On Sourgrapes And Bad Sports

.:As Ateneo Celebrates, As PBA Winners Celebrate… Look Upon The Disgruntled But Noisy Few…:.

As The Blue Eagles Soar High…

By now, everybody knows that Ateneo swept La Salle in the UAAP Men’s Basketball Finals yesterday. It was one of the few times I watched the game, and I was actually having some friendly banter with Doc Tess, who was from DLSU.

It was all good-natured laughs. Everyone knows I was never a hardcore Ateneo team fan, since I grew up as a Bosconian, more than anything else. My allegiance is mainly to DBTC, rather than ADMU. I’m not sure how seriously pro-DLSU Doc Tess was, but I knew it was all good-natured bantering.

I’m sure, in general, that’s really how it works. I have lots of friends from DLSU who were gracious enough to congratulate me personally solely because they know I’m from ADMU. When ADMU lost to DLSU in 2001, I pretty much had the same reaction, extending congratulations to my friends from DLSU. It’s a Sports rivalry, and we believe it should stay like that.

But then, I stepped into the UAAP section of PEX. What I found was just terrible… you have a few bitter DLSU users, calling every single play the way they saw it with their green-tinted glasses. You naturally had some ADMU users who rubbed it in that DLSU lost, and the bitter DLSU users fought back by insisting that the referees were in the ADMU payroll.

Ateneo had a strong season, losing only once the entire Season 71. The team played hard, and the referees were clearly very strict this game, because it didn’t matter who did the hand-check, a hand-check would be whistled. The game was played as fair as fair could be, and by the end of the night, the commanding 11-point lead cemented the game for the Blue Eagles.

Do I have to go at length to defend the Ateneo team? Quite frankly, I’m not that invested in it to want to. The game spoke for itself. The team was hungry for the win. After the embarrassing Guidon article “predicting” an Ateneo win in 2006 when DLSU was disqualified, we didn’t want to make any hasty proclamations and shoot ourselves in the foot again. The team worked hard, and they deserve their props. If DLSU won and ADMU made similar allusions to how we were “cheated”, I’d probably still be writing this post with the same message anyways.

You see, when the DLSU team no-showed the awarding ceremony, that reeked of unsportsmanly conduct to me. If ADMU did the same had they lost, I wouldn’t be happy about it, either. It was a show of bitterness: a display that gave the message to the people in attendance and to poor Boom Gonzales as he stood there, blankly waiting for the team, that the DLSU team is above the motions of graciously receiving an honor when they believe they deserve more.

If they truly feel they were cheated, DLSU’s team must file a complaint. They will take it to the proper authorities, and assuming the referees were proven to be biased, they will replay the game, or worse, revoke the ADMU title and give it to DLSU.

The team in particular has a spotty record. Everytime they lose, they blame it on something else: be it Mike Cortez throwing the game, or FEU threatening the DLSU players (HOW?!?), or whatever other cockamamie reason that comes along. All the while, we’re supposed to ignore why DLSU was barred from the UAAP for Season 69: what they did wasn’t exactly in the spirit of “fair play”, either, was it? You’d think that the team that has a spotty record would be the most tolerant of, assuming but not conceding, spotty referee decisions? This is not even considering the same allegations hurled against DLSU last season by their opponent in the finals: that the referees were on their payroll.

At this point, they have every opportunity to file a complaint if they feel they were unfairly cheated of a win. Otherwise, they will be recognized as the terrible sports that they exposed themselves to be when they no-showed the awarding ceremony.

As PBA Achieves Greater Heights…

This year, the Philippine Blog Awards was met by much fanfare, and even gained a ton of mainstream media coverage. The awards night was the culmination of months upon months of effort brought about by a collaboration of organizers, sponsors, and volunteers.

As one of the hosts of that night, I witnessed firsthand the sheer amount of effort everyone poured into the event. The actual blogs who won were very well-done, and if there were any questions, the organizers are receptive enough to suggestions and complaints. All that need be done is to take it to the right avenues.

