FOLIE DE GRANDEUR...
Dear Bhoy,
No matter how many people have overestimated Lino’s leadership, especially among those like you who are close collaborators or members of his personal sports association that unanimously named him as president-for-life since its inception in the ''70's, he never turned out a single second-generation Filipino athlete of international standard that he could show off or be proud of to include in the rank of Tiger Woods or Serena and Venus Williams. As you’d note in the attached photo, Aruna Dindane, at the age of 23, is the first African ever to receive the Golden Shoe Award for being the best football player of 2003. How do you feel if it were your son instead of him? Don't you ever want to see a Filipino to be given such a most prestigious award while we're still around, even if it isn’t 24-carat gold? Perhaps, Lino might still be banking on her daughters to become the possible successors of the Williams sisters someday. No one knows what fate has in store for each one of us. Nevertheless, I only hope and pray that we'd still be alive and kicking to be able to see that seemingly impossible dream to have at least one world-class champion finally comes true!
I remember how all of his followers and those who from the embassy that were intimate to him have overestimated and made him the overall winner of every “pissing” contest he organized to prove who’s the best to the extent of inflating and titillating his ego by granting his two sons the most-favored treatment to rank them as first and second in their family-sponsored tennis tournament finals at the expense of other better players as a gesture of gratitude for his hospitality and generosity. If I weren't mistaken your son also ended up in the third place, didn't he? In the long run, what had he accomplished personally to enhance the country’s image in the local sports scene? Unfortunately, what a waste that he had never thought of taking advantage of the opportunities that his association could easily avail with from the innumerable possibilities offered by the sophisticated high-tech facilities and infrastructure that are locally available for all-round sport activities. Why hasn't he ever considered of sending second-generation Filipinos to any of the local sports organizations in order to give them a chance to undergo serious and professional training so that they could be able to participate and compete in any tournaments of international or Olympic standards? Through all the years under his presidency-for-life, he could have had at least accomplished something worthwhile on a professional level that would have put his name and our country on the limelight to have produced an athlete or two that could qualify and compete in any major international events, n'est-ce pas?
As his chi-chi boys, what had all the members gained in the end from being his die-hard and devoted followers by extolling on his personal glories in his frequent bouts of "folie de grandeur" each time he puts himself first of every pissing contest? On the other hand, I'm certain that if only the proceeds of the fees from the members and contributions from the sponsors was utilized and spent wisely as to hiring a professional coach in training young Filipinos in football or tennis where they would excel better than basketball or ping-pong, he could have had by then produced big time players in the caliber of Justine Henin-Hardene, Kim Clysters, Maradonna or Pele. Why did he not drop out the other non-productive sport disciplines and capitalize more on those in which Filipinos could have advanced and fared easily where height would no longer be the main argument or issue of handicap in participating or winning? I wonder if it isn't only a matter of congenital inferiority complex that one should consider himself as a virtual loser from the outset because of his height and built!
How could I ever underestimate somebody who has the pretension to compete in any sport discipline or to write a book on a famous personality that has already so much reference materials from where anyone could readily gather documents that he can easily compile into a manuscript? As I've told you in my last note, I did the same thing on Rizal when I was in the 6th grade history class as a term paper that I’ve wished I could have dedicated it to my late mother so that she would be very happy and proud of me. You too could do the same thing. Personally, I noticed you have a better command of English than him because his last note contained so many errors in grammar and syntax that I was rather skeptic than surprised how he could ever write such a highly academic works in flawless English without copying or seeking advice and assistance from professionals? On the other hand, I believe you could also come up pretty well with an excellent work on any subject or whatever-have-you in collaboration with your wife. Why not? As a friendly advice, don't ever underestimate your hidden talents and potentials if you want to do something special that is dear to your heart.
