Yes, she said. A thousand times over.
“I can’t disregard the effort that the team gave just to protect myself,” she told the Inquirer. “I’ll do it all over again for my team. We worked really hard every day and [we] literally [shed] blood, sweat and tears.”
The team. Her family. The thousands of La Salle supporters who filled one corner of the Big Dome to burst into a vigorous display of school animo. The routine. Hard work. These were all the things Lontok allowed her mind to focus on while trying to fight back the tears. Something was wrong with her arm.
She knew it after she made a tumble at the onset of the La Salle Animo Squad performance.
Heck, even those in the audience noticed something was wrong.
“It was about two minutes into the performance,” said Wawi Tago, a former Animo Squad member who noticed Lontok was performing on heart, bucking the sharp pain running through her right arm.
“I have no idea how [it happened] but I just felt that my right elbow gave up,” Lontok said. “I stopped for a while at the side then I realized that I should finish this.”
Finish this. They had prepared for nearly a year for this one shot at glory. So Lontok kept telling herself: Finish this. This is why the UAAP should look at the cheerdance competition and consider counting the results in the race for the general championship. What the performers in this yearly cash cow for the league do surpasses some of the effort other athletes from other regular sports in the UAAP calendar put forth.
Lontok herself believes so.
“Cheerleading is considered as a sport and I know that every squad trains as hard as the athletes from other sports—sometimes even harder,” she said. “The UAAP should count us to make cheerdancers feel as important as the other athletes.”
Lontok is the perfect poster girl for such a campaign. Anybody who has seen the x-rays posted on her Facebook account would wonder how she got through the rest of the routines—there were still stunts, tumblings and pyramids that she performed—on such a badly dislocated arm. Even Lontok couldn’t explain. She blacked out somewhat, performing almost in a semiconscious state, with nothing but her will—and the beat of the music—guiding her.
“I was lost for a second because I felt the pain. Nag black-out ako,” she admitted. “I just listened to the music and went on to my next stunt.”
“I don’t think anybody embodies Season 74’s theme—“All Out, All Heart”—as much as Aiana. What she did has made such a big impact on the DLSU community and we cannot be more proud of her.
Everyone, from St. Paul College Pasig, her high school, and DLSU wishes her a speedy recovery,” said Abi Insierto, a 19-year-old marketing management student from La Salle.
Don’t call her hero yet, though. Amid the shower of love and support she has received, Lontok is hesitant to embrace the newfound admiration directed her way by cheerdance aficionados.
“I felt really touched but honestly nahihiya ako when they say that I’m a hero because I didn’t really think that I would be one after what I did,” Lontok said. “All I was thinking about was I have to finish this para di pangit yung block or liftings kasi kulang ng isa.
“I was crying during the routine because I knew that there was really something wrong with my arm.” She cried, but she never stopped performing.
“I did not want to let my family and my team down. I did not want to give up.” And here we thought that stuff only happens in movies.
But Lontok is a real person. She felt real pain. And she never even got to celebrate with her teammates in the Big Dome after La Salle was announced as runner-up to the powerhouse UP Pep Squad. It was an upset of sorts for the Taft-based squad, leapfrogging past such traditional heavyweights as Far Eastern U and University of Santo Tomas.
“After the last pose, I ran immediately to ate Ana, our physical therapist. And then they placed a splint on my arm and carried me out to the ambulance,” said the 20-year-old advertising major.
DISLOCATED. An x-ray of Aiana Lontok's dislocated elbow taken by her sister.
So while her teammates were hugging each other and screaming in celebration, she was receiving pain treatments and getting her arm in a cast at Cardinal Santos, where she was rushed to immediately after her performance. But that doesn’t mean she did not share in the jubilation.
“I was in the ER when my sister told me we won,” Lontok said. “At that time, I was being injected with drugs for me to calm down and fall asleep because they were about to start putting my arm in a cast.
“But I wasn’t able to sleep because I was so happy and I kept crying.”
Those were tears of joy though, she said, adding that “the pain went away when I learned we won.”
With her arm in a cast, the third-year student is currently looking forward to helping La Salle go for No. 1 next year, her final season with the team. But that is too far down the road. Right now, she just wants to soak in the victory and the thought that people have made an inspiration out of her.
“Pursue what you want and learn to fight,” she offered to those who want to follow the path she took someday. “Cheerleading is a very difficult sport and that’s why your whole heart must be put into it.”
And to the critics hitting out at La Salle’s second place finish? Lontok is taking the high road on that one.
“I have nothing against them since they’re entitled to their own opinions. Their criticisms will only make us a stronger and better team.”
She has, though, a last word for the La Salle Pep Squad and its supporters.
“I wouldn’t have the courage to fight if it weren’t for all of you.” With a report from Jun Veloira