Friday, June 4, 2010

POCH ESTELLA -FAST FRIEND AND ATHLETE


As a grade school student in my first boys school, San Beda, I got to befriend Poch who as a young boy, already exhibited his keen sense of comradeship. I got to meet Poch and other Spanish-Filipino boys in San Beda where they preferred to study. They were known as mestizo grade school students of San Beda College ran by Benedictine Spanish priests.

When I left San Beda and moved to Ateneo for grade five I no longer saw Poch and even began to cheer for another team the Ateneo Blue Eagles. It did not take long before the war came and I was happy to discover that Poch and his family were living near our home on Arlegui Street near Malacanang Palace.

His folks had decided to move into a two story house just around the corner from ours. The Japanese Occupation left Poch and I with much time to play for me to while away our time. By this time Poch was already known to basketball teams especially San Beda where he began to play in the senior varsity team and in Soccer teams as well - for it had come to be known that mestizo boys played excellent Soccer since before the war. Poch was a mestizo.

In fact, his name Jose Estella the III was significant because his grandfather Jose the Ist whom I met briefly at their house was actually a humble but well known composer of Filipino music known as Kundimans. One famous composition of the grandfather was ANG MAYA now a part of outstanding compositions by many Filipino composers.

When I resumed studies after the war at the Ateneo campus on Padre Faura, it was in my second year high school. There Poch and I were classmates once morel and so we were together again. He was an excellent athlete in both fora = basketball and Soccer, and one who never took himself seriously. Most schoolmates who got to know him as a fellow student and star athlete of the school team, enjoyed Poch's practical jokes and good humor.

It was during his performance with the Ateneo basketball team when he was selected to play with the Philippine Football team in the 1954 Asian Games. During his time other known Ateneo athletes included Luis "Moro" Lorenzo, Chole Gaston, Jose Rusty Cacho and Freddie Campos. In the Soccer field he shared accolades with Louie Javellana, Ole Orbeta, Bong Tanco and Mingging Imperial.

In the crucial game between Ateneo and La Salle for the NCAA championships Ateneo beat La Salle 2-0 on January 17, 1952. Poch was quoted in saying "This was my crowning glory for all the hard work my teammates and I put in as a two sport athlete of the Ateneo de Manila".

After graduating from Ateneo Poch became popular in his role as sales manager of the Volkwagan Beatle - extremely popular in the country in the fifties and he set a record in sales.

Even while employed Poch did not abandon his athletic activities by playing as a professional with the YCO paints Soccer team and a mestizo organized team called Turba Salvaje.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Behind the scenes in Supreme Court practices

A PRIMETIME news program reported recently the alleged attempt of various personalities to thwart the release of "Shadow of Doubt", a book authored by Maritess Vitug, founder of the Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).

Shadow of Doubt by Maritess VitugPurportedly, the "Shadow of Doubt" contains information about what the Philippine supreme court is all about. Vitug said that the book also uncovers how processes inside the high tribunal are manipulated by some of the country’s most powerful people.

To be launched on March 16, the book entitled Shadow of Doubt: Probing the Supreme Court is published by Newsbreak and written by its editor in chief, Marites Danguilan Vitug, author of The Politics of Logging: Power from the Forest (1993) and Under the Crescent Moon: Rebellion in Mindanao (2000).

We will try to obtain a hard copy or, if possible, download a soft copy of Shadow of Doubt book by Maritess Vitug through various sources on the web, so that we will be able to blog about it.

A patriotic Filipino-American doctor

Dr. Martin Bautista was in the lineup during the previous Philippine elections having traveled with his wife, also a medical doctor to the Philippines. This time he again vied for a senate position under the Kapatiran Party. He lost.

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The Philippine election is over. I have returned to Guymon, Oklahoma where I have spent much of the last twenty years of my life. I left in winter--in my heart, many more seasons ago--to join the campaign of Noynoy Aquino to transform the future of our country. It has been an intense, bruising, bewildering hundred-twenty days, marked by hours of confusion, stress, frustration, and also by special moments of excitement, passion, kinship, hope and inexplicable joy.

I did not lack energy or enthusiasm. I immersed myself completely in the campaign, fully involved in town meetings, debates, media engagements. I spoke, attacked, parried, promoted, persuaded, and in the end, I placed 35th in the senate race.

What did I accomplish?

Looking back now, in the placid Oklahoma spring, I have a simple answer: I helped. True to my code as a physician and my values as a Filipino, I answered
the call of Noynoy Aquino as he reached out, and Filipinos at home and abroad responded, and now we have a new President Aquino. This was not an exercise in nostalgia. It was a collective expression of hope. Hope shared by millions that government corruption would be stanched, as indeed it will be; that new men in office would try harder, as indeed they will; that the burden of Filipino families would be lighter, and life, somehow, would be better, as indeed it will.

It is why I am happy and gratified, without a Senate seat, but with the knowledge that I have been of help, if only in a small personal way, to President Noynoy, and in the final analysis, to the Filipino people whom he will serve honestly and well.

A few words of sincere gratitude to all the men and women of goodwill ( many more than I had expected) who gave the campaign material and moral support. In behalf of Noynoy Aquino and in my own behalf, let me say, thank you. Maraming, maraming salamat. All of us can say together, with one voice, in this proud moment of history: I helped. Yet the struggle is not over. The work is not done. Actually it begins now and will continue with every passing day. President Noynoy will continue to need us, each one of us ("Kayo ang Aking Lakas"). Let us be unselfish in our assistance, unstinting in our cooperation and unwavering in our dedication to help him recover and restore the hope of a nation which seemed to have been irretrievably lost.