How I wish I was born with the skills of Hidilyn Diaz! Just because she could lift 347 pounds, she is now, not only a millionaire, but a multimillionaire, with P35 million in her pockets, and probably more coming, signs of grateful and appreciative officials and kababayans, who cannot do enough for the petite Pinay, who snatched the first-ever Olympic gold medal for our country! Of course that was no mean feat, and we are all amazed at what she had accomplished!
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I will not be surprised, therefore, if hundreds, even thousands of other young Filipinos and Filipinas, are now thinking of following her feat. And I think many from the provinces and the barrios are likely to have her lifting skills, because they have to fetch and carry water and firewood from places kilometers from their homes. Will we have another one with Hidilyn’s skills in the making? Let’s not be content with having grabbed an Olympic gold medal in all the 90-plus years the games have been going on. Let’s aim for more in other Olympic events.
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And if the next one comes from our city, or province, Oh what happiness and pride she, or he will bring to our gold-starved country. Now, when I think of those children and teenagers in the farm and barrios I have seen hauling water from wells to bring to their homes, or carrying on their shoulders bundles of firewood, I will surely remember Hidilyn. Has anybody ever asked her how she got to develop the muscles to hoist no less than 347 pounds? Did she ever have to haul well water, or carry firewood on her shoulders?
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When we were children, we were often sent to spend summer vacations in our grandparents’ farm and my sister and I were fascinated at the skills of the kids who easily carried long bamboo tubes filled with water from the wells of neighbors, who generously allowed everyone to draw drinking water from their wells, that never run dry, no matter what the season. We would ask our grandfather to make for us “bayongs”, as the tubes were called, and he would comply, but none of them lasted, because if you drop them, they’d crack, and spill their load!
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Now I wonder if Olympic gold winner – the first for our country – Hidilyn Diaz, ever had to practise by hauling water for her folks. But now that we have finally landed an Olympic gold medal, let us hope and pray that it will not be the last, and that Hidilyn’s feat will inspire our young athletes to emulate her achievement. Me, I really envy those who excel in sports, and did try my best to join competitions in school, but only managed to get the monicker of “Butterfinger”, because I could never send the ball over the net in volleyball!
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I heard a TV report saying that Pinoys in the United States have given our President a failing grade as far as his term as our leader is concerned. Ah, they are brave enough to say that, being so far away from the reach of his loyalists! This was after he delivered his SONA, or State of the Nation Address, recently. I am sure the President also had some sharp terms for them, as voluble as he is. But maybe he just ignored them. As the late and well-loved Bishop Antonio Fortich would say about his critics “They are only mosquitoes”!
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Is it true, or did I get the figures reversed? Bhutan, the report said, has managed to vaccinate 90 percent of its population. That means only 10 percent remain unvaccinated. Are they now in the state called “herd immunity”? And has our country also attained that already? We know that in our city, Bacolod, as well as in our province, Negros Occidental, our officials are very determined in seeing to it that more and more of their people are vaccinated. I have no idea yet, however, what category we have been placed in, as far as the response to COVID is concerned.
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Gosh! The first item I saw on TV yesterday, said China is expanding its nuclear arsenal! Oh dear, for whom are they preparing that? We have not even conquered the COVID yet, and now this. The same report added that China now has the same nuclear capability as Russia. Oh dear! Anong say ng U.S.A.? Will it say that it can top them both? So far, I have not read or seen any report on that. But such developments always call to my mind the saying that “When giants fight, the pygmies tremble”. And who are the pygmies?*
