Remembering Niño

February 19 is Niño Calinao's death anniversary. I'm reposting this private blog entry from my multiply site two years ago so that people will continue to remember...

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Most UP Volleyball Club (UPVC or VC) members would recognize the name, but not the man. Calinao Cup -- that's what we now call our yearly 3on3 Grass Volleyball Tournament. It was titled that way in order to draw attention not only to the event but also to Niño's haunting murder on February 19, 1999

Niño was my batchmate in UPVC. We were the first batch to apply then, since VC was founded just the previous year. Niño was one of my closest batchmates and we both stayed active in org activities til our senior year.

The night before that fateful day of his death, I dialed his number to encourage him to visit UPVC's 3on3 Grass Volleyball Tournament booth at the AS Walk. I knew his number by heart since I've called him several times before to update him on org activities. He's been quite busy with his studies (he was about to graduate that semester), and wanted to make up for his absence in VC so he promised to drop by our booth before his STS class.

Several people manned the booth that 19th day of February. Three other VC members squeezed with Niño in that small bench below the anthill, almost fronting a fraternity tambayan. I stood in front of them, leaning on our booth table.

I suddenly heard shots. Ignorant as i was, I thought it was pillbox firing near us. Everyone panicked and ran towards the green house. I stayed calm, trying to figure out what was going on. When my orgmates stood from the bench, Niño fell on the floor, blood escaping his mouth. I tried to catch him but he was too heavy. In my mind, I was so angry at these fraternity members for being so careless with their stupid wars (I didn't know then that Niño was hit with gunshots).

Therese, a female orgmate, stayed with me as we tried to drag Niño out to the street to get help. For a long time nobody seemed to care that we were carrying a bleeding victim. Suddenly a car with three guys stopped in front of us and offered to help us take Niño to the hospital. Therese couldn't fit in the car so she simply offered to take care of my stuff at the booth.

On the way to the hospital, I suddenly feared that I was riding with the idiotic fratmen who started this mess and they were trying to clean it up. Sensing my anxiety, they introduced themselves as members of another fraternity and explained that they simply wanted to help. (I was sorta calmed down by their presence because i knew that they weren't part of the ongoing fratwars at the time, and i believed that they really wanted to help.)

Niño seemed unconscious as I cradled him like a child in my arms. But I didn't think he was already dead. I even noticed some flicker in his closed eyes, and one of the guys in the car told me to try to talk to him.

When we arrived at the East Avenue Medical Center, I immediately got out of the car and asked for a stretcher. The girl at the desk wanted me to fill out some forms first but I screamed at her that I have a dying patient in the car.

While the doctors were trying to help Niño, i tried to look for a phone to call his parents. I can't remember what I told them but I remember his mother's gasp when i mentioned the blood coming out of his mouth.

After the call, a guy told me, "Miss, maghugas ka muna, andami mong dugo. Dun o, merong gripo." So i went and washed the blood out of my arms and face.

I went back to the emergency room and saw one guy in a scrub suit kneeling on top of the bed over Niño's body, resuscitating him arduously. Then they stopped. They looked at me and asked if I was the "misis." I said no, I was his friend. I'm not sure what happened afterwards, how it registered in my mind that my friend was dead, and what they did to his body. The guys who helped me stayed for a while, but they requested to leave because they couldn't bear to face Niño's parents.

As I waited for Niño's parents, several VC members arrived and waited with me at the hospital. I was in a daze, probably still in shock. Actually, I don't remember feeling anything at the time.

But I do remember one GMA reporter bugging me for an interview. He kept asking me to just tell him what happened, and that he also knew Niño from UP. I kept telling him I didn't wanna give an interview, so when he said, "Niño would want you to tell the truth," I snapped at him -- "Philo major ako, walang truth saken! Truth is relative!" He finally left me alone.

When niño's parents arrived I had very little time to talk to them in private because reporters were surrounding his crying mother like mad paparazzi. I was actually a bit mad that reporters were feasting on her sorrow.

Only when the police asked me a few questions was I able to figure out that Niño died of gun shot wounds, that he was proclaimed DOA, and that the gunman was probably a professional shooter (considering the number of shots that hit Niño without hitting the others who were squeezing with him in that small bench). Only after i've put two and two together did i realize that Niño was not accidentally hit by some pillbox but brutally killed, mistaken as the fratman who recently beat up *ass**, a member of a rival frat.

