RIVERMAN’S VISTA | Panaghoy, Amping, Puhon: A Mindanao Story, A Philippine Tragedy

QUEZON CITY (MindaNews / 11 June) — Let me begin with what must be said first: we do not know all the facts yet. That is not a throwaway caveat. It is the central problem of this moment, and it is the obligation that now rests, heavily and unavoidably, on the Ateneo de Manila University.

Rene Baterbonia, nineteen years old, the pride of Talacogon, Agusan del Sur, and the Palarong Pambansa’s Most Valuable Player who led the Davao Region to a national championship, drowned on June 8 in the waters off Dipaculao, Aurora, during what the university has called a team building activity of its men’s basketball team. He died alongside his teammate Divine Adili, a young Nigerian who had come halfway around the world to study and play in this country.

Rene had moved into the Loyola Heights campus only four days earlier.

We do know one fact: two young men are dead.

A quick investigation

The facts of how and why must be determined as quickly as possible, and Ateneo, my university, the institution I have served and loved (and continue to love and serve) for decades, must make sure that every detail is disclosed. Not the details it is comfortable disclosing.

Every detail. That means the itinerary of the trip, who approved it, what the activity in the water actually was, what the players were told, and what the resort told the coaches. It also means the safety measures in place, what happened minute by minute from the time the team entered the sea to the time the boys were pulled out, and how and when the families were informed.

Rene’s mother, Rovelyn, has said publicly that the explanations given to her so far are incomplete. In her anguish, while still in transit to Manila, she revealed that she had not even seen her son’s body, and that no picture or video had been given to her. A grieving mother from Agusan del Sur should not have to extract the truth from one of the wealthiest and most powerful educational institutions in the Philippines. The truth, and respect, should be running toward her.

Part of that truth must come from the autopsies, and their importance cannot be overstated. Speculation has spread on social media about weights attached to the bodies and about bruises, and the police have responded that the post mortem examination showed asphyxia by drowning, that no bruises were noted, and that rescuers found no weights or foreign objects on the remains. Those findings may well be correct, but the family has requested its own autopsy on Rene, and rightly so.

A thorough and independent forensic examination is the only way to definitively rule out the use of weights, to determine the cause of any bruises or marks on the bodies, and to put the darkest speculations to rest or to confirm them. The complete results must be shared with the families first and fully, because nothing feeds doubt like findings announced to the press before they are explained to a mother.

Let the players speak.

The key to the truth lies with the players, current and past. The young men who were in the water with Rene and Divine know what happened. They know what the activity was, whether it was framed as team building or conditioning or initiation, whether anyone hesitated, and whether anyone was made to feel that hesitation was not an option.

They are traumatized, and police have reported that they were in shock and could not yet give statements. They must be given care, counseling, and time.

But they must also be given something else: the assurance, explicit and institutional, that they may speak candidly and truthfully without fear for their scholarships, their playing time, their standing in the program, or their place in the university. Any student athlete in this country knows how much power a coaching staff and an athletic program hold over his future.

If Ateneo is serious about the truth, it must formally guarantee that no player will suffer any consequence for telling investigators, and the families, exactly what he saw.

When Rovelyn met her son’s teammates, she spoke to them words that should pierce every conscience: “Mahirap kami pero malaki ang respeto namin. Sana maintindihan niyo.” We are poor, she told them, but our dignity is great, and I hope you understand. There is no truer summary of what is at stake.

The only answer worthy of that dignity is the whole truth, told to her face by the young men who were there.

Former players matter too. They can tell us whether this trip to the Aurora coast was a tradition, what it involved in past years, whether the sea activity was a fixture, and how it was conducted. Police have already noted that the team had gone to this same resort for years. The history of the practice is part of the story.

Then the coaching staff must speak, all of them, not just the two who have so far given statements to the police. The resort staff should also be interviewed: the lifeguard, the front desk, and the management who reportedly briefed the team on sea conditions and safe areas upon arrival.

What exactly were the coaches told? What did they do with that information? What was the rationale for the activities conducted? Why were the resort staff asked to stay away from the group, as has been reported?