Incidentally, have you ever read or reread Noli Mi Tangere and El Filibusterismo? Didn't you know that Rizal based them from Les Miserables of Victor Hugo and the Count of Monte Cristo of Alexandre Dumas, respectively? Undoubtedly, he didn't plagiarize them so to speak of course. However, I have the conviction that he could have just transposed and incorporated them cleverly into his major works within the context of the prevailing situation and condition in the country during his time. Did you fully understand the real essence of the message he wanted to impart from his works? Inasmuch as you praise and venerate him highly as the greatest hero ever, what do you think has he contributed to the country’s economic and political condition where the people could benefit fully and live happily from his teachings in spite of the growing problems against poverty, injustice and corruption? Incidentally, what are your objectives in promoting Rizal abroad? Is your organization a kind of a sect that its members are designated as "knights" even for the fact that Rizal had never been a sovereign like Queen Elizabeth? Que barbaridad! For your information, you could already be called “sir” as a form of respect without being a member of an occult organization and supposedly knighted by a charlatan couldn’t you? What a comedy! Do you think that by following blindly his footsteps and paying a lip service to his teachings would entitle you to a certain degree of accomplishment and honor? Are you convinced personally that the objectives of your movement could help make the country become more advanced and prosperous than its neighboring countries such as
How is your family? I’m so sorry to hear from one of your former friends that you were fired from your last job. Anyway, I suppose that by now you must be living comfortably on the double pension you’ve proudly told me once that you’d automatically be entitled to get when you retire: one from the local government and the other from that of the foreign embassy where you worked as driver and domestic. How very lucky you must be! In fact, you’re more fortunate than those who worked so hard as you but they still have to go into any form of door-to-door business ventures in order to make both ends meet. Do you still remember the immense joy and pride you and your wife shared with everybody at Rosa's place in Cinquaintenaire many years ago when you talked highly about your son for being too brilliant for a newly-enrolled foreign student to end up in the top of the accueil class at College Jean XXIII? As I couldn't speak yet at that time for my children for it was rather too premature to do so, I envied somehow your excitement over your plan as to what you wanted him to do after high school, such as sending him to a very exclusive institution specializing in business and hotel management courses. How I remember so well as if it was like yesterday when you told me that he could manage pretty well a full-load course in business at College Saint Louis while he was working full time? When we met again the following year, you said that he abandoned business in place of a vocational course at the CERIA in hotel management. Sometime later when you confided me that he quit his studies completely as a result of continuous oppression and discrimination against him by his local classmates. By the way, where’s now your other son the one you told me who worked as the driver of a former ambassador that’s a close friend of a most-likely vice presidential winner that you were banking so much on him to work inside the presidential palace? Anyway, you seemed more or less contented but too resigned to admit that they are much better off with a high-school diploma than Lino's sons who haven't finished their secondary studies in spite of what he had spent from getting them the best private tutors and sending them to an exclusive boarding school. In a state of hopelessness and despair on realizing how he had practically failed to make his most cherished dream and ambition come true of seeing his sons succeed in their studies at all costs, he immediately got them mobilized in the army. I seemed to have lost contact with them personally and I ignore what has become of them in the end. Nonetheless, I heard rumors from the grapevine that his sons are no longer in good terms with him after the death of their mother on the question of inheritance and that they weren't even so lucky as him with their marriage and family life. C'est la vie! To be on the safer side however the appropriate proverb would be: “don’t count the chicks before they’re hatched.”
Somehow, sometimes it bothers me whether this could be the real reason why he tries so hard to avoid reverting to my notes or he’s too afraid and ashamed to be exposed as a bogus author to write a few lines without making mistakes. Instead, he came up cunningly with a pretext during our telephone conversation last Christmas that his computer broke down and that he couldn't afford to buy a new one in order to reply to all my emails. Upon hearing him say this remark, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud discreetly because I heard from the grapevine that he proclaimed himself as the richest Filipino in town after he sold his property a few months ago following the death of his first wife. Perhaps he thought I was too naïve or rather stupid to accept it so easily as a valid excuse but I hinted to him anyway that he could make avail of the numerous Internet and cyber cafes that are sprouting like mushrooms in almost every corner of his heavily-populated Muslim neighborhood or anywhere in the city where he could download and send his emails for only 1.50 euros/hour! Bhoy, what does he think of friendship for at such a miserable amount?
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