backboard montage

Someone needs to come up with a coffee table book based solely on backboards as seen in the Philippines. They're a pretty good summary of the country, scenery, and people, because after all, life is basketball, right?
Fancy net with beads braided into it, palm tree above, as seen on the resort island of Miniloc, Palawan

Fish drying on tarps on the basketball court, near Taytay. Often the basketball court is the only flat, clean place in town.

"Air Safari" backboard, behind barbed wire outside of airport in Manila. Hopefully the anti-aircraft explosions illustrated on the board aren't foreshadowing your flight.

and one from outside a shanty area in a harbor, put together with sticks and twigs, and still sturdy enough to host games

more to come....

Dolphins have hops, too

Ok, not much to do with basketball, but just had my eco-toursim article on Palawan island published in the prestigious Expat Magazine in Manila. If you squint, you can see the dolphin hopping out of the water in the screen shot of my article to the left. I think dolphins probably could be trained to play some sort of water-basketball. And sure enough, a quick search on youtube shows this is true. I'm going to bet on the dolphins vs. the sea lions in that game.

The squirrel in the lower right corner is some newly discovered species that hasn't even been named yet. Saw it in a cage in some remote island off the coast of Taytay. And the bird in the left corner is a hornbill, not an eagle as the magazine mis-labeled it. And thus launches my new career in wilderness photography.

I'll also have an article on Philippine ecotourism published in an upcoming SF Chronicle travel section, as well as a couple blurbs into the December issue of Islands Magazine. So perhaps the Philippines is going to start getting some publicity as a tourist destination.

And just to make sure I'm keeping the focus on all things basketball & the Philippines, below is a shot of a basketball game on the deck of a docked freighter ship, taken during my recent ecotoursim travels. Seems to be some sort of irrepressible desire for Filipinos to play the game by whatever means necessary. Would loved to have seen a game at high seas, it'd add a whole new dimension to the sport. And could be yet another Olympics basketball category in which Filipinos would be assured of a gold medal. (in addition to flip-flop-wearing basketball).

walkin' like larry

When I first went to the Philippines, I had "open zipper syndrome." That is to say so many people stared at me when I walked down the street, I kept looking down to see if my fly was open.

It was just that sometimes I forgot I was a walking freak show, a white guy strolling through neighborhoods that tourists never visited. I tried to act normal, act like a local, but like Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinnie, I just didn't blend.

So my mental coping mechanism, in this nation crazy for basketball, was to imagine I was Larry Bird. My thinking was that Larry Bird always stood out in a crowd, literally because he was 6'9", and because of his fame. But he didn't seem to let it bother him. I figured if I took this same attitude, I would keep my composure. This worked a little bit. And sometimes it didn't, like the time I came across the duck ladies.

Please don't shoot me in the face

On my recent trip to Manila, I grabbed a couple drinks with a Dutch AIESEC trainee, just to see if his life was as crazy as mine had been. My earlier posts detail the AIESEC organization that sent me to the Philippines for my one-year assignment. Our merry band of international students and recent grads got into all sorts of trouble back then, and I imagined it probably wasn't too different nowadays.

Sure enough, the latest news is that several trainees had been arrested, one for urinating in public, a couple others for taking a swim in the fountain in front of the Peninsula hotel. While I can't imagine getting arrested in the Philippines can be a good experience, it probably beats getting shot in the face, a fate I narrowly avoided during one of my AIESEC goofs back in the day: Read The Wrong Wall

The photo above is I believe of a Bushmaster automatic submachine gun, it was sitting in the backseat of a town mayor's landcruiser when I hitched a ride during my recent trip. Just a subtle reminder that hijinks can go bad in a hurry in the Philippines.

Nuns, strippers, and hoops. What's not to like?

Rarely does one get to see strippers and nuns hanging out in the same venue. Not to mention dancing transvestites, cows, and a rogue bottle of ethyl alcohol doing a jig. Yes, it's professional basketball in the Philippines, and everyone comes out (no pun intended) to see the action.