The legal questions

Let me be a lawyer for a moment, because the public conversation has been framed wrongly. The police have called the drownings a natural accident with no foul play, and many have treated that as the end of the matter. It is not.

But the question is not whether this was an accident, since almost no one believes the coaches intended harm. The questions that the law actually asks are different ones.

First, does what happened constitute hazing under the law? Republic Act No. 11053, the Anti Hazing Act as amended, defines hazing broadly. It covers physical activities required of a recruit or member as a prerequisite for admission or continued membership in an organization, when those activities place the person at risk of physical harm, and it expressly covers school-sanctioned organizations.

A team building exercise that sends basketball players, not swimmers, into the open sea of the Aurora coast, days after a rookie’s arrival, is exactly the kind of activity whose legal character must be examined, not assumed. If it was hazing within the meaning of the statute, liability is severe and extends beyond those physically present.

Second, even if it was not hazing, was there simple or reckless imprudence under Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code? Imprudence resulting in homicide does not require intent. It requires only a voluntary act done without the precaution that the circumstances demanded. And here the circumstances demanded a great deal.

Third, there is the civil law question. Under our Civil Code, the default standard of care is that of a good father of a family, the bonus pater familias. Under the Family Code, schools, administrators, and teachers exercise special parental authority over students in their custody, and our jurisprudence has consistently held schools responsible for the safety of students in activities they organize, on or off campus.

Rene was nineteen, no longer a minor, but he was a scholar recruit entirely within the custody, direction, and control of the program, in a place he had never been, doing an activity he did not design.

Did the coaches act as a good father of a family would?

I would go further.

Given the reputation of Baler and the Aurora coastline, waters famous precisely because their waves are powerful enough to surf, waters where drownings are not unheard of, ordinary diligence was arguably not enough. The situation called for extraordinary diligence: lifeguards on dedicated watch, flotation equipment, a swim skills assessment, a hard look at the sea that day, and the humility to cancel.

Ironically for a victim from Mindanao, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake had struck our island only hours before. Was anyone asking whether the sea should be entered at all?

These questions have answers. The investigation by the police, by the Philippine Sports Commission’s multi stakeholder body, by the Commission on Higher Education if it steps in, and by Ateneo itself must answer them publicly.

And here is my concrete recommendation: Ateneo should act immediately with administrative actions and policy decisions once it determines the facts through its own internal inquiry, and it should not wait for the findings of the police, the NBI, or the prosecutors.

The criminal process moves on its own timeline and answers its own questions, but the university’s duty to its students is governed by a different and more demanding standard, and it can act now.

If its own fact finding shows lapses in judgment or supervision, the appropriate personnel actions should follow without delay. If its protocols for off campus activities, water activities, parental notification, and risk assessment were inadequate or simply absent, new policies should be issued at once, for every team and every organization, before another bus leaves the campus.

Waiting for the prosecutors before doing what is administratively right would itself be a choice, and the wrong one.

I say this with sorrow rather than anger: right now, Ateneo is losing the narrative battle. It is losing because what the public sees looks like corporate damage control rather than Ignatian accountability. The statements have been polished and prayerful, and the university president – my classmate Fr. Bobby Yap SJ – met the family at the funeral chapel. These gestures matter.

But the family says it has not been told what happened, the mother learned details in fragments, and no timeline has been published. I agree that sorry does not cut it here. It can even be an insult.

The phrase team building itself has become contested. Rovelyn Baterbonia says her son asked permission for a week of training in Baler, which is not the same thing. When an institution’s language is more careful than its disclosure is complete, people notice. Students notice, and the Sanggunian has already called for transparency and accountability.

Let me be clear that I do not question the sincerity of the leaders and administrators of Ateneo de Manila, many of whom I know personally as good and kind people, but I hope they understand that these questions have to be asked.

This is why many of us Ateneans, whose love for the school we chose cannot be doubted, are speaking out. I hope we are not ostracized and marginalized because of this.

Magis and cura personalis

Mindanao notices what happened in Aurora, as there are three Ateneos (Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Zamboanga) and several Jesuit parishes and parochial schools in our island. I suppose Ateneo de Naga is also concerned.

