FOR nearly a week, both the online and offline population of the Philippines has been consumed with white-hot anger toward Ateneo de Manila University, following the tragic accident during a training outing of its Blue Eagles men’s basketball team in Aurora province, in which team members Rene Baterbonia and Divine Adili died. The Ateneo administration has handled the incident in an appallingly insensitive way, and has been absolutely and deservedly roasted for it, not only by the public, but virtually every major media outlet in the country and numerous government officials.
I do not wish to discuss the details of the Ateneo tragedy, because I do not think there is much I can add to the already enormous volume of discourse that has already entered the public arena. However, there are a couple of coincidences that are worth some attention.
The first is a rather minor detail, but perhaps an interesting one. On May 1 — Labor Day — I had to make a brief visit to the very beach in Dipaculao, Aurora, where the accident occurred (I am the “colleague” mentioned in The Manila Times editorial for June 11). I am ungainly on land, but can swim like a dolphin, and rough surf is endlessly entertaining to me. However, even if there was not a large and prominent warning sign posted along the public access to the beach, and even if there was not a local surfer passing by to warn us personally that there were strong currents and deep drop-offs under the water, one look at the beach in Dipaculao convinced me it was dangerous.
A beautiful beach, but an obviously treacherous one, and not having a life jacket and another skilled swimmer standing by in case I would get in trouble, I refrained from even getting my feet wet. That there was exactly the sort of accident that every available warning said could happen is, tragically, not surprising.
The second coincidence is not a minor detail at all, but goes directly to the heart of the handling of the tragedy by the Ateneo administration, what my friend and colleague Stephen CuUnjieng called “Jesuitical.” I was not familiar with the term before he called my attention to it, so I will tell you the same thing he told his readers: look it up. You will see that it is exactly appropriate in describing the evasive, blame-deflecting response by the school to the Aurora tragedy. By coincidence, I discovered that attitude, which, whatever its source, ultimately comes across as arrogant insensitivity to those on the receiving end, may be ingrained in the leadership culture of Ateneo, which is a deeply disturbing impression to have of one of the Philippines’ premier institutions of higher education.
At the beginning of this month, I chanced upon a Facebook post by a group called “Cats of Rockwell,” which is a loose volunteer group that has, at least until now, provided care for the population of what are euphemistically called “community cats” in the Rockwell area, primarily at the campus of the Ateneo de Manila Law School, which occupies one corner of the upscale estate. I wrote a post about this on my own blog (www.badmannersgunclub.com), but for those who might bridle at the language I use when I am not being paid to use language, I will summarize the story here.
SOS
The initial post was an SOS, because the security administration at the law school had ordered the volunteer group to remove itself and its feeding station for the cats from the premises. The justification for this, according to communications I saw, was that since Ateneo had an arrangement with the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (or PAWS, a good organization that is entirely blameless in this entire controversy) to tend to strays, the school wanted to “centralize” the efforts. Significantly, however, that agreement only applies to Ateneo’s main campus and evidently does not include the law school grounds. The Cats of Rockwell group was initially given until June 4 to vacate, although this was later extended to June 18. However, subsequent Facebook posts indicated that the security force at the law school has been putting intense pressure — one might even call it harassment — on the group to remove itself and its four-legged charges from the area even before that date.
The real story, as was spread online and confirmed to me, albeit in a secondhand way, by people who live or work in the area, was that the law school’s umbrage toward the cat population and their human caretakers was triggered by a recent incident involving a student who ran over one of the cats with his car or motorcycle. The details are a bit hazy, although the incident that took place is not in doubt. This student was appropriately subjected to a degree of hate and discontent online, and as a result of his complaints to the school administration about that, Ateneo decided the cats, and not the abusive student, were the problem and ordered them gone.
In spite of pleas from the volunteer group, the general public, and from now dozens of concerned Ateneo law school students worried about the welfare of the animals, the administration has refused to budge, and has even issued a statement characterizing the situation as mere administrative housekeeping and declaring that it would entertain no further discussion on the matter.
In the meantime, the volunteer group, which is led by a Certified Wonderful Person named Jamie Fournier (some of you may recognize her as a DJ for the FM radio station RJ100.3, among other things), has been scrambling to find adoptive homes for the cats that the volunteers have expended a great deal of time and their own personal resources on caring for, including regular healthy feeding, spaying or neutering, vaccinations, and in a few cases, advanced veterinary care.
Touched by the situation, I, of course, did what I thought I could responsibly handle and contacted Ms. Fournier to offer to adopt one of the cats. His name is Travis, and he is apparently now my landlord. I can only hope that the remaining animals also find good homes with people who will appreciate them.
I am not trying to make an equivalence between human and animal lives — although I personally do not make the distinction when it comes to animals that are human companions — but the similarities between the callousness with which the main Ateneo de Manila administration initially handled the Aurora tragedy and the Ateneo Law School handled the issue of the community cats are hard to miss. When an institution places a higher value on its reputation and brand than the lives that make that reputation possible, there is something deeply wrong, a fundamental flaw in the underlying culture that must be exorcised. Public pressure works; the Ateneo administration was finally forced to confront the Aurora tragedy in a responsible way last Thursday. Too late the hero, but late is still better than nothing. In highlighting this “other,” seemingly minor controversy affected by the same insular — or as Stevie said, “Jesuitical” attitude — perhaps one of the country’s top centers of learning, an institution that has existed for more than 150 years, can finally learn a little humility and compassion.
ben.kritz@manilatimes.net
Bluesky: @benkritz.bsky.social
Website: www.badmannersgunclub.com
