Caloy’s GOAT

The Greatest of All Time (GOAT). As a Filipino Olympian athlete. That is Carlos Edreil Poquiz Yulo, 24, today.

Caloy Yulo is the greatest Filipino athlete, bar none.

The Manila native sports great has brought pride, honor and glory to a nation of 116 million Filipinos who, with Carina, had just suffered one of the greatest floods in the Philippines of all time and have had to endure the punishing ravages of record-high inflation in 14 years and record high interest rates in four years.

Carlos bagged the gold medal for the vault finals at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Sunday evening (Aug. 4, 2024), on top of an equally historic gold medal victory in men’s floor exercise on Saturday (Aug. 3, 2024).?

Yulo is the only Filipino two-time Olympic champion, a six-time world champion (two golds, two silvers and two bronzes); a ten-time Asian champion and a nine-time Southeast Asian Games champion.

“With multiple medals on the international stage, Yulo is the most successful Filipino gymnast in history, the second person to win an Olympic gold medal for the Philippines and the first person to win multiple Olympic gold medals for the country,” declares Wikipedia. Diminutive at 4’-11”, Yulo is remarkable for “his precision in form and the difficulty of his routines, especially in the floor exercise, vault and parallel bars.”

“He is the first Filipino and the first male Southeast Asian gymnast to medal at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships with his floor exercise bronze medal finish in 2018, as well as the first Filipino and Southeast Asian to achieve a gold medal finish for the same criteria in 2019 at the same event,” says Wikipedia.

Early in life and until this year’s glorious Olympic triumphs, Caloy had led a hardscrabble life, depending on the generosity of friends, patrons and sponsors to pursue a sporting life in the mold of the Greek warriors of old epitomized in Homer’s Iliad.

Yulo’s tale of triumph amid adversity should prod our government to invest in sports and in our athletes. More than expanding the GDP or economic production or increasing income per capita, the best and cheapest way for a country to achieve respect and renown on the global stage is by having champions, in sports. Manny Pacquiao, one of the world’s greatest boxers of all time, is Exhibit A of that verity.

Our politicians steal up to 40 percent of the national budget or General Appropriations Act (GAA). Our GAA has been bloated steadily with gay abandon, from P2.264 trillion in 2014 to P5.768 trillion in 2024 and to P6.35 trillion for 2025. This means the premeditated plunder of people’s money has more than doubled, from P1 trillion ten years ago to P2.3 trillion currently, per year. In the 2024 GAA, only P1.156 billion was given to the Philippine Sports Commission – one-fifth of one percent of P5.768 trillion. For every P100, only one-fifth of a centavo was given to sports promotion and development.

Good if that stolen money was invested in people’s welfare. No. More than two million Filipinos are clearly unemployed and another seven million are underemployed.

More than 16 million Filipinos are statistically poor, not earning the minimum $2 a day to live as humans. The hunger rate is the highest in three years, according to SWS, 14.2 percent of families. There are 27 million families; 14.2 percent is 3.83 million families. Each family has 4.5 members. So 3.83 million hungry families is more than 17 millin hungry Filipinos.

How do you make these 17 million hungry people happy? Well, show them Olympic golds. Caloy Yulo is one of these guys.

This is the Wikipedia narration of Yulo’s early life:

Carlos Edriel Poquiz Yulo was born on Feb. 16, 2000 to Mark Andrew Yulo, a travel agent liaison, and Angelica Yulo (née Poquiz), a homemaker, in Manila, Philippines, and lived along Leveriza Street, Malate. He is the second of four siblings. His older sister, Joriel, is a member of the National University Pep Squad, and his younger siblings, Karl Jahrel Eldrew and Elaiza Andriel, are also gymnasts.

Yulo grew up watching Filipino gymnasts train and compete at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex in Malate. Yulo started training for gymnastics when he was seven years old, when his grandfather, Rodrigo Frisco, saw him tumbling at a local playground and brought him to the Gymnastics Association of the Philippines (GAP) for training.

?Yulo attended Aurora A. Quezon Elementary School in Manila for his primary education, where he was already training for the Philippine National Games as part of the National Capital Region’s gymnastics team. Through the support of the GAP, he was able to attend Adamson University in Ermita for his secondary education.

In 2016, Yulo accepted an offer by the Japan Olympic Association to train in Japan under a scholarship program. Moving to Japan, Yulo continued his education at Teikyo University in Itabashi, Tokyo and graduated in 2022, with an associate degree in literature.

Yulo started competing in 2008, and joined his first Palarong Pambansa in 2009, finishing fifth in individual all-around and second (silver) in floor exercise.

In the 2010, Palarong Pambansa, Yulo won gold in the individual all-around and floor exercise, and bronze in the vault.

In 2011, he earned gold medals in the team event, individual all-around, floor-exercise and vault. In his first Philippine National Games, in 2011, he earned three gold medals in the floor exercise, rings and parallel bars.

In the 2012 Palarong Pambansa, Yulo bagged golds in the individual all-around, floor exercise, vault and for team competition. In the 2013 Palaro, he got golds in the team event, individual all-around and floor exercise.

In 2013, Yulo met his eventual coach, Munehiro Kugimiya, when Japanese trainers went to the Philippines to help train the national team.

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