Photo from Rene Baterbonia’s Facebook
MANILA, Philippines—Sam Reyes said he “felt guilt,” adding he “could’ve done more” to avoid wasting his teammate, Rene Baterbonia, from drowning throughout the Ateneo men’s basketball team’s training camp in Dipaculao, Aurora on June 8.
Reyes said he and Baterbonia were beside one another during a water exercise before a series of towering waves swept the players into the deeper parts of the water.
“I feel guilt because Rene was beside me. I felt that I could’ve done more to maintain him from drowning, so it was eating me alive,” Reyes said on an episode of the Let’s Talk with Pia Hontiveros podcast that aired on Tuesday.
“There have been times after I was just awake and that very same night after we were still in Aurora, it was already 12 (midnight). I attempted to sleep, and I’d still see his face. Once I was carrying him, I saw his face, and after I tried to sleep, I’d see his face. After which after I slept for a bit, I woke up suddenly around 3 a.m. in disbelief cause we were roommates, Rene and Divine, I’d see them of their beds like last time I saw them,” added Reyes, who, together with guard Kieffer Alas, recounted the tragedy and the events leading as much as the deaths of Baterbonia and Divine Adili.
Making matters even worse were comments on social media blaming the players for his or her teammates’ deaths.
“It’s just hard, the comments that they’re saying that we’re just jealous that we did it because we’re jealous. It’s just killing us because we’re there and we lost two of our brothers. It’s really painful to survive what happened nevertheless it’s also killing us at the identical time,” Reyes said.
Ateneo guard Kieffer Alas also spoke about going through an unimaginable ordeal and still endure harsh criticisms on social media.
“It’s like going through two deaths. The primary one is losing our two teammates, and now being criticized for his or her deaths. We lost them, we’ve witnessed it occur. Then, I don’t know them every social media person or anybody, they’re just putting the blame on us,” he said.
“It’s just hard to place into words, but like, that is what we’ve been feeling this past week, and we are able to’t really refer to anybody about it. Sam and I had a tough time going here. We often voice our anger to our teammates only because we experienced it with one another.”
The 2, who also bared surviving near-death experiences, also shared that a few of the players have received death threats.
When asked if speculations would have been contained had Ateneo de Manila University provided more details about what really transpired within the training camp as a substitute of the varsity’s early silence, Alas thinks so.
“Truthfully, yes. I feel just like the speculations and rumors and the threats and hate towards us players were attributable to perhaps not [having] enough information, in order that just made them guess from all of the photos and hearsay around. I believe that’s what caused this.”
The incident has led to formal investigations by the PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). The UAAP and Ateneo de Manila University have also launched their very own probes.