The boy from Manila
A F
children,’’ Father Rocky says. ‘‘To me, they are more important than the classroom learning because life is a game, life’s a performance, life is a fight.’’
The boys were naturally fast and agile from years of running in the streets and from the police.
Ramirez and the boys at Tuloy learned how to play rugby by watching videos of their favourite players on YouTube.
They would load up highlights of Shaun Johnson, Benji Marshall and All Black Dan Carter and try to copy them, how they moved.
‘‘They’re good, I want to meet them,’’ Ramirez says. ‘‘That’s where I learn. I’m trying to copy them, their step and their skills.’’
Ramirez and the Tuloy boys also learned the All Blacks haka from YouTube. They perform it with wide eyes, tongues clenched between teeth, war cries and pride.
Before long, they were beating teams from across Manila and the Philippines.
However, he and others wanted to play rugby like they had seen on YouTube. They wanted to tackle. fter leaving Tuloy in 2012, Ramirez and a few others from the foundation joined Mavericks Rugby Club, set up by New Zealander Bill Brown in 2011.
New Zealanders are involved at every level of rugby in the Philippines. Self-made millionaire Steve Payne is on the PRFU board. Former All Black Frano Botica is the new Volcanoes sevens coach. Chris Holder, of Leighton Contractors, has sponsored the rugby programme at Tuloy.
Brown says he saw a need for a rugby programme outside of school.
‘‘The trouble was the lack of coaching and the lack of facilities, which is the big thing here. If you have a spare piece of grass here in Manila these days a condominium is built on it. To protect a field for a rugby field is really hard.
‘‘We found a local school and we trained on a Sunday.’’
It was the only time available as most Filipinos were at church.
Brown says the Tuloy boys played tackle rugby with pace and flair. But being small was also a weakness.
Brown recalls a conversation he had while giving Ramirez a lift home.
‘‘I said: ‘Lito you’re really fast, you’ve got great steps, but you’re so small, you need to bulk up a little bit, what are you doing at home?
‘‘He said: ‘Don’t worry coach, I’ve made my own weight set and I’ve got some old car tyres.’ So he had basically, in the street, decided how to work out.’’
Brown then asked him what he was eating. It was just plain rice. No protein. ‘‘So that was when I realised that it was going to be tough to ever really grow rugby in the Philippines.’’
But Ramirez, undeterred by facing more powerful opponents, continued to impress on the rugby field.
He made the national men’s development squad in 2014 and won a gold medal at the 2015 Philippine National Games.
In July 2015, he was selected to play for the Volcanoes team in the Asian sevens qualifying tournament for the Rio Olympics.
Ramirez is the first Volcanoes player to come from the grassroots development programme and to play in the highest division of the Asian Rugby Championship.
It was New Zealander Geoff Alley, then head coach of the Volcanoes sevens team, who selected Ramirez.
A former Waikato and New Zealand sevens player, Alley was recruited by the PRFU as head coach in 2014. A year later, the team won the gold medal at the South East Asian games in Singapore.
Alley says Ramirez is a special player and a special person.
‘‘He is a humble young man and is very appreciative of the opportunity that rugby has given him. This gives him a hunger and desire that is hard to coach.’’
Ramirez says it was a dream come true to play for the Volcanoes.
For the first time in his life, he had access to quality coaching, gym equipment and, most importantly, food.
In November last year, Ramirez played in Hong Kong Stadium, the 40,000-capacity venue that hosted a Bledisloe Cup match between New Zealand and Australia in 2008.
‘‘I haven’t seen this in my whole life, the stadium like that. Then I was so nervous that time.’’
On the first day of the tournament, Alley sent Ramirez onto the field against Iran.
In the dying seconds and with the game already won for the Volcanoes, Australia-based player Harrison Blake broke through centre field.
Moments after the final hooter sounded, he was pulled down in a tackle about 15 metres from the tryline. Blake flicked the ball free and Ramirez scooped it up. He evaded a desperate tackle attempt, and scored between the posts.
‘‘I was so happy,’’ Ramirez says. ‘‘I’m almost crying that time, but it’s OK. They were tears of joy.’’ or Ramirez, rugby is more than a game. It is a path to a better life. His story is not one of rags to riches, but rugby has secured him a job as a development officer for the PRFU.
Brown says the pay’s ‘‘peanuts’’ but it means Ramirez can rent a small two-storey unit. In the windowsill downstairs, Ramirez keeps some of his rugby trophies and memorabilia next to a glowin-the dark crucifix.
It’s a long way from where he was abandoned by his parents close to 15 years ago.
‘‘When you understand where these guys have come from,’’ Brown says, ‘‘to think that these guys have got a future in the game or rugby, either as a professional player, coach, development officer, then that’s one person that is not on the streets and not sniffing glue.
‘‘That’s exciting.’’
The journalists travelled to Manila with support from the Asia New Zealand Foundation.