We are all invested in this tragedy.

The Jesuits taught generations of us that the magis means more: more generosity, more honesty, more courage than the minimum required. The minimum required here is what the lawyers and communications consultants are presumably advising, which is to say little, admit nothing, and wait for the investigations. That is the corporate way of doing things, not the Ignatian approach.

The magis is the opposite. It means opening the books, publishing the timeline, waiving the institutional defensiveness, letting the players speak, and telling two grieving families everything, first and fully, before any press release. An institution that forms men and women for others cannot respond to the death of two of its sons as if it were managing a brand.

The same Jesuit tradition gave us cura personalis, care for the whole person, and it applies here with painful precision. Cura personalis means that Rene and Divine were never merely recruits or assets of a basketball program; they were whole persons entrusted to the university, with bodies to be kept safe, fears to be listened to, and families behind them who were part of who they were.

It means the surviving players must be cared for not only with counseling but with the freedom to speak their truth, because carrying a secret is its own wound.

It means Rovelyn Baterbonia, her husband, and other children and the Adili family in Nigeria are owed the same personal, attentive, unhurried care that the university promises every student in its viewbooks.

A school that truly practices cura personalis does not make a grieving mother wait for answers; it sits with her, weeps with her, and tells her everything.

Let me add one more recommendation: at the right time, the families of Rene and Divine should be substantially compensated, and Ateneo should offer this on its own initiative. They should not be made to wait for civil cases to be filed, for years of litigation, for lawyers’ demands and counteroffers, before they receive what justice and decency require.

To force a fish vendor’s family from Talacogon and a family in Nigeria into our slow and expensive courts, against an institution with every legal resource at its disposal, would be so unjust that it shames the very idea of justice. It would be the opposite of magis and the opposite of cura personalis.

Compensation can never replace a son, but offered freely, generously, and without being compelled, it becomes an act of accountability and care rather than a settlement extracted by force.

The bigger picture

And now let me write as a Mindanawon, because beneath the legal questions sits an older and sadder Philippine story.

There is a reason why what happened in Baler has pushed the Senate power struggle, Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial, and yes even the earthquake in Southern Mindanao out of the limelight. This is not just a human interest story of one boy and his family. This is not just the usual news cycle. It is the story of an island and our country.

Rene Baterbonia’s path is one that thousands of families in Mindanao will recognize instantly. He was a boy from Talacogon, a small town along the Agusan River, far from everything the capital takes for granted. His was a family of modest means that poured what little it had into a son’s gift, because in this country, a boy who stands six foot four and can play is carrying not just a ball but a household’s future.

He starred for Ateneo de Davao and became the best high school player in the land. He won a national title for his region. Then he did what Mindanao’s brightest have always had to do: he got on a plane to Manila, because the opportunities, the league, the exposure, the scholarship, and the pathway to the professional ranks are all there, never (in Mindanao).

Before he flew out on June 4, he reportedly told his Davao coach that he would not come back for about five years, “kay gusto nako modato,” because he wanted to become rich first and lift his family out of poverty. Those were among his parting words, the promise of a nineteen year old who carried his whole family’s future, and he never got the chance to keep it.

But Ateneo de Davao was his home. There they called him Bobet, and there its president, Fr. Karel San Juan, SJ, mourned him as one of their own, remembering not only his skill but his humility, his quiet leadership, and his genuine kindness.

They called him their Gentle Giant, an MVP on and off the court. When the news broke, the school did not stop at a statement; it sent its people to Manila to accompany the family in their grief. Fr. Karel came too with Fr. Antonio Basilio SJ, the superior of the Jesuits in Ateneo de Davao.

And on Friday, June 12, according to reports, his home will welcome him back. A mass for the souls of Rene and Divine will be offered at ten in the morning at the Senior High School Chapel, and Rene’s remains will be brought to Ateneo de Davao for a day of his wake. His classmates, teachers, teammates, and supporters will be able to visit, pray, and honor his memory in the place where he became who he was. He left Davao as its brightest hope, and he comes home as its beloved son.

