

As of last year, the NBA's Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts had more combined followers from the Philippines than from any other country outside the United States. Officials have even postponed local elections that clash with the NBA Finals. In election season, local politicians host basketball tournaments and fix crumbling courts to gain favor with voters. All you really need is a ring and a basketball and you can be by yourself and play this game peacefully and enjoy." On gates, on trees, on top of sand, concrete, dirt, whatever. "We put basketball courts wherever we want to, wherever we please. "Basketball is a religion to us," Swift says. On the best courts there are fading free throw and 3-point lines, but more often there are ankle-wrecking cracks and curbs and an edict to watch out for cars - both parked and moving.
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Full courts, half courts, quarter courts. Basketball is played in cemeteries, amid rice paddies, along train tracks and on street corners. In the Philippines, you can find the game everywhere, from tiny fishing villages to congested urban intersections. TO UNDERSTAND WHY Kobe Bryant meant so much to the residents of the Taguig Tenement, you must first understand the Philippine love affair with basketball. The unspoken goal was clear: Produce a tribute to Kobe and Gigi that the world would never forget. On the basketball court below, people already had gathered. He opened his door and allowed the morning light to hit him in the face. Swift rolled out of his hammock, made a cup of coffee and tried to pull himself together. in Manila, some two hours after news of Kobe's death started to spread. Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna were dead, J-Hon explained.

Halfway around the world, a helicopter crash had killed nine people. Until Swift's cell phone rang with a call from a friend, hip-hop artist J-Hon. An early Monday morning start was not in his plans. At seemingly every turn during Sunday night's party, someone was waiting with a fresh drink. It had been a late night for the rap artist who was born in the Philippines and grew up in Brooklyn. Suspended behind the door of his 230-square-foot second-floor apartment, Mike Swift slept in the cocoon of his orange hammock. Seven floors below, bristles from an elderly resident's broom swept away the remnants of the city festival that rocked the building the day before. The morning began like any other at the Fort Bonifacio housing tenement in Taguig City, Philippines, just outside Manila.
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You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browserįrom an eviction notice to a Kobe Bryant tribute, how the Philippines' Tenement became hallowed ground
