This is it!

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BY LUIS BUENAFLOR JR.
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January 12, 2018
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“The waiting is over, no room to run

No way to hide

No time for wonderin’ why

It’s here, the moment is now, about to decide

Let ‘em believe

Leave ‘em behind

But keep me near in your heart

Know whatever you do

I’m here by your side

You say that maybe it’s over

Not if you don’t want it to be

For once in your life

Here’s your miracle

Stand up and fight”

– written and performed by: Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald

IF YOU think this is all about singer songwriter Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald, no it’s not, although moi loves their music. Maybe some other time we’ll talk about their kind of music.

This is about a first love but certainly not the carnal kind or about a woman. It’s about love for the beautiful game…football.

In these islands, Iloilo has always been synonymous with football. In fact the northern Iloilo town of Barotac Nuevo claims bragging rights as the cradle/home of Philippine football.

And rightly so as no other town, city or barangay in the entire country dared to dispute that claim.

As far as mioi can remember the country’s best footballers have always been Ilonggo. Who can forget Azkal’s star midfielder and scorer Chiefy Caligdong from Barotac Nuevo (although they say he is the last great Ilonggo footballer in the modern era) and current Philippine Football Federation president Mariano Araneta, himself a former national team player?

And then there’s the legendary Paulino Alcantara, the greatest player of the greatest football club in the world FC Barcelona and FIFA’s “Greatest Asian Footballer of All Time” who, of course, was an Ilonggo.

Paulino Alcantara holds FC Barcelona’s scoring record of 369 goals. He held this for 87 years until Lionel Messi broke it with only last year by scoring 370 goals.

After a long period of hiatus football came back with a vengeance to the consciousness of the Filipinos as the national team a.k.a. the “Azkals” started winning games and reaching the finals and semifinals of international football competitions. We’re not talking World Cup just yet here, just regional competitions.

Of course, it helps a lot that our current crop of footballers are good-looking mestizo hunks.

And the stage was set for the Philippines to finally have its very own fully professional football league:

The Philippines Football League (PFL) is a Filipino professional association football league, sanctioned by the Philippine Football Federation (PFF). It is the Philippines’ highest level of men’s club football, supplanting the United Football League, which was previously the de facto top-tier league in the country.

The PFL’s inaugural season was launched on April 21, 2017 with Ceres-Negros winning the championship in the league’s inaugural season.

From the look of things, football is back in the Philippines’ sporting landscape except for one very important piece that’s missing, and without this missing piece Philippine football is not complete.

In its inaugural season the Philippine Football League had eight teams each representing the major footballing cities in the country vying for the title.

The league had teams from the Ilocos Region, Southern Tagalog, Metro Manila, Cebu, and Mindanao.

Sadly, Iloilo, the unofficial but acknowledged cradle and home of Philippine football, chose to sit this one out, there was no team in the PFL representing Iloilo.

Paulino Alcantara must be spinning in his grave.

This is blasphemy in the highest order and demoralizing for the aspiring young footballers playing in the football pitch in the public plazas of Barotac Nuevo, Santa Barbara and La Paz.

It is so disheartening for any aspiring Ilonggo footballer and fan of the “beautiful game” to have no team to cheer and identify with in the Philippine Football League or PFL.

The closest there is for an Ilonggo football team is Ceres-Negros but they’re from Bacolod City, traditionally Iloilo’s main football rival so it does not really fill the longing for our very own football team in the PFL.

It looks like another season with no team representing Iloilo in the PFL until this happened just the other day: Kaya Futbol Club (Kaya FC), an association football club and a member of the national league, Philippine Football League or PFL, proposed a partnership with the Province of Iloilo, and base their football club at the Iloilo Sports Complex as its Home Stadium.

Kaya Futbol Club general manager Paul Tolentino together with players Shirmar Felongco and Joven Bedic, both from Iloilo, met with Iloilo governor Arthur Defensor, Provincial Administrator Raul Banias, Provincial Sports Consultant Pablito Araneta and lawyer Dennis Ventilacion and presented their proposal for this partnership.

With this meeting the first step was taken and it seems the draught is finally over. Will we finally cheer for Kaya-Iloilo in the 2018 PFL season?

For the uninitiated: Kaya Futbol Club-Makati (Tagalog pronunciation: [ˈkaja futbol klub]) is a Filipino professional association football club based in Makati City in the National Capital Region. They play in the Philippines Football League, the national domestic league of the Philippines. They previously played at the United Football League.

The name of the club comes from the Filipino word káya, which means “we can.” In Old Tagalog, the word is closely defined as susi ng kapatiran (key to brotherhood). Both of these definitions provide the basis for Kaya’s team spirit and vision as a club.

The club is owned by Santiago Araneta, the CEO and the owner of LBC Express. Kaya had their first major success in 2015, when they won the UFL Cup.

As a former footballer that played for school and Iloilo in four Regional and National PRISAAs moi has high hopes that this will come to pass for Iloilo football. (brotherlouie16@gmail.com)/PN
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