Five Seasons On, UNTV Cup Remains What It Always Has Been

From the idea that baranggays (villages) can team up to play basketball and help underprivileged youths secure their futures with full scholarship grants, UNTV Cup has materialized into a much wider undertaking — one that is most certainly, a league of its own.

Season 1 kicked off with just seven departments of the Philippine government. Now, 13 teams of public servants take it out against each other not just in the name of sportmanship, but of care for their respective chosen beneficiaries.

Indeed, the winning teams may bag the titles, but its their charitable institutions that bring home the prizes. And millions at that.

What started as over ₱1M in tax-free donations now sum up to nearly ₱10M. And these to our fellowmen who were displaced or hurt by war or typhoons, who were born with disabilities of the body or mind, who were bereaved families of their fathers or mothers who sacrificed themselves for the sake of peace.

As Season 5 ends, we will see once more — apart from living examples, sweating themselves out for the good of others — on UNTV a most beautiful culmination of an idea: That despite differences in backgrounds and duties, people can come and play together for a common cause.

Certainly, the country, the world needs more innovations like this. And perhaps far more importantly, more intentions like this.

That way, we can expect that no matter what it will grow into or how much it will develop, we can always count on it to remain the same. An idea. A really, really good realized idea.

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