Mindanao Basketball Star Rene Baterbonia's Dream Cut Short

He was called Bobet at home, a nickname as humble as the riverside barangay of Talocogon in Agusan del Sur where he grew up. But Rene Baterbonia carried a dream that was anything but small, a dream that stretched from the fish stalls where his parents sold their catch all the way to the bright courts of the UAAP and, perhaps, the PBA.

That dream died with him on the afternoon of June 8, when the 18-year-old and his Nigerian teammate Divine Adili drowned during a team-building activity in Dipaculao, Aurora. The tragedy came barely four days after his high school coach had dropped him off at the Ateneo de Manila campus in Katipunan, Quezon City, where Baterbonia was set to suit up for the Blue Eagles.

A Son of Mindanao, A Son of the 4Ps

Baterbonia was the second oldest of seven siblings, born to fish vendors who scraped by in a province where opportunity does not come knocking twice. He was a 4Ps Monitored Child and Student Athlete, one of the millions of Filipino households whose lives have been steadied by the government's Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.

It is a detail that cannot be glossed over. For a family like the Baterbonias, the program was not mere policy; it was the floor beneath their feet. And Rene knew that basketball could be the ladder.