In the newly adopted sport of BMX introduced in the ongoing beijing olympics, a young man named Danny Caluag is one of the delegates sent to represent the USA. Caluag has been known in the BMX word as multi-awarded rider earning him the monicker "Easy Money". But does his family name strike you? Truth be told, the guy is a pure filipino according to the olympic update program of solar sports. What do you know? There's no doubt that our lineage (as filipinos) has the ability to make it to the top, but for lack of equipments, governmental support on top with the rampant corruption plaguing our sporting programs and our inability, as a nation, to support our athletes due to "crab mentality" and pessimism, dissuade our athletes from playing under the nation's banner. Even if Caluag is a US citizen, our dual citizenship and naturalization laws allow athletes like him to represent the Philippines, but sad to say, I really can't blame the man for playing for a powerhouse country, like the USA.
In fact, another example of a talent that has slipped our fingers is Alex "the lion" Pagulayan, who undoubtedly is a great billiards player that can easily replace the aging Efren "bata" Reyes and Django Bustamante. Not that I'm saying that our local billiard players are not at par with the latter two legends, but Pagulayan's case is definitely alarming. Although I can't say that this is something anyone of us could not have possibly forseen given our country's dire situation, we shouldn't be amenable to this trend. Affluent countries have already taken our good doctors, nurses and other skilled workers, thus, for the sake of our country's future, we should put a stop to this. I will not be surprised if one day, we wake up and find out all that is left in the philippines' pool of professionals are the greedy politicians who will rather die than leave the country since stealing from the people's coffers is, at least for them, the best way to earn a living.