UP people speculated that *ass** hired his mighty dad's goons to kill a "big, tall, dark and curly guy prowling at the AS Walk", because his own brods wouldn't avenge him. I got goosebumps when i heard about this description -- Niño was a big, tall, dark and curly guy who went to AS walk that late afternoon because i asked him to show up at our booth.

As clumsy as you've been
There's no one laughing

These are words from Our Lady Peace's song Clumsy. Niño and I both loved this song... funny how the words could've been talking about his death... about hired goons doing a clumsy job.

There will be a Eucharistic celebration tonight, February 19, 6:00 PM at the UP Chapel, inside the UP Campus in Diliman, Quezon City in remembrance of Nino's death.

Rest in peace, my friend. If anyone deserves to go straight to heaven, you do. And if there is indeed a heaven, it deserves someone like you.

don't hate me

"don't hate me because i'm beautiful...

hate me because i dug up your misplaced dink, passed a perfect ball to my multi-talented setter, jumped my usual 39 inches and swung so sweetly that for one split second... even you became a fan.

hate me because i'm good."

ynseng achieves new balance

i got new rubber shoes! my New Balance 708 was bought on sale – 50% off!!! hubby wanted to buy himself a pair and then decided to also buy me one as a birthday gift! it’s actually a women's running, all-terrain shoes but it looked good enough for both of us to use indoors – for volleyball and table tennis.

(i would’ve loved to buy new mizuno volleyball/indoor court shoes but they were much more expensive and not all that pretty. in fact i don't think i ever found a pair of mizuno rubber shoes that i liked more for aesthetics than function.)

this is what the New Balance website has to say about the M/W708:

A supportive trail shoe, the M/W708 will debut in the All-Terrain segment of the trail running category for August 2006. The 708 features Abzorb® cushioning in the heel and forefoot for exceptional shock absorption and medial and lateral posts for stability. Motion Core, an outsole feature that improves traction on rough terrain combines with the AT Tread® Outsole design to make the 708 appropriate for on- and off-road use. An N-Durance® Outsole ensures maximum durability and 3M® Reflective details provide an additional safety feature. MSRP = $75.00

my NB W708 will debut on sunday for UPVC’s vnight. and here's to hoping that i'll get back to improving my pingpong skills soon!

intrams na!

it would've been a perfectly pleasurable wednesday, except that i had to miss one favorite activity over another. . .

alam naman ng cmc-cal teammates ko kung gano kahalaga sa buhay ko ang rockstar:supernova... pero inasahan nilang mas kakaririn ko ang intrams.

perfect na sana: rockstar sa umaga, tapos intrams, tapos kung may oras pa, library time sa solair. e di sulit ang absenteism! pero kilala pa din ako kahit ng mga nakababatang vc mems. alam nila na dadating ako ng 10AM for the love of the game.

mabuti na lang nanalo kami. aba, alangan namang matalo pa kami sa law?! di na nga sila kagalingan, naglaro pa ng di gaano nakakaintindi ng volleyball rules. how ironic. law students joining the game without knowing the rules. ang bad trip pa, yung incompetent referee namin, palaging kinokonsulta nung captain nila. it's like the blind leading the blind. mabuti na lang mataray enough na si roge para sa team namin. i could be the calm and collected ate. (wink! wink!)

but no, natalo kami ng first set. would you believe?! i would. pano kasi mga diesel kami. wala sa kundisyon nagsimula at medyo nag-attempt pa karirin ang law. yun pala buko-bukong laro lang ang kailangan. haay. dapat talaga super warm-up before magsimula. por dat, dapat 1 hr ahead kami magwa-warm-up before the game.

the question is... would i be willing to spare that warm-up time if it meant giving up the chance to watch the supernova auditions live? (well, not really live kasi recorded version na yun.) hmmm... decisions, decisions... i'll cross the bridge when i get there.

hindi ako maasim!

