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ASIA LIFE SCIENCES 22(1): 191-202, 2013 The Asian International Journal of Life Sciences Meaning of sport among Filipino athletes RACHELLE UMALI PENEYRA1,* and FELIPE PAYAD JOCANO, JR.2 The paper aims to determine if there is a congruency between the meaning and function of sport as defined by Phili...

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Meaning of sport among Filipino athletes RACHELLE PENEYRA

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ASIA LIFE SCIENCES 22(1): 191-202, 2013 The Asian International Journal of Life Sciences

Meaning of sport among Filipino athletes

RACHELLE UMALI PENEYRA1,* and FELIPE PAYAD JOCANO, JR.2

The paper aims to determine if there is a congruency between the meaning and function of sport as defined by Philippine national athletes vis-à-vis the objectives of sport as institutionally defined by the Philippine government. A comparison of the athletes’ perspectives and the Philippine government’s institutional goals presents cultural considerations for formulating the country’s sport development policies and programs. The dominant concept of the meaning and function of sport that surfaced among Philippine national athletes was discipline. Discipline appears to be a controlling structure outside of the self, and is also interestingly translated as an equivalent to time. The concept of fitness through sports was articulated by the participants but not discussed in depth. Sport was also indicated as a means to gain free education, money in the form of allowances and incentives, and possible advancement in work. Interestingly for some, winning for the country was not a primary objective, and was only realized after participation in international competitions. The gap between cultural and institutional perspectives as revealed in the study has serious implications for the future of sports in the Philippines. Key words: meaning of sport, Filipino athletes, discipline, Filipino concept of health and fitness, Philippines

1

Department of Sport Studies, College of Human Kinetics, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City 1101, Philippines *Corresponding author – e-mail: [email protected] 2 Department of Anthropology, College of Social Science and Philosophy, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City 1101, Philippines

Received 28 April 2012; Accepted 19 June 2012 ©Rushing Water Publishers Ltd. 2013

Printed in the Philippines

Peneyra & Jocano 2013 INTRODUCTION The 1987 Philippine Constitution states in Article II Section 13 that, along with education, science and technology, arts and culture, sports must be given priority by the State so that it can act as a vehicle to “foster patriotism and nationalism, accelerate social progress, and promote total human liberation and development.” In addition, Article XIV Section 19 states that the State is tasked to “promote physical education and encourage sports programs, league competitions, and amateur sports, including training for international competition, to foster self-discipline, teamwork and excellence for the development of a healthy and alert citizenry.” As a consequence of these articles, the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) was created. The PSC is the government’s regulatory national agency responsible for coordinating all amateur sports development programs and institutions in the Philippines, as well as, formulating policies on such programs and institutions. Its two organizational targets as listed in the Logical Framework of the PSC are “excellent participation in international sports competitions (high level)”, and a “widened source of athletic talents and increased participation in sports (mass-based)”. The vision of the PSC is that the Commission must have “…a unified sports program which will enhance the quality of life of the Filipinos, instill national pride and attain international prestige through excellence in sports.” The Philippines is also a signatory to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) International Charter of Physical Education and Sports. At the individual level, Article II Section 2 of the Charter states that physical education and sport “contribute to the maintenance and improvement of health, provide a wholesome leisure time occupation and enable man to overcome the drawbacks of modern living.” Since Article III Section 1 states that “physical education and sports programmes must be designed to suit the requirements and personal characteristics of those practicing them,” this study aims to determine how high performance Filipino athletes’ concepts of the function of sport compare with the PSC’s and the 1987 Philippine Constitution’s purposes of sport. It examines the meanings created by Philippine national athletes to determine if there is a congruence between the athletes’ perspectives on sport vis-à-vis the producers’ and organizers’ intentions. The outcome of the study is set against Rivera et al.’s (1988, in Beran 1989) unpublished seminar paper on the role of sports in the Philippines as defined by government and private institutions that function as sport organizers and producers in the Philippines. Rivera et al. (1988) surveyed Filipino sports leaders (N=40) who represented the Philippine Olympic Committee, Gintong Alay, National Sports Associations, the Department of Education Culture and Sports, university athletic associations, armed forces of the Philippines, and the sports departments of business firms. Nearly half (47%) stated that the role of sports is to contribute to the development of nationhood, a third (35%) stated the sports promote health and fitness of the citizenry, and 12% expressed that sports served as an instrument for