That homecoming, tender and terrible at once, tells us where this story truly belongs.

Divine will not be brought to Davao. At his family’s request, his remains will make a far longer journey home, across the ocean to Nigeria, to a mother and father who entrusted their son to the Philippines and will receive him in a casket. We should not let his name become a footnote to Rene’s story.

Two families, one in Agusan del Sur and one in Nigeria, are now bound by the same grief and owed the same truth.

Rene’s mother said it plainly, in words that should haunt every official in Philippine sports and education. We are poor, she said, and if I had known about that kind of training, I would never have allowed it. Later, in her grief, she spoke an even sharper truth: that being poor means you cannot simply travel to wherever the answers are, and you do not even know whose door to knock on.

That is the inequality at the heart of this tragedy. It is not only that wealth is concentrated in the capital. It is that our children must be sent there, young and alone, into institutions and systems where their families have no presence, no information, and no power. The contract is implicit but absolute: we give you our son, and you keep him safe.

When that trust is broken, the distance between a mother in Agusan del Sur and a boardroom in Quezon City becomes a chasm, and the same chasm exists for Divine Adili’s family, waiting in Nigeria for a son’s body to come home.

Rene was supposed to be a different kind of Mindanao story, the good kind, the kind we tell our young people. Work hard, stay humble, and the country will make room for you. Instead, four days into that promise, he was dead in the sea off a coast he had never seen, and his mother flew to Manila not for a championship but for a wake.

We owe him, and Divine, and their families, the whole truth, told quickly and told completely. We owe their teammates the freedom to tell it. We owe the law its rigorous questions about hazing, imprudence, and diligence, answered without fear or favor toward any institution, however beloved. And we owe Mindanao’s children something larger still: a country where their dreams do not require so much risk, so much distance, and so much trust in people who may not deserve it.

Panaghoy, Amping, Puhon

Let me end with three words that all Mindanawons use, words that carry what no legal analysis can. They are panaghoy, amping, and puhon. Together they trace the journey we are now on as a people: from grief, to care for one another, to hope.

Panaghoy is lamentation, the cry that rises when loss is too heavy for ordinary speech. We heard it in the wailing of Rovelyn Baterbonia at the airport and at her son’s wake, asking the one question that matters: why?

We will hear it again when Rene is buried in his hometown of Talacogon, when the Agusan River receives back one of its own.

We will hear it in Davao on Friday.

Panaghoy is not weakness and it is not noise. It is the truth of the heart demanding the truth of the facts, and it must not be silenced or managed.

Amping is what we say when we send someone off: take care. It is care for one another made into a daily word, and in that sense it is solidarity.

We will see it in Ateneo de Davao on Friday, as Bobet is waked in the school that formed him, surrounded by classmates, teachers, and teammates who will hold his family up.

And it is what we hope to see more of from Ateneo de Manila, once it lets go of the damage control approach and chooses instead to accompany, to disclose, and to embrace two grieving families without reservation.

Amping is what was owed to Rene and Divine in the waters of Dipaculao, and it is what is owed now to everyone they left behind.

Puhon is the most Mindanawon word of all, an expression of hope that means someday, God willing.

Puhon, we trust that Rene is in heaven, welcomed by the God he prayed to before every game.

Puhon, good people and my beloved Ateneo de Manila will make sure Rene’s family is lifted from poverty, as he was hoping to do with his own hands and his own gift.

Puhon, our society will be better because of this, with real safeguards for student athletes, real accountability for institutions, and real respect for the families of the poor.

Puhon, this will never happen again.

A Mindanao story. A Philippine tragedy. Let it at least become a Philippine reckoning. Puhon.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Dean Antonio Gabriel La Viña is a professor of law, philosophy, politics and governance in several universities, including in Mindanao. He has been a human rights lawyer for 36 years. He is managing partner of La Viña Zarate and Associates, a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Chair of the Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy Department of the Philippine Judicial Academy, founding president of the Movement Against Disinformation, and founding chair of the Mindanao Climate Justice Resource Facility and the Mindanao Center for Scholarships, Sports, and Spirituality.)