ve won two in a row now and are poised for a third, and maybe even a fourth. In recent years, beginning with the off-season tournaments, San Beda and Ateneo have seen each other on the court once more. For today’s generation, that doesn’t mean much, except that each is another foe to be conquered. But history, tradition and bloodlines have a way of seeping into the fore. The presence of several former Red Cubs in the Ateneo varsity has not gone unnoticed either. Already, there are the whispers that the school would like to move its athletic teams to the UAAP once it is accorded its “university” status within the next two years. And the whispers are getting louder. Should that happen, then it’s almost the entire original cast of the NCAA when it was founded way back in 1924. The only missing school would be the University of Manila, which is currently plying its trade in the rival Naascu (for the National Athletic Association of State Colleges and Universities). Maybe then the UAAP should reclaim the name of “NCAA.” Think about it, the red and white versus the blue and white. Heck, the green and white are there, too. Let’s not even speculate about the dichotomy in that.  Loyzaga was first dubbed “the Great Difference” by the late pioneering sportscaster/writer Willie Hernandez.