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Meaning of sport youth development. Only 6% expressed that sports were useful in winning international recognition. While this paper is more than two decades old to date, there are however no recent studies that can be used for a more updated comparison. Since there has also been no study that has examined the perspective of Filipino athletes, this paper is also an exploration of the latter. Meaning of sport. Sport can be viewed as a product of, and a window on culture that can serve as “a vehicle for the manifestations of those norms and values fundamental to the culture of the society within which it is performed” (Blanchard 2000, p.149). As a “project” of man, sport in both its participatory and spectator forms has the potential to provide significance (Thomas 1983). The term sport has diverse meanings based on what field of sport study it is viewed from and at what point in history it is to be examined. Major forces like the industrial and scientific revolutions, urbanization, modernization and globalization have contributed to the transformation of the meaning of sport (McComb 2004, Stovkis 1989, Rees 1998). Distinction has also been made between what constitutes modern sport (Guttman 2004 in Crowther 2007) and how diversely sport as a phenomenon has transformed since antiquity (Crowther 2007, McClelland 2007). Studies on the origins and meaning of sport have established that the term ‘sport’ emerged in England only during the times of the Industrial Revolution (Elias 1998 in Crowther 2007, Sansone 1988). It is this term that has generally been used to refer to how sport is recognized in present times. When discussing sport as a game occurrence (Loy 1968), sports can be defined as “well-established, officially governed competitive physical activities in which participants are motivated by internal and external rewards” (Coakley 2009, p.6). A more broad-spectrum definition authored by UNICEF (2004) used in the Olympic Kit of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) outlines sport as “...all forms of physical activity that contribute to physical fitness, mental well-being and social interaction. These include play; recreation; casual, organized or competitive sport; and indigenous sports or games.” In determining the purposes for engaging in sport, Vinokur (1988) pointed out that sport must be distinguished from its uses for the purposes of physical education, recreation, or international competition. Sport can be placed in a continuum, with elite sport or athletics on one end, and recreational or leisure sport on the other (Vinokur 1988, McComb 2004, Blanchard & Cheska 1985). Given that competition is an essential element, the objective of sport is victory or superiority over the opponent (Kretchmar 1975, Thomas 1983). For competition at the international level, Vinokor (1988, p. 14) said that “athletes undergo long and difficult specialized training in quest of a world-class victory”. Success then imposes parallel orientations on the nature of sport between the primary participants, which are the athletes; and the secondary participants, which are the organizers and producers, i.e. coaches and government agencies (Kenyon 1969). The study focused on elite athletes because they have already participated and have been involved in sports to the extent that they would have experienced the processes required with winning as the primary intent. Intent is a key factor because the preparation, commitment and evaluation required in serious sports separate it

