The crowds that trooped to Rene Clert “Bobet” Baterbonia’s wakes at the Ateneo de Davao University’s (AdDu) Christ the King Chapel and at the Talacogon Municipal Evacuation Center and Gymnasium—the ones who lined the streets as his hearse passed from AdDU to Talacogon, then to the Talacogon Municipal Memorial Park—showed how the Pinoy honors his basketball MVP.
But after the burial, the silence sets in.
For his family, that silence is a home that feels too big now. One less plate at the table. No more video calls after practice. No more chances for Bobet to come home with another trophy and medal for his mom’s shelf, another story from a game won or lost. No more of the small, ordinary moments that become everything when they’re gone.
Death is absolute. And for those left behind, it leaves questions whose answers are not enough to ease the pain.
Bobet was eighteen. Eighteen years that should have stretched into college graduation, into starting his own family, into a basketball career that felt, to so many of us, written in the stars. Instead, his family is left to process grief and face the long and treacherous road of demanding truth about how he and Divine Adili drowned during the Ateneo Blue Eagles’ team-building in Dipaculao, Aurora.
Ateneo de Manila University gave his family a Blue Eagles jersey, signed by the team—players, coaches, staff. His mom Rovelyn placed it in his coffin. And as she has been asking since that day that her son and Adili died, she wants what every mother deserves: the truth about her son’s last hours. In Bisaya, there’s a word for a mother’s grief that demands to be heard: “tunglo.” Not a curse, but a cry that those responsible cannot ignore. The weight of that is heavy on everyone whose name is on that jersey.
For his former teammates in Davao and Agusan del Sur, they were looking forward to watching Bobet play for the Ateneo Blue Eagles at the University Athletic Association of the Philippines’ games and even the Philippine Basketball Association, and to meet him during reunions when he’s on vacation from ADMU. But they now have one less friend to train and celebrate championships with, to lean on after a loss, and to dream with about the future they all thought they’d share on the court.
For his fans, the court feels emptier without his dunks, his rebounds. They’ll keep watching his videos, passing around photos, measuring the player he was against the player he could have been. That’s how we keep our MVPs alive.
And for the rest of us, “moving on” isn’t so simple. Because the questions don’t get buried. There are investigations into the drownings of Baterbonia and Adili. There are other families now asking the same questions after shootings and stabbings at other schools. There are Senate hearings on flood control scams, and an impeachment. And there’s the volatile Senate presidency.
But before we get distracted by all that noise, we owe it to Bobet—and to every kid whose life ended too soon on a school’s watch—to be vigilant. They, their loved ones, and the Pinoy deserve to know the truth. Justice is a promise. And it’s long overdue.
