In fact, on any ordinary day, four or five local basketball leagues are being aired simultaneously on national TV. These include the professional leagues Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) and Maharlika Philippine Basketball League, collegiate leagues UAAP and NCAA, and amateur league PBA Developmental League, among many others.
International leagues where the Philippines is a participant, such as the FIBA World Cup and Jones Cup, likewise get ample airtime.
The times, they're a changin'
In recent years, however, basketball no longer holds a monopoly on sports-loving Filipinos' fixation. This is due in large part to the rise in prominence of volleyball.
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The beginning of a new era for volleyball can be attributed to one superstar athlete: Alyssa Valdez. Because of her notable skills on the court and her disarming persona, the former Ateneo Lady Eagles captain managed to captivate an entirely new set of volleyball fans, and thereafter sparked greater interest in the game.
These days, Alyssa Valdez remains a venerable hotshot in the local volleyball scene. Thanks in part to her own fame and stature, there are also now multiple volleyball leagues being aired on national TV at any one time, including PVL, Shakey's V-League, as well as UAAP and NCCA, among others.
As it stands now, a couple of new women's volleyball hotshots have emerged and managed to attract their own fan bases.
In many ways, this is seen as a good thing. Why?
- First, the emergence of fan communities rooting for individual volleyball players is a recognition of the burgeoning popularity of a sports that no longer has one and only one recognizable star player. What is sports without fans, right?
- Second, the rise of bankable volleyball stars also signals the increased development and maturity of a sports which used to be a mere distant second in terms of popularity.
But these positive developments, laudable as they may be, fail to conceal the ugly side of volleyball "stans."
In fact, even a cursory look at social media platforms and discussion boards on local volleyball will immediately present some of the pitfalls of "stan-ing" of volleyball stars perpetrated by their legion of wild and obsessive Filipino fans. Nowhere did these pitfalls rear their ugly head than in the ongoing Asian Games 2018 in Jakarta and Palembang, Indonesia.
The cult of personalities is myopic as it fails (or deliberately refuses) to see the broader picture.
In the Asian Games 2018 in Indonesia, the Philippines fielded a team at the last minute. Unlike traditional powerhouses in Asia, such as China, Thailand, and Japan, which all have well-established training programs, the Philippine national team only had a few weeks to train together, almost like an after-thought.
But even this unfortunate fact was not spared by intriguing fans who, rooting for their own idols who failed to make the national team, whip up unfair and unwarranted criticisms against other players who did make the cut.
Search #LabanPilipinas on Twitter and the topmost tweets about the hashtag are not calls for support for the Filipino delegation in the continental meet, but rather discordant voices from raucuous volleyball fans warring over who is the better Filipino volleyball player.
Blame game is real.
Players of the national team, as well as the coaching staff, are a perennial subject of unwarranted anger from fans upset about a team loss. Granted, some tweets can be incredibly supportive to the team, but most of the comments unleashed online are just plain nasty and discouraging.
Members of the national team, probably aware of this ugly side of local volleyball stans, have took it upon themselves in imploring fans to trust the process. The team captain of the national team, Aby Marano, has gone on Twitter several times to say the team is thankful for the chance to improve and grow, but that success does not happen overnight.
Obsession breeds disrespect to the game.
In the wake of the national team's loss to host country Indonesia in the Asian Games 2018, many Filipino fans took to Twitter to demean and disrespect star Indonesian player Aprilia Manganang regarding her gender.
Manganang was the subject of vicious and very inappropriate remarks from Filipino netizens who mocked her masculine appearance, insinuating that she is not a woman, hence her incredible strength which had caused the Philippine team to suffer a loss.
These attacks came even with the full knowledge that no less than the FIVB, the governing body for volleyball in the world, has affirmed several times that Manganang is indeed a woman.
The brutal verbal assaults against Manganang left a very negative impression from outsiders who viewed Filipinos as either bitter losers or just plain terrible human beings or both.
All told, it is hoped that as volleyball continues to grow and amass a massive following in the country, fans and sports enthusiasts alike be more rational and respectful.
The admiration Filipino fans have over volleyball is without a doubt a source of inspiration for the national players looking to place the Philippines in a prominent spot in the volleyball world.
That being said, the obsessive fascination over the team bordering on the disrespectful needs to be tamed for the sake of everybody who just wants the best for the team and the country.