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Peneyra & Jocano 2013 from casual, pleasure-based sport where winning might be a goal, but is not the primary motive for participation (Thomas 1983). As Thomas explains, “[w]hile the commitment may be the same, the intent of the performer may set the foundation of the kinds of meaning derived from the sport experience” (ibid. p. 94). Culture and the body. The body exists in a variety of forms, such as the lived or phenomenological body (what and how we feel with the body), the social body (the body both as metaphor and source of metaphors), and the body politic (the body as subject to control) (Lock & Scheper-Hughes 1988). Each of these is experienced simultaneously as the body moves through various domains, whether in illness or in sporting activity. Thus, a phenomenological experience of sensation such as the adrenaline rush of a high-intensity activity is interpreted as positive if the cultural setting values such experiences (the runner’s high being an example). Conversely, particular sensations such as pain may be disvalued such that an athlete will continue to perform even if the pain is an indicator of injury, especially when salaries are at stake and the athlete is monitored by the sponsors. This in turn resonates with Shilling (2005) and with Turner (1992) and echoes Foucault’s idea of a body subject to a disciplinary regime (1977). The social context. The body is nested in a set of relationships that define what a body is and how the owner of that body should behave. Thus, in Jocano’s [2003 (1973)] ethnography of a fishing community in Bay, Laguna, health (kalusugan) is equated to strength (malakas), litheness (matipuno), all of which in turn are part of the ability to work. Health equals productivity; a matter of concern in a fishing community, where people work with their hands. Physical ability and aesthetic appearance of the body are joined together in the concept of health. The converse follows: to be unable to do one’s daily routine is to be unhealthy [may sakit (is sick)]. This set of relationships also defines obligations and rights within the community. Beyond being healthy, one is obligated to act on this condition to fulfill one’s duties to others, which include the obligation to support one’s family. Strength and health are therefore not simply desirable in and of themselves, but are means to fulfill familial and social obligations. In the wider context, it would be good to think of the extent to which personal relationships overlap with institutional rules. Various researchers from different fields have called attention to the ways in which there is a distinct lack of overlap between the institutional and the cultural (Jocano 1997, 1999; Bulatao 1992). Do these concepts of health, fitness and social relationships overlap with institutional knowledge and policies? This question becomes relevant especially as this paper explores how the idea of sport is constructed from the point of view of the athletes.

MATERIALS AND METHODS This paper re-examined the original data of Peneyra’s (2007) unpublished Master’s thesis on elite Filipino athletes’ concept of what sport is and what its functions are. The thesis was a qualitative survey of members of the Philippine National Team (N=19, mean age 25 ± 3 years, males = 12 and females = 7) from eight sport events who have won gold and/or silver medals in the Southeast Asian Games. The sport events

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Meaning of sport of the participants were athletics, cycling, judo, fencing, taekwondo, traditional boat race, water polo, and wushu. Winning a gold and/or silver medal in the Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) was the qualifier for the participants to be considered as elite athletes. ‘Class A’ athletes have won at least one gold in the SEA Games, and ‘class B’ athletes have won at least one silver. For this paper, the original transcription of the interviews was re-examined to compare the athletes’ views on meanings in sport with the objectives set by the government agency which they are under and accountable to. The results presented in brackets are the English translations of the original data which were mostly in the Philippine language Tagalog. Otherwise, the participants expressed themselves in English.

RESULTS The dominant theme that surfaced was the concept of discipline, reflected in Peneyra’s (2007) thesis as both the meaning and primary function of sport regardless of the athlete’s age, gender, or sport participated in: Athlete No. 5 (male/28 years old/wushu/class A/high school graduate/full-time athlete): [It’s like you will learn a lot that you will otherwise not get an opportunity to learn outside, once you are in sport. Especially if you are in the Philippine Team. For example discipline. You have to be disciplined in every thing you do every day. You need to wake up early to train. Then you need to rest in the afternoon; you can’t waste time on other things. You need to rest and to be ready for training.] Athlete No. 6 (male/26 years old/athletics-sprint/class B/college graduate/fulltime athlete): “Many of the people from different walks of life, they say that sports is just a play, or game. But if they really try to know, if they really [get] involve[d on] what really [sic] sport has, [they will see that] you can define sports in many ways. Especially [in] sports, you can also develop self-discipline. You can rest early. You develop self-confidence because you [are] practicing yourself to avoid drinking those which could affect the performances of an athlete, and also you learn to rest early like that. Wake up early. Like that, like that. Your daily routine is very, ano ba’ to [that is to say], it seems like in a discipline[d] way; because you cannot just do extraordinary things which could just affect your performance as an athlete, especially those elite athlete[s] who compete in international competition.” Athlete No.11 (female/26 years old/fencing/class A/vocational school graduate/ full-time athlete): “[When you get into a sport, the first thing that enters your mind is that this is where you will be disciplined, this is where you will learn; it is just like school. At home, your parents are your teachers; and here, this is like your second home. Just like school is your second home, this is my second family. They teach me the proper way to play; you are really disciplined here. You don’t have vices. You don’t get lost. Other kids in the streets, their parents don’t take care of them. At least here they see that you are doing good for yourself.]”

