UNDER OBLIGATION

[November 13, 2015]

I used to be a devoted spectator of inter-town games when they were still called SISA, composite league of all secondary schools from Southern Iloilo. However, when the name had been changed to CDSA, I think I sympathized with SISA, I avoided the league all through, and so did Crispin and Basilio.

Only a handful knew about this but I, with the late Damy as my sidekick, obligated myself then to be present in every SISA meet. Regardless of the venue, be it in Oton, Tigbauan, San Joaquin, Tubungan, Aleosan, I was there: but only as an eater, not an athlete.

Yes, I faithfully attended SISA with excitement because of the foods that at the time were truly free from all liens and preservative. Yes, I consistently ate with Miagao SISA players because of the hardworking Tay Eren, then their most favorite chef, who is a very close relative.

Frankly speaking, Damy and I were not in SISA to watch the games. We were there in every venue to watch the girls watching the games. And there were instances too where two or three players rumbling like what happened during the recent Miagao-Guimbal CDSA ‘Basket-Brawl’ incident. But I’m sure of one thing, nothing of that magnitude wherein allegedly even Guimbal tricycle drivers participated in that infamous mauling incident.

If this is true, proud Miagao people, no matter how resentful, should understand the attitude of guilty drivers since an old Miagaoanən knew that tricycles were fully utilized only in Guimbal these past few years. Their tricycle drivers are nubile in character because it’s totally unlike in Miagao where tricycles came into public view and service just a few months after the final departure from there of the last Japanese stragglers.

That’s why Guimbal trikers are over-excited in everything that comes to view. They thought that because CDSA passengers overflew they could maul some few. These guilty trikers, again, if the allegations are true, may have yet to be oriented or civilized fully. They’re maybe still ignorant that sports meet is supposed to be a game of goodwill and camaraderie.

Look at those very brave tricycles when you, as a motorist, come across with them at any of their town proper intersection. They stop at the spot one foot overlapping the highway’s sideline thus if you’re not alert you’d hit their front wheel portion.

Look how those tricycles occupy the narrow alley, a.k.a. national highway, along Guimbal public market in the evening where passing vehicles fall in line. The parking space fronting that market is very much open, free and wide but sensitivity to other motorists flies out the window from that spot at nighttime.

Before anyone accuses me of siding with Miagao, well, partly true, however, be it known that half of me is a Guimbalanən too. My mother is a clan member of the notorious or popular Guevarra, depending on whether you’re the family’s friend or foe. Yeah, whether you say you are a Miagaoanən nor Guimbalanən, I don’t care. Let’s just follow what’s right, “Let all things be done decently and in order” (I Cor. 14:40).

Whatever things are right and needed to be revealed or shared anon, as a fellow citizen I have a responsibility both to Miagaoanən and Guimbalanən. Like Apostle Paul, a pure Jew, after his conversion, he knew he had to share and preach to the Jews and Gentiles the good news about salvation.

That free salvation from total damnation that is NOT determined by any religion but by individual faith in Christ. As he had written, “I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise” (Romans 1:14 KJV).