Unlike the U.S., where teams have city affiliation, Philippine teams are pretty much all based in Manila. They have goofy sponsors, ranging from milk companies to gin distilleries, to a team called the "Beermen." Nice.

People were into the games, but not to the point of hooliganism. Fans brought English/Tagalog signs, and chanted songs to support their teams. One old dude with an extremely red face was standing up and spouting off a serious of insults which had our whole section in hysterics. I did catch his english commentary targeted at the "import" American player for one team: "You're no good! Return to sender! Your visa revoked!

Everyone was doing their own thing, unified by the common interest of basketball. They should integrate it into their national anthem or something: "From the farthest island, to the Sulu sea, together we'll dribble and pass and shoot for a three." (Ok, I'm still working on that.) Still, if you're looking to get the quintessential Philippine experience, skip the museums and go to a game while you're there.

Basketball banned in Manila?!

This just in: Basketball is banned in Manila! The national sport is doomed!! No, actually the headline refers to a recent ban on street games which block traffic. Good luck with that one.

Having just returned from Manila, I can attest they have a lot bigger problems with traffic than a few street games. Still, the article is pretty funny, especially the quote from the mayor which reminds people that "roads were constructed to provide easy access to motorists in going to and from their destinations." They're also "also designed to interconnect with each other to ease traffic flow." Thanks, mayor.

(I checked this headline in the local Philippine papers, and they don't include the goofy quote, but I still think the mayor may have said it)

Manila, Philippines (AHN) 8/20/07-- The mayor of the Philippine capital Manila on Monday ordered a ban on street basketball saying playing the popular ball game in the middle of the streets endangered both the players and motorists. Mayor Alfredo Lim directed Carlos Baltazar, the chief of Manila's department of public services, to serve notice to all village chiefs to enforce the ban.

The order also asks village chiefs to remove all basketball courts that have been put up in the middle of the streets or major thoroughfares.

Basketball is the most popular ball game in the Philippines and it is very common for basketball courts to be constructed in the middle of the streets.

But Lim said motorists have been complaining about the practice because some streets were rendered impassable after player shut them down from end to end when playing the game, especially if there is on-going "street ball tournaments." In some instances, fights have broken out between the passing motorist and the players.

The mayor is asking for the cooperation of basketball enthusiasts to heed the ban and allow motorists to pass along their streets because those streets belong to vehicles. He said the city government had constructed sports complexes in strategic places where basketball fans can play the game.

He further explained that streets, roads and thoroughfares were constructed to provide easy access to motorists in going to and from their destinations. They were also designed to interconnect with each other to ease traffic flow.

Basketball & Safari

On my recent Philippine trip I visited what has to be the world's weirdest African wildlife sanctuary: Ferdinand Marco's former game preserve on Calauit Island. There giraffes and zebras wander the Philippine countryside, sharing their habitat with local animals including deer, monkeys, some weird porcupine species, and really big spiders. The giraffe on the left is munching a mango. Apparently they love the fruit, which is good, because the staff has almost no money to provide for them.

And of course, there's a basketball angle to this story. The island of Calauit is remote even for the Philippines: it's off the northern coast of Palawan, which is itself considered the "last frontier of the Philippines." The nearest small airport is a bouncy 4-hour jeep ride away from the northern coast, from where you have to find a local fisherman with an outrigger to ferry you over. Generator power only runs four hours a day on Calauit, and no running water was to be had. But the night I stayed there, during the brief period of electricity, the staff gathered to watch a tape of the final basketball game of the PBA championships on the island's only TV.

Staff basketball games are held every Monday on the home-made (but regulation size) dirt court near the game warden's house, with the warden always playing his favorite position of point guard.

For the record, the island manager says the ex-dictator Marcos did not bring the animals to the island for him and his buddies to hunt. It was just Ferdinand's pure environmental concern for the fauna of Africa....