No ‘Monkey’ Business When Cheering Turns Ugly

Game Five of the PBA Governor’s Cup Finals was a great game. It was close for the most part, which is something that we can’t say for the rest of the series. Both San Mig Coffee and Petron were battling it out on the court with such beautiful basketball. Fantastic ball movement, impeccable defense, highlight reel dunks. It was the way a Finals was supposed to look like.

But in the crowd, things were getting a little out of hand.

“Monkey! Monkey! Monkey!”

This is what was heard through people’s television sets. It was echoing through the SMART-Araneta Coliseum. It shouldn’t have been, but sadly it was. These were the chants coming from some of the Petron Blaze Boosters fans. They were directing it towards San Mig Coffee Mixer, Marqus Blakely. Sorry, but that was not cool. Not cool at all.

I know that when it comes to basketball games, heckling is something that will always be there. It has to be there. It is such a huge part of being a fan. You can even ask my uncle.

But, there are lines that should not be crossed, and racism is one of them. We Filipinos go irate on social media sites when someone says one bad remark about our country. We defend our land and our people whenever someone says anything remotely offensive about it. So, in return, we should not be making any racist remarks towards anyone else.

I am not generalizing the Petron Blaze Boosters fans. I am 100% sure that it was not all of them in the Coliseum that were throwing out those kinds of remarks. But, there were those that did. And oh boy, did it make me cringe in my seat when I was hearing it. And I was not the only one. Twitter was ablaze with people that could hear it as well.

I know that the chant was probably not done with intent to be racist. It could’ve been started out of good, clean fun. But, like Mico Halili said in his blog entry, whether intentional or not, racism is not something that can or should be taken lightly. Luckily, members of the Beermen Blazing Clan, one of the groups of Petron fans, issued an apology for the offensive chants.

It takes a lot to admit your mistakes. Hats off to their members for taking a bit of the responsibility. Here is to having a great remainder of the series!

Photo by Paolo Papa of InterAKTV

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