Okay
so I haven’t written anything for a long time. Time to flex my writing muscles
before they atrophy. I was trolling on twitter when I chanced upon
this tweet by Alyssa Valdez to fellow Atenean athlete Jerie Pingoy: “Good
luck sa upcoming games mo. Mabilis lang yung one year. :) #patience”. A sweet message from
one victim to another. Except that the latter will have to suffer longer. It’s
2 years residency for Jerie Pingoy.
Unless
you’ve been hibernating under a rock, the Jerie Pingoy rule is a regulation
that the UAAP board started implementing this school year which enforces 2
years of residency for any UAAP high school graduate transferring to another
UAAP school for college. Outrageous, right?
The
purpose? To discourage so-called “piracy” of homegrown high school talents. Now
that might seem like a good idea since we’ve seen how some teams have suffered
from losing their key players due to better “offers” from other schools.
Imagine UST with Alyssa Valdez (ADMU), Dindin Santiago(NU) and Kim
Fajardo(DLSU). They would give DLSU a run for their money right? Not gonna
happen now.
And
yeah, to make the two-year residency sound less evil, they also say that the
goal is to give these student-athletes enough time for acclimatization. Don’t
let that fancy word fool you. It just means adaptation or adjustment.
Okay.
Enough of the good. Let’s start talking about the bad side of this rule.
First,
when you drastically limit the freedom of a student-athlete to choose which academic
institution will fit him best, you are basically defeating the student first,
athlete second idea. Go figure.
Second,
when a regular 12 year-old kid enrolls in his high school of choice, he should
just be considering the next 4 years of his life. But when you are a
UAAP high school athlete, you have practically signed a contract for the rest
of your academic life. Now this is outrageous especially because I’m sure that
when I was a freshman in high school, I had no idea where to go for college. So
if you or your son/daughter wants to have freedom to choose whichever college
you like without unnecessary restrictions, don’t enroll in a UAAP high school.
Third,
this “investment” made by the school on their high school players should not be
a loan that they can ask the student to pay for the rest of his/her academic
life. These kids already played for their schools for their entire
high school lives. Isn’t that enough compensation?
Fourth,
who needs two years of acclimatization anyway? You can essentially get a
freaking diploma in 2 years already! These student athletes are not retards.
Many of them are actually smart and are good students. They don’t need two long
years to adapt to their new school. I remember being bored with my campus after
just a semester. Seriously? 2 years?
Fifth,
this actually makes it so unfair for ADMU which has no high school for girls.
Where will they get their next Fab 5? See, this UAAP rule serves only a few
member universities.
Sixth,
this limits students’ choices even those who are already in their 3rd year.
Imagine if ADMU for some reason decides that Alyssa is not fit to play anymore
due to grades. She still has 3 playing years in UAAP. If she decides to
transfer to another school in order to keep playing, she can’t play for another
two years. This rule is sick!
Lastly,
I don’t want to compare these athletes to animals but this is actually a good
point. If we want to keep our pets from wandering to other people’s backyards,
we have to treat them well and make sure we offer them the best. Either that or
we can just build a fence. This is what some universities are doing. Instead of
improving their academic and sports programs to retain their athletes, they
find it easier to come up with rules to box these athletes in.
Okay,
I’m sure you didn’t really need to read these arguments to believe that the
2-year residency rule is stupid and outrageous and serves only the
universities. I can come up with many more justifications why this rule should
be trashed but the fact is, it is already being implemented.
Let
me quote Edmund Burke, “All that is necessary for
the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” So many athletes, fans and
even Senator Pia Cayetano have aired their abhorrence to this rule but nothing
happened.
Why?
The victims are too few, in fact even too insignificant for politicians to take
seriously. How many heavily-recruited graduating UAAP high school
basketball/volleyball players who want to transfer schools are there? How can
they affect the voting public’s opinion? Exactly.
Imagine
if someone so popular and/or important as Baby James/Bimby grows up to be a
good basketball player, graduates from say Ateneo High School and
somehow wants to continue his studies in UP and faces this horrendous rule.
This rule will be history in no time.
But,
that is not the case for now. No matter how unfair, unnecessary and basically
stupid this rule is, it will continue to oppress unfortunate high school
athletes who just want to study and play their favorite sport at the same time.
And we can only sit and watch them suffer. Or should we?
