I’ve come under a bit of fire over the past week because all I’ve been writing about has been the Kris Aquino-James Yap-Mayen Austria saga. It’s a perfectly valid point; there are so many other things happening in the Philippine sports world apart from that, and I could understand the frustration of people who read this blog. In particular, the Smart Gilas Pilipinas team has done very well in the Dubai International Basketball Tournament, coming home with a bronze medal, and readers are justifiably upset that I haven’t given this any attention.

Here’s my reason: I just haven’t had the time. It’s a reason, and not an excuse.

And I know that, yes, I have been posting about all the details of all the crap going on with Kris and James (Krijames?), but the thing is, not all blog entries are equal. That is, some posts just take more energy than others, and for the past week, cupcake-gate offered the path of least resistance.

Consider:

1. In my day job, each of us has been assigned a presidential candidate to profile, and we have to keep track of our candidate. I happen to be assigned to Kris Aquino’s brother, so it’s actually part of my job to keep track of what’s happening with her, especially since the issue took on a political color early on. It’s weird, but yeah, I seriously have to keep track of these stories for work. Most of it anyway. The rest, I’m just chismoso.


2. I am a Purefoods fan, and I’ve been a fan of the team before I’ve been a fan of pretty much anything else in my life. Lord knows I would stop being a fan of the team if I could. It hasn’t been fun having to cheer for the “Tender Juicy Hotdogs” or the “Chunkee Giants,” and neither has watching Ryan Gregorio’s coaching performance year in and year out.


3. Kris is compelling. I’m sorry, but she just is. Even Lourd de Veyra admits as much on his blog.

So basically, putting together a blog post on the issue would involve the following:

1. Taking the juiciest part of articles that I’ve already read (and, if available, video I’ve already seen)


2. Writing a short note tying them all together


3. Writing a joke about Ryan “The Genius” Gregorio and/or Jondan Salvador

Voila! I have a post that, judging from the amount of traffic generated by the blog last week, people are actually interested in. Plus, I can work on it bit by bit, over the course of the work day, during breaks. I put it up whenever I’m done with it.

Now, consider the Smart Gilas run in Dubai. I would have loved to write about it every step of the way. Like every other Pinoy sports fan, I am curious as to how they would perform. How would Chris Tiu handle defending opposing shooting guards? Without Sampson, would centers Jason Ballesteros and Greg Slaughter follow Rajko Toroman’s defensive help-side rules to protect the guards who will funnel their man to the baseline? Would Toroman go with the small-ball line-up that worked so well for the team during the Fiba-Asia Champions Cup, but he ditched during the Gilas stint in the PBA? Would the Dubai crowd be terrified of Mark Barroca, or will they find him exotic? And so on.

Unfortunately, I’ve had neither the time nor the energy to catch their games on live stream. And it’s not like the news reports of the games have been very informative; basically, we just find out that the other team had big imports, but our guys had bigger hearts, Baracael/Tiu/Barroca/Casio hit big shots, and we won.

(On this note, let me point out that while I’ve gone after Rick Olivares quite a few times on this blog, I still think he did an excellent job covering the team during the Champions Cup last May.)

I wish I had something to add to the discussion but, well, I didn’t. Blogging regularly, and blogging well, about the Gilas stint in Dubai takes a lot of time, and frankly, I just haven’t had the time.

But like I said, that’s a reason, and not an excuse. Insightful analysis and different takes on the Gilas program would be appreciated by a lot of people: hardcore Pinoy basketball fans, casual fans who have gotten back into basketball because of the promise and potential of the Smart Gilas program, pervs who jerk off to grainy streaming video of Chris Tiu, and Alain Katigbak.

So here’s the deal. If anyone out there wants to take on the task of writing about Gilas, go start your own sports blog, and I promise to link to it. Better yet, you could write posts right here on my blog, send them to j@firequinito.com and I’ll run them unedited so you can give me the Jimmy Kimmel-on-Jay Leno treatment if you want. I’ll even buy you a beer. My only requirement would be that the post be original, well-written (with correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation, very important!), insightful and/or funny.

Game?