The fame we can be proud of

There are many ways for a Filipino to leave home and carve a name in another country. Some cross borders with boxing gloves, some with a barbell, a basketball, running shoes, a gymnastics ribbon or, in Alex Eala’s case, a tennis racket. The challenge is always the same: arrive as a stranger and earn the right to be remembered.

Eala has been doing exactly that. She arrived on the international stage ranked far below the women she was expected to face, then proceeded to beat them. Madison Keys. Iga Swiatek. Established champions. Apparently, nobody told her rankings were supposed to frighten the young.

And now New York. The US Open crowd has discovered what Filipinos already knew: when Eala plays, Philippine flags multiply, voices reach frequencies usually associated with hostage negotiations, and cell phones rise into the air so relatives back home can watch proof that, yes, our girl is really doing this.

But the wonderful part begins when Eala puts down the racket and picks up a microphone.

Sports can unite us in ways politics sometimes struggles to manage. We can disagree about teams, rankings, and whether a ball was in or out, then cheer together when a Filipino wins. No political party required. No ideological seminar. Just a racket, a ball, and someone good enough to make us forget, for a few glorious minutes, that Filipinos normally disagree about absolutely everything.

Then Eala speaks. And somehow, she becomes even more impressive. She talks about family, God, gratitude, hard work, and the people who believe in her. Even after defeat, there is no elaborate theory explaining why defeat should not count. Sometimes she simply lost. And she says so. How refreshing. Because then we return to politics, where reality occasionally appears to be merely an optional starting point.

Sen. Robin Padilla’s proposal to extend presidential immunity to the Vice President is a particularly curious example. The grandstanding might be funny if the subject were not so serious. It is painful to watch a constitutional question approached with such certainty that the constitutional limits themselves seem to become an afterthought. The Constitution is not a karaoke song: one cannot simply choose the President’s privilege, change the key, and expect everyone to sing along.

The timing makes the spectacle even more uncomfortable, because the proposal arose amid legal and political troubles involving Vice President Sara Duterte. To critics, it can look less like an abstract constitutional principle and more like an extraordinarily convenient search for political armor. Whether that interpretation is fair is another matter. But the optics certainly provide their own punchline.

Duterte, meanwhile, offered another remarkable moment when she invoked the name of slain Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. while expressing fears for her safety outside the Quezon City Hall of Justice. Aquino was assassinated after returning from exile in 1983. The historical tragedy is beyond dispute. The comparison, however, was absurd.

And somewhere between these performances lies the difference between Eala and the politicians who occupy the public stage. Padilla and Duterte are elected officials. Their salaries, privileges, and institutional resources ultimately come from the Filipino public. That carries an obligation to speak carefully, understand the limits of public power, and remember that every microphone belongs, metaphorically at least, to the people who pay for the institution behind it.

When public statements appear careless, theatrical, or constitutionally adventurous, they do not merely embarrass the speakers. They risk making the few honest and hardworking public servants look bad by association.

Eala has no taxpayer-funded convoy, legislative office, or government salary waiting for her. Her tennis journey has required enormous personal and family sacrifice. Yet she carries the Philippine flag onto courts around the world without asking the Filipino taxpayer to finance her dream. And when she speaks, the emphasis is rarely on what the country owes her. It is on what she owes the country.

That distinction is enormous. Politicians have public power and public money. Eala has a racket, extraordinary discipline, and a family willing to sacrifice for a dream. Yet somehow, the person with the least institutional power keeps giving the nation more reasons to be proud. When Eala wins, Filipinos celebrate. When she loses, we remain proud.

Perhaps that is the fame we can be proud of: not fame that demands protection, privilege or endless explanation, but fame earned through discipline, humility, and service. Eala does not ask the country to stand behind her. She gives the country something worth standing for.

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Fr. Cyrain Cabuenas is a Catholic priest from Borongan, Eastern Samar, who currently serves in the State of Vermont. He is a former correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer Visayas bureau.