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Peneyra & Jocano 2013 Athlete No. 16 (male/ 28 years old/water polo/class B/enrolled then in second bachelor’s degree/full-time athlete): “[First is discipline. It seems to stand out. Of course techniques come first; whatever sport you are into has techniques. But if you don’t follow, nothing comes of it. Then there is time, our discipline with time, how you follow rules. Discipline is like, in swimming there are techniques and how many laps to do; you follow just like with other activities. Like at work, eight o’clock is eight o’clock. You can’t just have your way. You really must follow. You can’t just do only what you want to do. That’s not how it should be.]” Discipline was mostly associated with time; that is, keeping time and managing time. Sport involvement was the means for the athletes to comprehend the implications of keeping time and managing time so that they could fulfil their training requirements and still study or work at the same time. Discipline was also associated with following rules, having a focus and a regimented daily routine. Discipline kept athletes free from vices since there was no time left to indulge and vices may affect the athletes’ performance. The concept of physical development and physical fitness as a consequence of sport was indicated but not clearly explained. While physical fitness and health were also mostly partnered with mental development, how their minds were also developed was not articulated clearly. The concept of health and fitness were also vague abstractions. Athlete No. 2 (male/24 years old/judo/class A/high school graduate/full-time athlete): “[Your behaviour is developed, your character, how you move. And also your mind. Others are lazy to exercise. They don’t know that exercise is good for the body; that it helps a lot. Like resistance (to disease); your body will improve, your mind is always clear.]” Athlete No. 3 (female/25 years old/judo/class B/college graduate/soldier, Philippine Army): “[Sports, it’s like a game that exercises all. Mental, physical, spiritual. That’s it. That’s what I know.]” Athlete No. 8 (female/23 years old/traditional boat race/class A/college level/ full- time athlete): “Sports is something like a physical activity which, it uses your muscles, but not only your muscles but the overall physical well-being. Of course some people will say na [that] it is tire-dy[sic. tiring] to do sports. But of course, it’s tire-dy, pero [but] you’re gaining something di ba [right]? Not like tire-dy, but you’re not getting anything. But even if it’s tire-dy you can get more. Example, if you’re not engaged in sports, [you’ll be] something like more sickly, of course. Practically speaking, sickness will come into yourself easily, right away. So through money, through therapy, it’s more expensive than doing sports di ba [right]? Of course if you be in the hospital, [it would] cost you a lot. But if you’re doing sport, nothing di ba [right]? You can do whatever sport you want to engage [in]. You can run, you can whatever, so it is easier. You can become healthy.” Athlete No. 16:“[For me, physical fitness is the primary function of sport. If you are physically fit, you don’t get sick; health prevention. You are far from vices. I never had vices. I rarely drink aside from occasional drinking. Regarding smoking, instead of just hanging out, just get busy with other things.]”

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Meaning of sport In terms of extrinsic rewards, sport was indicated as a means to gain free education, money in the form of allowances and incentives, and possible advancement in work: Athlete No. 4 (male/26 years old/taekwondo/class A/college graduate/teacher, coach): “[For me, taekwondo has helped a lot. First is I went to college for free. I got a scholarship because of taekwondo. So I told myself, I will take taekwondo seriously because I was given a scholarship. That’s why I love taekwondo so much. I get everything from here, my allowance comes from it.]” Athlete No. 6: “Aside from [the fact that] you become physically fit, in some sports you can also won [sic.] a prize, li...