Lovely Vidal Inan
Joselyn Cayetano always looks forward to a hot meal when she gets home from school. But on most days, she’s lucky if there’s food on the table.
Lovely Vidal Inan spends a big part of her waking hours rummaging through mounds of garbage for bottles and old newspapers in their neighborhood in Angono, Rizal, to sell to the nearest junk shop.
The two young athletes escaped misery for a week recently when they competed and shone in the Philippine National Youth Games-Batang Pinoy Championships in Davao del Norte’s serene provincial capital of Tagum City.
A bare-footed Joselyn picked up two gold medals in track and field—the girls’ 1500-meter and 3000m run— while Inan ruled weightlifting’s +36-kilogram division for girls.
With shiny gold medals around their necks, the two young fighters are hopeful that they have set a new direction away from a life of poverty.
“I hope to earn a scholarship in college so I can help my family someday,’’ says the 16-year-old Joselyn, a ninth grader at Loong National High School in Concepcion, Iloilo.
Ever since her father died in a motorcycle crash four years ago, Joselyn’s mother has been struggling to find ways to feed her and her four siblings, including a brother who wakes up ahead of the brood to help deliver fish to the town market for a few pesos. Occasional hot meals come when their mother gets back home after washing the clothes of their neighbors.
“Despite our difficulties, I train hard every day to improve my time,” says Joselyn. “Hopefully, my efforts will be noticed.”
Joselyn Cayetano
The lean, long-limbed distance runner hopes to get a scholarship so she can continue her education and eventually help her mother send her siblings to school. “I want to play for the national team someday. I will work hard to reach that dream,” she says.
The 12-year-old Lovely idolizes Rio Olympics silver medalist Hidilyn Diaz and shares Joselyn’s dream of getting free college education through sports. She hopes that someday she will be able to compete in the Olympics.
“If I can help it, I don’t want to look for bottles or other stuff in the garbage dumps anymore,’’ says Lovely, who lifted 42 kilograms in the snatch and 55 kg in the clean and jerk to bag the gold with a total lift of 97 kg. “I want to help my parents and siblings.”
Lovely was spotted by weightlifting coach Richard Agosto, a many-time national champion and Southeast Asian Games medalist, as she hauled heavy sacks of garbage on her back a few months ago near the family’s dilapidated dwellings in Angono.
“I saw her carrying all those heavy things and thought that she could become part of my team,’’ says Agosto, the head of the Angono Weightlifting Club, who has taken several indigent and street children under his wings to train them in weightlifting.
Agosto provides meals for Lovely and the other pre-teens during training sessions and instills in them the value of hard work and goal setting. Filling the recruits’ need for inspiration, he never tires of telling them the story of Diaz, who used to carry eight-gallon plastic containers of water from a well to her house in Zamboanga City.
“Just like Lovely, many of these young lifters are capable of winning in the national championships,” says Agosto, a Philippine Air Force pilot and regional coach of the Philippine Sports Commission.
In Lovely, Agosto knows a medal potential when he sees one. “Her desire to become like Hidilyn is remarkable,” he says. “We need to take care of Lovely’s training and progress.”
The stories of Joselyn and Lovely represented the plight of not a few participants in the 9,600-strong Batang Pinoy national competition for athletes 17 years old and younger. The games produced a bumper crop of promising young athletes.
Among the biggest performers were multiple-gold winners Moira Frances Erediano of Lapu-Lapu City, Maenard Batnag of Baguio, Christian Paul Anor of Davao Oriental, and Veruel Verdadero of Dasmariñas, Cavite.
The 12-year-old Erediano ruled in three different sports—criterium cycling, triathlon and duathlon—while Batnag pocketed five gold medals in swimming, the most by any athlete in the week-long games held at the Davao Del Norte Sports and Tourism Complex.
Anor is being eyed by National University after capturing four golds in swimming. Fifteen-year-old Verdadero, the most bemedalled track athlete with victories in the boys’ 13-15 100m dash, 200m, 400m and 4x100m relay, is expected to follow him at NU for the UAAP competitions.
By this time, Joselyn and Lovely are already home helping bring food to their siblings. Pending a call from talent scouts, they will wait for the next competition to try to shine again.