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| As the Baterbonia Family says their final goodbye to their hardcourt hero, Rene, the call for more preventive measures for sports safety continues to grow stronger. Provincial Government of Agusan Del Sur |
LONDON—There is a rhythm we have come to know too well in Philippine sports.
Something terrible happens.
Shock sets in.
Statements are released, investigations are promised, and lessons will be learned.
Then, as time passes, the urgency fades.
Recommendations sit unread.
The system quietly resets until the next tragedy arrives and the cycle begins again.
The deaths of Ateneo student-athletes Rene Baterbonia and Divine Adili have brought us back to this familiar, painful place.
Once again, we are asking what went wrong.
Once again, we are promising change, and I find myself asking a quieter question: what would it take to have these conversations before a tragedy occurs, rather than after?
It is not that people do not care.
In my experience, the will to do right by athletes is almost always present.
Coaches, administrators, and institutions genuinely want our athletes to be safe.
The gap lies elsewhere.
In many cases, the default approach to sports safety has been reactive, not because anyone chose it deliberately, but because that has long been the path of least resistance.
It is easier to respond to a visible crisis than to invest in prevention when the danger still feels distant.
I understand how that happens.
I have lived inside those systems.
When resources are thin, when schedules are packed, when the pressure to perform is relentless, safety planning can slip down the priority list.
It is rarely malicious.
It is the quiet drift of good intentions overtaken by immediate demands, but understanding how it happens does not mean accepting that it must continue.
When I was with the Games and Amusements Board, working on the health and safety protocols that allowed professional sports to resume during the pandemic, we were given an unusual gift: clarity.
The threat was visible, the timeline was urgent, and no one could pretend otherwise.
That clarity forced the system to act.
We built bubbles.
We trained safety officers.
We embedded medical oversight.
We created reporting lines.
We did the work because the risk was right in front of us, and the alternative was unthinkable.
What has stayed with me since is a simple realization: the same level of care we summoned for COVID-19 can and should exist for every training session, every team trip, every environment where young people are placed under institutional care.
The risks may look different, but they are no less real.
The difference is that we have not yet made them visible enough to act on them early.
A proactive approach to sports safety is not complicated in concept, though it takes commitment in practice.
It means assessing risks before activities, not only reviewing them after.
It means equipping coaches with training on duty of care, emergency response, and mental health before they step into their roles.
It means building safeguarding structures that are independent enough to ask hard questions when something feels off.
It means fostering environments where athletes, coaches, and staff can raise concerns without fear.
It means weaving safety into the daily rhythm of sport, not treating it as a one-time briefing or a form to sign.
These are not radical ideas.
In many fields, they are standard.
The opportunity before Philippine sports now is to close that gap, not out of guilt or blame, but out of a shared commitment to protect the people who make sport possible.
I think about Rene and Divine.
I think about every athlete who left for training and never came home, and I think about all the moments, long before those tragedies, when a different decision might have made the difference.
We cannot change what has already been lost, but we can honour those we have lost by building something better for those who come next.
That means moving, as a sports community, from a rhythm of reaction to a rhythm of prevention.
Not because we are being watched, not because a crisis has forced our hand, but because we have decided, together, that the safety of our athletes will not wait for another heartbreak.
That is the kind of legacy that heals, and it is within reach.
(Editor's Note: As of posting, the remains of Baterbonia were already buried in his hometown of Talacogon, Agusan Del Sur, while those of Adili are being flown to his native country of Nigeria, where he will be buried as well.)
The views and opinions of the writer do not necessarily reflect those of Dugout Philippines.
