THE country’s recent staging of the 2006 World Pool Championship which annually crowns the finest 9-ball billiards players solidifies the Philippines’ claim as the Pool Capital of the World – not that I think that other countries are trying to beat down the doors to contest this distinction.

And it’s fitting that one of the 21 Filipinos who made the field of 128 starters would come away with the crown – but that is getting ahead of the story. However, examining why our countrymen currently have this love affair with what had been a game of somewhat ill-repute is something of a wonderful story as well.

Bilyaran sa kanto

Most Filipinos, especially those who grew up on what you might call “the wrong side of the tracks” (which for that matter is anywhere near where the ancient railroads ran – from Tutuban, through the heart of Sampaloc and on to Paco and finally just outside the Makati Central Business District), were blessed with some sort of local pool hall nearby where the neighborhood’s so-called “hoodlum” types hung out.

In other words, if your mother ever found you in such a joint, she would surely send your sorry butt home all the while clutching her rosary and saying prayers about how your soul needed saving since she believed prolonged exposure to such riff-raff was the sure road to living a lowlife existence.

Still, anyone who grew up in such a neighborhood or hung around the pool halls that were always within spitting distance of schools became adept at wielding a cue stick and lining up the ball towards the pocket. Even a guy like me, who grew up in the suburbs, purportedly away from such distractions, found time to learn a bit about the game in school (the UP Diliman’s ancient Alumni Center used to have a couple of tables).

But what seemed important at the time (aside from winning enough to avoid having to cross under the tables or buying the beers or paying for the games), was to be good enough to be decent at pool but not to be too good to be thought of as someone who grew up with a somewhat wasted adolescence spent in those dark and smoky joints of ill-repute.

This pool shark came into the public consciousness in the ‘80s because of his skills with the stick. He was tapped by San Miguel Beer to appear in a series of commercials. This was also simultaneous with the rise in popularity of bowling following the successes of Paeng Nepomuceno, and those who couldn’t play because the lanes were full decided to while away their waiting time – dates in tow – at the pool tables.

(It also helped that most guys couldn’t afford to bring their dates out to the country club to teach them how to play golf so instructing them pretty young things how to wield a cue stick properly was the next best thing, if you know what I mean…)

Still and all, Amang could not make a living beyond the dangerous money games or bring the game’s popularity to the next level or even just make it an acceptable social activity. Amang packed his bags and left for the U.S. at the turn of the decade because at that time, the American tournament circuit offered the best opportunity to make decent money with his talents.

Turning pool sharks into celebrities

The next big break for the game occurred with the advent of global cable television and its huge need for programming alternatives. One of the fringe sports that sports cable leader ESPN touched upon was billiards, which was a game everyone knew but was not universally accepted as sport. It didn’t help that a popular recent movie at the time was The Color of Money in which Tom Cruise and Paul Newman portrayed pool hustlers – reinforcing the notoriety of the game.

However, ESPN would not be denied and pretty soon the network was able to turn pool sharks into celebrities. Names like Johnny Archer and Earl Strickland became bywords and the annual Mosconi Cup, featuring the best American players against the best Europe had to offer. They gave the game an international reputation that went beyond Minnesota Fats.

In the Philippines, the void left behind by Parica was quickly filled by a charismatic toothless pool rat from Pampanga who went by the nom de bilyar “Bata” but who was quickly identified as Efren Reyes. He established a rivalry with another young whiz, Francisco “Django” Bustamante, but only the billiard hall habitués and connoisseurs of the still underground game knew who these guys were or gave a damn.

The public in general couldn’t care less, which is why when Bata left for the U.S. in the mid-90s, people here didn’t really notice that he had gone. Meanwhile, American billiards fans were hearing of this legendary “Bata” who had taken over from “Amang” as the Philippines’ top pool player but they had no real idea who he was.

Then Reyes started winning tournaments in the U.S., first under some assumed names before he finally revealed who he was. Django would follow suit and together they blazed a trail that many more would follow. Filipinos became the new sensations on the American and international pool circuit, and pretty soon the game also bowed on multi-nation sports competitions like the South East Asian Games and even the Asian Games.

But the true explosion of the billiards craze would come in 1999 when ESPN covered the World Pool Championships live and in its entirety and Filipinos stayed up late to follow the exploits of Efren Reyes, who would go on to capture the crown in Cardiff, Wales and establish the Philippines as a world power in the game.

Among those who followed in the footsteps of Reyes and Bustamante, who would finish runner-up in a subsequent staging of the WPC, was a young man who spent way too much time in billiard halls in Manila that he was sent to Canada to “straighten his life out.”

His name was Alex Pagulayan and in 2004, he would become the second Pinoy to capture the title of world’s best nine-ball player in Kaoshiung, Taiwan. Even though he had Canada under his name, everyone knew that the “Lion” was proudly born and raised a Filipino.

The Billiards and Snooker Council of the Philippines bid for and won the right to stage the World Pool Championships for three years beginning in 2006 and Manila is where another Filipino pool legend was born.

The volcano of Calamba

Thirty-four-year old Calamba native Ronato “Ronnie” Alcano defied the odds to capture the trophy and the $100,000 top plum, winning his last seven matches including a big win over Reyes himself in the round of 32 and 2005 losing finalist Kuo Po-cheng of Taipei in the next phase.

Two more Taiwanese players fell to the surging Alcano, nicknamed the Volcano, who aside from being tall also has a striking resemblance to the much older Reyes including the same toothless grin. He would advance to the finals against “The Kaiser,” 1996 world champion Ralf Souquet of Germany, who never had a chance against the new Philippine sports sensation.

And just when the billiards craze seemed to be dying out, with the establishment of new places to play slowing down, a revival mayt be in the offing with Alcano’s epic win witnessed by millions live on TV. So now when parents are asked by their sons (or daughters) if they may get permission to go to the billiards hall to play, they won’t look at them as if they were crazy and about to throw their life away.

Might actually be a good idea to drive them down there yourself.

Butch Maniego, who is the Executive Director of Philippine Basketball League, has been a sportswriter for 24 years, and a sportscaster for 19.