March 16 - 31, 2018
PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY
29
Remembering
Pepe Chavez
The first time this OUTSIDER met
Pepe Chavez was during the 1973 re-
vival of the annual summer spectacle
called Tour of Luzon. The Tour had
been suspended for four year and it
needed he intervention of then Presi-
dent Marcos to summon anew the
“boys of Summer”, they who pos-
sessed a Porsche for a pair f legs and
a mahogany for a body to race from
Tacloban City, hometown of First Lady
Imelda Marcos to Laoag City, fittingly
dubbed “Tale of Two Cities.”
It was also my first time cover-
ing a multi-stage bikathon as sports
editor of the government-run Philip-
pine News Agency and although I was
properly briefed by self-study on how
to do the job, I was still ignorant of
some of the intricacies attached to it.
The first of the scheduled 13-stage
classic had just been completed and
every media men, including myself,
were rushing to the winners for inter-
view on how the race went on. Before
reaching my subjects, I felt somebody
holding my hands refraining me from
pursuing my purpose.
“Ako si Pepe Chavez, Kilala kita,
kumakarera ka din sa Maynila dati, di
ba? he asked in reference to the days
way back when I was still a newspaper
carrier delivering subscription copies
of the Manila Time and its afternoon
paper the, Daily Mirror, daily and on
weekends taking part in weekly races
along with fellow newsboys.
“Pagod a yang mga yan (riders)
at wala kang makukuhang matinong
Codinera’s ...
to their 14th crown since assuming
the mentoring job from Codinera in
2003. She started her coaching by
winning five of her first six assign-
ments, including a four-peat from
2003 to 2007.
Rhe Lady Falcons’ title victory
this season was their eighth straight
breaking he previous seven-peat feat
of he now inactive Manila Central Uni-
versity.
More significantly, the Falcons’
and their lady counterparts’ double
jewel goes into the books as Adam-
son’s third since Codinera and his
boys and girls gave the school it first
in 1987. They attained the rare feat
again in the 2008-2009 seasons.
Codinera first rose into interna-
tional fame when he belted out seven
doubles in three games, including one
against the eventual champion United
States during the Second Men’s World
Softball Championship in Oklahoma
that earned for him and the country a
page in the Guinness Book of World
Records, the first Filipino athlete to
nave been so honored.
He is to be remembered, too, as
the guy who cracked a grand slam
home run in the Philippines’ dramatic
6-0 conquest of Mexico during the
impormasyon sa kanila, “he said.
“Tngnan mo sa mga dyaryo bukas,
iba‘t-iba ang statement nila. Malilito
pa ang mga reader mo at hindi ka nila
paniniwalaan.”
“Race marshal ako at nakita ko
ang karera at kung paano nagtapos.
Ikukuwento ko na lang sa yo. At pag-
katapos nila