Archers are National Champs!

Chris Tiu and Ryan Buenafe were not available for the Blue Eagles who beat the Letran Knights to enter the finals of the Philippine Collegiate Championship Finals. The Archers were missing Simon Atkins who beat NCAA champs San Beda Red Lions.

Props to JV Casio in his last game as an Archer. He has been one of my favorite players ever since he joined La Salle from San Beda high school. There is something about players and athletes who don't trash talk and still get the job done that I really admire and JV is the best at it. He does have the talent to play in the PBA because of his defense and his perimeter shooting.

Pacman Power (and speed)

I decided to attend the live viewing at Silver City since most of our sponsors and clients, media along with close friends were also going to be there.

I did win a bet with my father in law as I picked Pacquaio to win. I really thought Manny would win the fight by KO but did not expect him to do it in such overwhelming fashion.

The screens in the main hall were hard to see at first because of the sunlight. But some black backing solved the problem by the time the Pacman entered the ring. No problems in the Decagon as the screens were of the LED variety (see pic).

The beauty of watching with 5,000 other Filipinos is that you can hear and feel everyone's joy and excitement everytime Oscar's face snaps back from a punch from Manny. I think part of the uniqueness of the morning was to witness this many people be unified toward one desire... to see their hero win and represent them and their country with pride and honor.

Much has already been said about Manny's demolition of the Golden Boy and I just wanted to post a congratulatory shoutout to the Best Pound for Pound fighter in the world today!

PBA Singapore Game

The trip was only for the long weekend and we were very much looking forward to the first ever official PBA game in Singapore. It had been 3 years since I last visited the small island country and the progress was very noticeable. You can only hope and pray that the Philippines somehow gets some divine revelation to those who have the power and actually do right for the sake of their countrymen.

Smart/PLDT was one of the major sponsors/organizers and since MVP was also there, their team really seemed to have better benefits during the trip. They stayed at a better hotel, ate better food, and generally had a more comfortable time than the Beermen. It really helps to have the chairman join the trip.

The game between Talk and Text and San Miguel was actually pretty sloppy in the beginning with the Tropang Texters getting the upper hand eventually thanks to the outside shooting of Ritualo and Alapag. That simplifies the game too much but the bottom line, Ren Ren and Jimmy were clutch and you can't help but also be amazed by the effort of Jared Dillinger.

Just some of the Pix from the trip:

I had dinner with the San Miguel team at a place overlooking the man made wakeboarding location in the outskirts of downtown.

The Singapore Indoor Stadium was also a first class facility that seated about 10,000 people.

Good lunch at Boon Tong Kee with Mads Deguzman and dinner at No Signboard Raymund Miranda.