Two promising Ateneo de Manila University basketball players are dead after a team-building trip turned deadly. Rene Clert Baterbonia, 6'4, and Chukwuemeka Divine Adili, 6'10, drowned on June 8 in Dipaculao, Aurora. The tragedy has left their families shattered — and raised serious questions about the university's handling of the crisis.
Divine Adili, whose Igbo name Chukwuemeka means "God has done great things," was the eldest of four children and the family's breadwinner. He came from southeastern Nigeria and dreamed of becoming his own man. Bobet Baterbonia was the son of fish vendors from Talacogon, Agusan del Sur, and the second of seven children. He was a beneficiary of the government's 4Ps program for the poorest families. Both had just started their journey with the Ateneo Blue Eagles, hoping to use basketball as a springboard to a professional career.
According to a Rappler investigation by an Ateneo alumna and Philosophy graduate who taught at the university, the drowning happened during a team-building activity on June 8. Survivors Kieffer Alas and Sam Reyes recounted how the coaching staff left them at the mercy of unpredictable waters — despite a deadly magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck off Sarangani that same morning. Many of the players didn't know how to swim. There was no lifeguard on duty.
"No one meant intentional harm," the alumna wrote. "But no one also foresaw the danger that a seemingly faraway quake might bring. Or what the waves of the Pacific Ocean in Aurora could claim as their own."
What followed the tragedy, she said, was even worse. The university went silent. Days passed with no human voice or face from Ateneo's leadership. Instead, cold, corporate-style statements appeared — one signed by university president Fr. Bobby Yap, who admitted he'd asked head coach Tab Baldwin not to speak publicly.
The alumna described the response as "opaqueness instead of transparency," "too much control, bordering on censorship," and a vacuum of leadership that allowed lies to spread on social media.
"The Ateneo I know would've been more agile, authentic in showing compassion and empathy," she wrote. "It would've been more truthful early on."
Investigations are ongoing. But for the families of Divine and Bobet, no investigation can bring back their sons. Divine's mother now faces life without her breadwinner. Bobet's parents, who sold fish to send him to school, must bury their dream.
"How could you lose a son entrusted to an institution that rekindled hope for a brighter and better future not only for himself, but also for his family?"
For now, the silence speaks louder than any motto.