22 April 2024

Philippines senior men debut on world stage

“It’s a cool experience!” – that’s the thought of Jonathan Ochoco, skip of the Philippines men’s senior team, speaking about their debut at the World Senior Championships.

 This Philippines team – skip Jonathan, third Peter Garbes, second Alastair Onglingswan, lead Joselito Cruz and coach Micha Suarez – is the second team to represent Philippines at a World Curling event. 

The backstory

Philippines became a World Curling Member Association at the 2023 Congress and their newly-formed men’s team competed in the Pan Continental Championships 2023 in Kelowna, Canada. They finished second out of eight teams in the B-Division, losing only two games on the way – both to eventual division winners, China.

And it was the performance in the Pan Continental event that sparked the creation of this senior team, as Jonathan explains, “This all came about when we had our first team in the PCCC last year and then the President of the Federation asked me if I would be interested in doing a men’s seniors team.” 

“At the time, I didn’t know of anyone else who was eligible. Then there was a Philippines bonspiel in Washington DC, and we found more eligible people.”

All four players on the team live in North America. Jonathan and Joselito (Jojo) are based in California, Peter lives in the Seattle area, while second player Alistair is out of Connecticut. Coach Micha also lives in California.

“We’d never met Peter before, until Thursday last week,” Jonathan explains.

Now, Filipino curling is recognised by the country’s National Olympic Committee and other sports authorities. 

Coach Micha explains, “We’re officially recognised as ‘The Curling Winter Sports Association of the Philippines’.” 

And while, in many countries such recognition leads to financial support, that is not yet the case for this team, “We’re completely self-funded,” confirms Micha.

While it is obvious that the team are enjoying their experience in Sweden, they also have a serious ambition in what they are doing. 

Growing the sport

Jonathan says, “The ambition is to grow the sport of curling for Filipinos. At this point there is no curling in the Philippines. The Federation has only been around for a year, so we’re only at the beginning. There’s been an effort to identify Filipinos around the world to see if they would be interested in participating in various events. Also, there’s lots of juniors coming up that are eligible.”

And lead Jojo identifies one obvious method for development. He says, “We’re in discussions about floor curling”.  And those discussions have included chats with the Nigerian team also competing in this event, as Nigeria is working on introducing floor curling at school level.

Talking about their time in Oestersund, Jonathan says, “It’s been a great experience! We’ve met teams that we haven’t even played yet, so that’s been great. It’s just been great to be in with all these people who might be former world champions and Olympians. I never thought that when I started curling that this would ever happen.”

Second player Alastair adds, “What’s surprised us most is that we’re playing pretty well and hanging in there! We had no idea whether we were good enough. The other thing is just being at a place with people that I’ve watched on TV.”

Regardless of the fact that the team is having fun, they are also very aware of the pathfinding role they are playing, as third Peter points out. 

“Being in our national playing uniform is a big deal. National pride is a big thing for us. We all grew up in the States, but we all have ties with back home. I’m just as American as I am Filipino, but putting on this jersey means so much.”

While this senior team will be happy to put in some good performances and perhaps win a game or two this time round – as well as making new curling friends – Filipino ambition in curling is strong. Their men’s team are genuinely targeting an Olympic berth and there is clear energy to build on the start that has been made so far.

“It’s important to keep in mind the aspirational quality of what it means for us to be here,” says coach Micha Suarez. “When we were trying to put this team together, I said, ‘you only have one chance to make history’ so a lot of us have put in a lot – sacrifices, money – to make sure that we can be here in the hope that, if not this team, there will be future athletes who will carry on the torch.”

“It’s not lost on us how important it is, and how big of an honour it is to have a uniform with the Filipino crest on it and our names on it.”