INQUIRER Sports

HE CAME PREPARED to be surprised but got the shock of his life instead.

Poor Bernardo Santos, 46, a former national cyclist, learned that it was a crime to be poor in Philippine sports.

This was made clear to him on Tuesday.

The rude awakening came to Bernardo on his way to a libel case hearing at the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office.

* * *

Bernardo, Kuya Beneng to members of the Vergara Jeepney Drivers Association which he heads in Mandaluyong City, was still at a loss yesterday.

OK, he was not as poor as his older friends who rose from poverty to become summer’s chosen sons in winning the Tour of Luzon.

This band of gritty riders did not allow poverty to be an obstacle to their dreams.

* * *

Beneng did not have to be told that Manny Pacquiao himself had to sleep on the bare floor, often spending the cold night with an empty stomach, before he found his golden place in the sun.

Poverty may not be the main secret behind the sporting success of these people.

But being poor definitely taught them to be more resilient, focused, singly determined.

* * *

Then Beneng was told it was no good to be poor.

“Yung boss mo magulo kasi (Your boss caused all this trouble),” Beneng was told outside Rm. 408C at the QC Prosecutor’s Office.

“Recah is not my boss, he’s my uncle,” he told his informant, Cesar Filosopo, also a former national cyclist.

Filosopo, together with Armando Bautista, has sued me for libel.

I blasted them after they muddled up the result of the last national cycling association election.

* * *

Anyway, Beneng next told Filosopo point blank that there would’ve been no trouble, and they would not be meeting there, if they did not crush and smear the legitimate election of Rolando Hiso, also a former national cyclist, as president of the Integrated Cycling Federation of the Philippines (PhilCycling).

Beneng, together with his aide and ally Nick Bruan, witnessed the official election of Hiso at the Amoranto Stadium on May 9.

That poll was ordered by the Philippine Olympic Committee and supervised by a team headed by Go Teng Kok, chief assistant to the POC president.

* * *

For the record, these two complainants had originally encouraged Hiso to run for the cycling post.

Beneng, as could be expected, pressed Filosopo on why they fouled up Hiso’s official election.

“Wala naman palang pera (He’s poor, period),” Filosopo told Bernardo without batting an eyelash.

Beneng was stunned stiff, he told me later.

If Filosopo had offered another excuse, Beneng said he would’ve come up with a rebuttal.

* * *

But Beneng found Filosopo’s adamant stand totally outrageous.

He said it was criminal, uncivilized.

For one, Beneng was with Hiso the day after his election when they went to Baras, Rizal to prepare the layout for a national mountain bike trail, with the assistance of Mayor Willie Robles.

Beneng was there when Hiso tried out a Fil-Am rider around the Mall of Asia, whom they later found a solid bet or maybe a shoo-in for the gold in this year’s Laos Southeast Asian Games.

Hiso was also in the process of inviting Coryn Rivera, now a member of the US national cycling team, to race for the Philippines in Laos this December.

Meanwhile, moneyed Mikee Romero, who lost to Hiso in the May 9 election, was scheduled to be sworn in at the Shangri-La Edsa as PhilCycling president yesterday noon.