This is a story of contrasts. Of how similar events can generate vastly different responses from the public at large and equally different outcomes for the players.
Carlos Yulo won two gold medals in the recent Olympic in Paris in 2024. This bought attention, honor and received well-deserved recognition from the City of Manila, Congress, Senate, multinational corporations and even the Office of the President along with material awards.
Meanwhile Christopher Fadriga of Negros Occidental also won a gold medal in Paris in 2021 in the International Competition on Cacao beans, his entry Criollo Cacao entry, a rare and almost extinct variety, which was brought to the Philippines during the Galleon Trade between Mexico and Philippines. He was largely unnoticed in his own country but got the recognition his achievement deserved by the international community, offers of employment, visitors from Japan and Europe and invitations to share his expertise.
Both individuals possessed a passion in their areas of interest, worked hard and with discipline, overcame obstacles to climb to the top of their fields.
Prior to his winning Carlos’s talent was largely unnoticed and he had to train in Japan for seven years with a Japanese coach motivated only by a burning desire to succeed and reach the top of his field. Similarly, Chris was also discovered by the Japanese who personally visited him and supported him. Both would have gone unnoticed if not for this outside intervention.
Chris, also motivated by a burning desire to succeed diligently researched and experimented with the Criollo variety of cacao to become a world authority in the field. This variety of cacao is what the Aztec offers to their gods, which means that they offer the best variety. Upon further research Chris Fadriga discovered and verified by sophisticated testing methods that we still have remnants of the original strain here in Philippines, which we aptly called native and nature in its wisdom had preserved unchanged for us over the centuries.
Both these winners participated in regional competitions, moved on the national level and finally reached the international stage.
This raises an interesting question of our nation’s psyche. Why the difference of response? Sponsorships, money, condos, name and fame for one and a footnote on the last page for the other. Why could foreigners see what we could not see and have the opposite response to these two events.
As I write this, Chris is in Turin, Italy presenting his discovery and the possibilities it holds, with a lot of people trying his chocolate creations.
This is in no way to diminish the achievements of Carlos but an opportunity to reexamine our response as a nation and underlying value system. It is time for us to wake up, circle the wagons and protect yet another national treasure from being hijacked by outsiders.
It is time to be proud and think big. We were the only nation outside the amazon basin to be blessed with this brown gold and our priority should be in preserving and strengthening our presence on the world cacao map.*