Higher calling

This is my quest

To follow that star

No matter how hopeless

No matter how far

To fight for the right

Without question or pause

To be willing to march into Hell

For that Heavenly cause

“The Impossible Dream”

(Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion)

There are still many key positions in the new administration that have not been filled, positions which are currently occupied by holdovers, OICs, other temporary assignees. One vacant position is the chairmanship of the Games and Amusements Board or GAB, the overseer of professional sports in the country. One sports professional  who ideally fits the job – and wants it – is Chino Trinidad, a proud son of journalist parents who has been on both sides of the media line as scribe and subject for well over 30 years.

Though he is perhaps best-known for his sterling run as a hands-on commissioner of the Philippine Basketball League (PBL) and as a founding member of the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP), his heart has always bled for our pro athletes, particularly boxers. Chino had his first encounter with GAB while covering the Dodie Boy Peñalosa-Julius Tarona fight in Cebu in August of 1994. The referee lost control of the bout, and Tirona used an array of dirty tricks on his polio victim opponent so bad, the Peñalosa siblings and their father clambered into the ring, starting a riot and abrogating the match. Trinidad’s video of the atrocities was used by the agency to investigate. The following year, a 16-year old Manny Pacquiao fought a main event while his dear friend Eugene Barutag was beaten viciously on the undercard. Chino was at ringside covering the fights, and personally tried to get medical attention for Barutag at various hospitals.

“The referee was reeking of alcohol. I can recall every second of it,” says the creator of the independent broadcast platform PilipinasHD. “It was my first venture into anchoring boxing. The referee allowed things to get out of hand, and GAB officials weren’t able to do anything. What was the ring doctor doing? Eugene Barutag died that night. It was my first experience of ring death.”

All through these decades, Trinidad has been a fiery, formidable, obstinate, unfiltered warrior against corruption and ineptitude, a catalyst for reform in sport, whose heart has always been for the athlete. His relentless railing against the system propelled GAB to require promoters to have medical teams at all boxing events. Meanwhile, Chino had gone on to the PBL, where the new GAB leadership tried to insist that they were, in fact, a professional league. Doing his own research for the big legal battle, the young commissioner won the case, and ironically became a consultant for the government agency itself. There, he saw how inactive boxers were unfairly given high rankings, and found other unjust practices. He learned that GAB, which is under the Office of the President, has supervisory and regulatory powers which may be enforced in cooperation with local governments and national agencies like the NBI and PNP. And though aware of the inherent dangers of challenging the mighty, Chino is willing to step forward and take them on, all in his desire to make life better for athletes.

“I learned the intricacies of GAB, its role, its purpose,” recounts Trinidad. “We are all to be blamed for the problems of boxing and other pro sports now. Regulation is all-encompassing. We need to help. I just want to put systems in place so that everyone is protected and benefits.”

Everyone wishes for someone else to march into hell for them. In Chino Trinidad, our boxers and other pro athletes would have that at the GAB.