Big Games: Ginebra soars, Duterte slips

It’s no plain coincidence that two fiery institutions in the Republic of the Philippines—President Rodrigo Duterte and the Ginebra San Miguel team—have been caught in contrasting spots at this crucial point of their voyage to  supremacy.

The Ginebra team is up, up soaring, Mr. Duterte continues to falter, slide and sink.

They no doubt have fought hard in order to be where they rule now.

Ginebra, not a hands-down choice to make it to the finals of the PBA Governors’ Cup, stunned oddsmakers by taking the deciding Game 5 of the semifinals with newfound might and dominance.

Duterte, a run-away winner in the last national polls, has tarnished his leadership after squandering hard-earned people’s trust with his inexplicable foulness and hostility towards other established institutions, like President Barack Obama and the United Nations.

Ginebra carried out its campaign to the top with an enviable great game, centered around determination, competence and preparedness; Duterte faltered with a gun-powered wanton offensive in his all-out war against the deathly drug menace in the country.

Anyway, Ginebra’s conquest of the defending champion San Miguel team has been credited to various factors, including tenacity, after the Gin Kings held on tight when its initial 25-point lead melted down to only seven, before scooting to safety with an 18-7 blast in the third quarter.

Of course, the true great decider, secretly carried out, was the shackling of San Mig man mountain June Mar Fajardo, whose usually imposing presence was nullified by a defensive double-teaming, as sharply noted by the Inquirer’s June Navarro.

The dismantling of Fajardo, carried out quietly, exploited the San Mig main man’s weak side (he could not operate evenly with both feet) as he got fully harassed with one or two smaller men sliding in for help.

Not to say that the shackling of the feared, awesome Fajardo succeeded because it was carried out with no noise at all.

But, compared to the national anti-drug campaign, Mr. Duterte’s desperate war for the good of everybody is apparently being stalled by dirty noise, produced almost regularly, by the well-meaning leader who, as Sen. Richard Gordon explained, “continued to fall on his sword.”

Meanwhile, all Ginebra has got to do now is stick to its disciplined and organized game, the less noise the better, when it goes for the Governors’ Cup title against Meralco starting Friday.