DISCLAIMER: sa mga kaopisina at kaibigan kong nakakakilala sa mga karakter na inookray ko dito, mangyaring manahimik na lamang at nang hindi na ako lalung mapasama. salamat.

the inter-color volleyball tournament in our office is finally over. after two round robins, one crossover and one final match, we placed third out of four teams. it's not so bad, really. i'm very proud of my how my team came through, considering the other teams' skill advantage over ours. we always play a good game, and we always play fair.

my beef with this tournament, however, is the way it was organized. i've participated in quite a few nasty debates with the organizers regarding some decisions that did not seem fair. i'd rather not be sour about it but this is my blog and i can't help it. so let me give you a list.

• meetings were not organized. it was unclear who should be there and what the agenda were. nobody took note of agreements. for instance, we decided to separate the better players (these are players who represented the office in more competitive matches outside the office) to ensure fairness and to add an element of fun to the competition. however, when the line-up of players were finalized, it turned out that one team had un unfair share of the better players, leaving one team looking like they didn't know what they're getting into. apparently, the organizer approved the line-up despite the previous agreement. i did feel a sense of betrayal, but it was just a game and i had faith in my team. so dedma na lang.

• i was asked to prepare ground rules (tournament formula) and a tentative schedule for the volleyball competition, a copy of which shall be provided (daw) to team captains prior to the start of the games. i made one based on the formula of some fivb tournaments. unfortunately, my team had to be on our toes and play it by ear because no sight of the so-called approved ground rules appeared.

• game schedules kept changing for reasons that could be argued as unnecessary or invalid. we worried that certain team/s were being given undue advantage but we had no proof so we kept mum about it. we played by their "rules", why not play by their "schedule"?

• the main organizer of the volleyball tournament was coaching a team at the same time. this is actually no biggie. we understand that not a lot of people would take this responsibility so we didn't mind.

• the last straw -- we were on the final stretch of the second round of games when i was informed that the first round has been deemed "no bearing" or "not counted." my blood pressure suddenly rose from hell... where's the logic in that?! why would you make us play one round of games and then suddenly tell us that these games had no bearing?! that's like telling me that my team (not to mention our fans and supporters!) wasted a great deal of time and effort.

never mind the first four in the list. i wouldn't have brought them up if not for the "no bearing" issue. i tried to get answers from the two organizers and what did i get? two incompetent women who kept referring me back at each other because they couldn't give me a good enough answer. i got so sick of it that i told them (through a common friend) that they better clean up their act or else. apparently, they didn't realize that i had it in me to be so feisty (perks of staying at HRDS for too long)! hah!

they ended up making some dumb excuse for the "mistake." i had to play dumb too, so that i won't look like i'm making a mountain out of it. but i swore to myself that if i could ever have anything to do with it, these two will no longer organize a volleyball tournament without someone with good sense guiding their decisions.



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and i thought it was over. we finally got our trophy and nothing could make us any more proud . . .



ganda ng trophy namin anoh?! (pardon my tendency to interchange wits and sarcasm.) and to put an icing on it, individual awards were creatively awarded. why creative, you ask? i'm not going to mock the others' awards but me getting a "best spiker" award?! yeah, i was successful in delivering a few killer spikes but the key word there is few! i was mostly tasked with setter/stopper duties, nakakapalo lang pag saktong nasa dos. i found out later that laila also got the same medal and i was almost put to shame. di hamak namang lamang ang killer spikes ni laila saken! i'm sure her award somewhat diminished in value considering that i got the same award.

i didn't bother asking the organizers who else got a "best spiker" award or why they would give out two (or more) "best spiker" awards. god forbid! i didn't even bother asking what other awards they gave or what their criteria were or who decided which players deserved these awards!

on a lighter note, let me tell you that i would not be humble about it had i gotten a "best blocker" award despite only three successful blocks and despite the fact that nobody else tried. ;)

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this post, although written ages ago, was posted only in july 4 due to my inability to upload photos (either something's wrong with me or something's wrong with blogger's photo uploading). i decided to use webshots to host the pics, and hopefully, they look just as nice as blogger itself would've showed them

a kkb-worthy jersey

finally! natuloy din ang sportsfest sa office namin.

finally! i get to design our jersey. yey!

for so long, i've had to wear manly jerseys,

what with our basketball players thinking that

a women's volleyball team deserves jerseys

as nba-ish as theirs. no thanks.

now, this is what i call a jersey worth every peso of our k-k-b!

credits to the Mizuno Hurricane Jersey and the Women's World Grand Prix Volleyball logo