As a mom, you can’t even bear to look at the photos of the two fallen Ateneo basketball players, not even if and especially because they flood your feeds, photos of them agile, fit, young—and alive. As a mom of two boys yourself, you don’t want to put a face to the 19-year-old star basketball player from Agusan who embraced a life of promise in Manila, or to the student from Nigeria who moved here from halfway across the globe, again on the hope and promise of a new life, one fueled by their passion and talent. As a mom, you devote your life trying to give life to your son, or at the very least, be a vigilant witness to their life—never to their death. That’s why, along with the rest of the nation, we can’t even begin to fathom the pain, sorrow, and grief of the mother of Rene Baterbonia as she spoke on TV interviews and social media.
However, no sooner had Ateneo issued an official statement announcing the deaths and expressing condolences to the surviving kin, than social media boiled up with videos of Rene’s mom expressing her agony and just as strongly, her plaints about how she learned about the tragic news, how she didn’t know about her son’s “team building,” how their family of meager means was reportedly left to fend for itself—in short, the sorrow, down to the last painful detail, of a parent who has lost a child. It was a wail of pain that resonated in the digital space and into every parent’s heart.
Thereon, it was downhill for a revered institution that is Ateneo, its words simply swept away by the torrent of visuals and optics. In this era of video clips, reels, on-cam images, this must have become a harsh welcome-to-the-digital-age for the Ateneo’s comms team and officials. No matter the regularity of statements from the school—in rather long, overwrought prose that obscured the message—it was the images and reels posted by netizens that captured the collective mind and heart. The heart, especially.
There was (is) no spokesperson, no human face, no immediate human connection of empathy coming from the premier academic institution. Former columnist and grief counsellor Cathy Sanchez Babao, in her FB post, put it precisely: “In a crisis, people listen with their eyes….”
The rest of her post:
In a crisis, people listen with their eyes.
They watch who shows up.
Who makes the call.
Who sits beside the grieving.
Who stands in front of the community and says, “We are here.”
Press releases have their place. Facts matter. Accuracy matters.
But when tragedy strikes, people are looking for more than information.
They are looking for humanity.
A face.
A presence.
A leader willing to step forward and share in the weight of the moment.
Not because they have all the answers.
Not because they can make the pain disappear.
But because leadership is not simply about managing an institution.
It is about accompanying people through their darkest hours.
In Filipino culture, we understand this instinctively.
We show up at wakes.
We bring food.
We sit in silence when words are not enough.
We know that presence is its own form of comfort.
And sometimes, the most powerful message is not delivered through a carefully crafted statement.
It is delivered by a human being willing to stand before a grieving community and say:
“We mourn with you.”
Because in times of great sorrow, people may forget the exact words that were spoken.
But they will always remember who showed up.
No matter one’s crisis PR expertise, there is really no one-size-fits-all playbook for crisis management, but nonetheless, as Babao wrote, just show up, “they will always remember who showed up.” Anybody who has laid a loved one to rest knows that, and in this case, especially the parents of Baterbonia, and of Divine Adili, Nigeria’s son.
No words could make up for absence. Even if the institution wanted to avoid legal landmines, people expected on their screens a show of sincerity and compassion.
Unfortunately for Ateneo, it seems everyone has an intransigent view of what if and what should have been, and shared it on social media, but in the end it’s the heart that truly grieves that matters. In the view of many, this is where the Ateneo fell short—people were waiting for it to communicate, condole, and console, not so much as a school or educator, not as teacher or classmate, but as a humane community, even if perhaps in Ateneo’s view, the public statements were enough.
However, whether it likes it or not, Ateneo found itself in the digital aquarium—this is the digital age (like we needed reminding)—where words weigh less than visuals. People perceived its silence—the worst possible stance one could take in this noise barrage. People perceived a vacuum—which became instantly filled with speculation, misinformation, impassioned opinions, sanctimonious talk. It’s surprising how Ateneo didn’t flex its capacity for effective communication and messaging—beyond prepared statements. By the time the coach faced the camera, it was already the boiling point. (Ateneo de Davao apparently was more visibly “there,” as its community met the remains of Rene and offered Mass.)
PR practitioner and Stratworks managing director Mark Christian Parlade’s FB post, we believe, is worth sharing:
One of the most important lessons I ever learned about crisis management came nearly 30 years ago, on a stormy Saturday morning.
I was working in corporate communications for a utility company when one of our water tankers was involved in a fatal collision with a passenger jeepney.
My boss then, Jesus S. Matubis Jr, one of the most decent men I have ever worked with, and our team spent the day going from morgue to morgue across the city trying to locate the victims.
Later, we went to the homes of the victims to explain what had happened. On one of our stops, a jeepney pulled up outside. Before we saw him, we heard him: a man wailing in grief. He had just identified his wife’s body and was screaming that she looked nothing like the woman he loved.
Instinctively, we stepped back. My boss did not. He walked forward, listened, absorbed the anger and pain, and offered whatever comfort he could.
That day taught me one of the most important lessons in crisis management.
In a crisis, the first responsibility is not protecting reputations. It is not controlling narratives. It is not surviving the news cycle.
It is showing up.
Showing accountability. Being transparent about what happened. Listening to the people who are hurting. Offering compassion not because it is strategically wise, but because it is the human thing to do. (The irony is that in crises like these, doing the human thing is often what helps organizations survive them—because trust is built when people see honesty, accountability, and genuine compassion.)
As we watch this crisis following the tragic deaths of two athletes during training unfold, that lesson comes back to me. Whatever the investigations ultimately determine, the measure of leadership in moments like this is not just competence. It is the willingness to face difficult truths, communicate openly, and put the needs of victims and their families first.
No immediate demonstration of accountability, transparency, or compassion can compensate for a life lost. They are small comforts against an immeasurable grief.
Yet they remain essential. Because when nothing can make a tragedy right, the least we can do is face it honestly, take responsibility where responsibility is due, and meet those who are suffering with humanity.
In the end, in truth, the recourse has always been in Ateneo’s very core—be a man for others.
