The Philippine elite have perfected a particularly repulsive habit: they claim every triumph as their own, then suddenly discover legal technicalities when accountability comes knocking.
Ateneo’s treatment of Tab Baldwin appears to follow that familiar elite playbook. During the championship years, he was never presented as some distant “consultant.” The university publicly embraced him as its head coach, credited him with building the basketball program, praised his role in its success, renewed his contract with institutional fanfare, and celebrated the titles won under his leadership. His achievements were woven into the Ateneo identity whenever they enhanced the school’s prestige.
Now that serious questions are being raised, Ateneo would have the public believe that he was merely an outside contractor—useful enough to glorify, but apparently not close enough to acknowledge when responsibility becomes inconvenient.
That is not moral leadership. It is institutional cowardice dressed in legal language.
For ordinary Filipinos like me, this spectacle is painfully recognizable. The privileged collect the trophies, the influence, and the money. The poor collect the consequences. When lives are lost, the powerful summon lawyers, redefine relationships, and wash their hands with carefully chosen words.
The hypocrisy becomes even more offensive because Ateneo markets itself as a Catholic institution supposedly guided by compassion, justice, and service. But what is the value of those teachings when they disappear at the first threat of liability? Faith becomes nothing more than branding when mercy is preached in classrooms but accountability is avoided in boardrooms.
It is difficult not to ask whether the response would have been different had the victims carried surnames associated with wealth, influence, or political power. Perhaps then there would have been less semantic gymnastics and more urgency.
I expected better from Ateneo. That may have been my mistake. Beneath the polished language of excellence and social justice lies the same elite instinct that has poisoned Philippine society for generations: protect the institution, preserve the prestige, and let those with less power bear the cost.