Roy Sy (People 2011: Week 2)

Author's note: For 2011, I have decided to write about certain people in my life that have touched me during those times. These people, I may have interacted during that week or not, but surely I have remembered them. This is my response to a call to be always grateful at all times.

Roy Sy

Roy is an alumnus of De La Salle Canlubang (DLSC), and is the de facto coach/business manager of the DLSC Typhoons - their local Ultimate team which was originally put up by him and their alumni association. (Roy, if you are reading this, I don't know if it's de facto, or you really have a formal appointment. To everyone else, look up for Ultimate frisbee for the use of the word ultimate in this entry and coming entries, as I am into that sport).

His work in his team is pretty much the same as mine in my local team, the Makiling Ultimate Club (MUC), the organization that I founded with other UPLB alumni and students who are in love with the sport. We organize our teams for trainings, pick-ups (an anyone-may-play game during afternoons or mornings - this is an Ultimate term), etc. The first time that we have met was March last year in their 1st ever Disc Festival; we we're not even MUC yet by then, but that particular mini-tournament inspired us to make our rag-tag team more formal, which led us to where we are now, a recognized organization in the university.

After that mini-tourn, I met him in two of the several hat tournaments I attended last year: in UP Diliman for the DUO hat and at DLS Dasmariñas' LUgawan hat. A hat is a tournament where people come in as individuals and not as a team. Players are shuffled into separate teams, which is quite an experience really, as you are tested to adapt to the playing skills and habits of your "instant" teammates. Typhoons organized a hat last December, but I was not able to attend as I opted to go to a concurrent hat tournament in the north that day.

The thing with hat tournaments is that it does not require heavy work from me and Roy as we just need to urge people from our respective teams to come to those events. We go, play, and enjoy. So easy breezy for us, that is until early this year as news circulated in the Ultimate community about the upcoming New Year's League - a six week team competition which is one of the yearly leagues organized by the Philippine Ultimate Association (PUA).

Both Typhoons and MUC were not really sure of joining the league. Not really sure bordering on not joining. We had six people who were really eager to join, and they had five. One week before the deadline of bids, I contacted him and opened the idea of a merger. It went smoothly actually. We had the numbers; we were actually joining the league! The event that followed two days before (Jan 12) the deadline (Jan 14) made our merger a failure, but a success for both teams.

It was finalized that the league venue would be Nuvali. More people from both our teams got interested as the venue was accessible to both teams. Venue was one of the inhibitions of my teammates as a 6 weekend Manila trip would be a burden, especially to members who are yet students. As I am writing this, our team size has already ballooned to 28! Our merged team had to split, but it was not due to anything bad.

I remember the day after the deadline of bids, I told Roy I was in cloud nine. Haha. Our excitement was just overflowing that our respective home teams would finally have their PUA league birth. We were also very pleased about how we worked with each other, our correspondence was what Ultimate about - Spirit of the Game® on and off-court. And to make things even more exciting, our teams will see action and will eventually meet in the league as competitors because we are in the same pool!

Diana Emlano (People 2011: Week 1)

Author's note: For 2011, I have decided to write about certain people in my life that have touched me during those times. These people, I may have interacted during that week or not, but surely I have remembered them. This is my response to a call to be always grateful at all times.

Diana Emlano (Ms. D)

I met Ms D during our Faculty Follies production. For those who are not from LB, Follies is a yearly show in the university where colleges compete with witty scripts, "shocking" performances, anything goes. Students usually look forward to it to see their professors in scenes that they will never see inside their classrooms.

I remember, Sir Ron (one of the production's directors) and I (I was production manager) had a great problem in finding one of the main characters, the role of "Beera". We needed someone "fashionista", someone "palaban", someone who can really act. It was then that Sir Ron suggested Ms D. Being a veteran of the stage (she appeared in the Icebag series, and many other productions), and being a member of the Department of Humanities faculty teaching Speech Communication classes, we knew she'd be perfect.

And perfect she was. She made "her" colony united on and off stage (here's a link of our college's presentation by the way). She even won the best supporting actress role for her performance. She earned this even when she had difficulty during the middle of our act when she left the stage very shortly and asked water from me. I remember that time. When we were finished and was back at our dressing room, we were puzzled that a stage veteran like her who is used in being at the stage for hours would be tired at the ten minute mark of our act. Of course, we will forget this as we would be overcome by our college's defeat in the final rankings and also, our joy for our jewel, Ms D for winning her award. One week after our performance, together with the rest of the cast and crew, we even had a "victory" party at the night out district near the university.

Fast forward to January 5, 2011, I visited Ms D with Sir Koy at the Philippine General Hospital to donate blood. She was rushed there Jan 3 and it was not clear to me what she needed: RBC, WBC, Hemoglobin. We just rushed there because Sir Ron posted in our production cast and crew's Facebook group page that she was indeed rushed to PGH because of leukemia. The following day, her birthday, the doctors took some bone marrow sample and we are waiting for the results.

For more details regarding Ms D's battle, please visit her support group page in Facebook: Dee Army/ Pink Army. We are praying that it is not leukemia, though the odds are against us. I'm just set aback whenever I see Ms D's smile above and the battle that she's into right now. But I know she can win this, and we are here by her side to back her up.