Imagine my personal surprise then, when people started questioning the integrity of the awards night. It made no sense! People were nitpicking everything. It was especially infuriating how some very lazy people clearly ignored obvious things…

We had someone forgetting that a Sponsored award is not in the jurisdiction of the Philippine Blog Awards anymore. If you have a problem with the award, take it up with the Sponsor.

We had someone who was attacking Benj for being proud of his mom. That was one of the nicest things about Benj’s win, truth be told. I don’t understand why this is a bad thing.

We had someone claiming he doesn’t care about awards but dedicates multiple entries to emphasize the point. That is just so self-contradicting it’s pathetic.

We have some people insinuating that the Philippine Blog Awards was a “may the best friends win” affair (Hint: I wasn’t even nominated. No, it’s not.). Are you seriously suggesting that these volunteers did it for the awards? Or are you suggesting that the judges can be swayed by that? Either way, I’d like you to say it to their faces.

We have someone too lazy to send five of their own entries for judging. In case you haven’t realized it yet, there are over two hundred, positively close to five hundred, different blogs nominated. Are you seriously expecting a small team of screeners to perfectly go through every single blog nominated and ferret out what makes their blog good? Have a heart, jeez! Nobody’s paying them to do this, and the least you can do is to make the selection process more streamlined. Besides, I’m sure you’d complain your best entries must’ve been ignored if you don’t have a chance to hype them anyways…

We have someone complaining that bloggers are elitist. That’s ridiculous. When a group of people can tolerate (Emphasis on the choice of words.) a guy like Mike Abundo, who can’t the Pinoy blogosphere get along with? If you’re being anti-social, that’s not the fault of the people around you. We don’t bite.

We have someone thinking they were shifted categories so that the volunteers will get an advantage. Wrong. You were nominated in multiple categories, but became a finalist only in a special award… one that doesn’t require the five-entry rule. Learn to read more, please.

We have people who, instead of taking their complaints to the proper avenues, to Brian Gorell. With all due respect to Brian, I hoped that before you published such an allegation, you would’ve checked with the organizers first and asked for their side. This one-sided tirade is terribly lopsided and marginalizes the other side, and in the end, the people reading your blog get the wrong impression about the Philippine Blog Awards. It would’ve been fine if you would give the other side an opportunity to defend themselves, but we understand that you had to address this and we have no right to expect that from you.

Most of all, we have people who are too spineless to make a formal complaint and use a trial by publicity to sow discord in the community. We call these people trolls in forum lingo. They don’t file a formal complaint because they know all too well that their allegations don’t have a leg to stand on.

Normally, when you have a problem with something, you bring it up before the problem comes to a head. Obviously, you brought up these issues only for the sake of bringing up these issues, not to resolve anything. Whether you’re sourgraping, trolling, or being a jackass, you’re not helping one bit.

The Point Of This Exercise…

For the DLSU team, if you feel that you were cheated, I respectfully ask you to file a formal complaint. Let’s get to the bottom of this with an investigation that can really bring the truth to light.

For the haters of the Philippine Blog Awards, the organizers are an actual corporation. If you feel they are doing something sneaky or underhanded, then file a formal complaint. You can actually sue them (Just like you can be sued for libel.). Let’s get to the bottom of this with an investigation that can really bring the truth to light.

I am sick and tired of these ridiculous accusations flying around, going unchecked. You feel it’s so cool to air your side out without anyone challenging you. Consider yourself challenged. If you can’t, then obviously, you’re just rabble-rousing, and we’ve pretty much established that with your clearly myopic point of view that refuses to see anything good about the Philippine Blog Awards.

Congratulations to the winners, the organizers, the volunteers of the Philippine Blog Awards. You worked hard for all of this, and nobody has the right to insist you don’t deserve it. Eff ‘em all.