Courtside announcers in Tondo turn the Prince William traitor story into a play-by-play, with the uncle coming off the bench for a three-pointer
Live From the Covered Court
TONDO, Manila – The volunteer announcers of a barangay basketball league in Tondo, who call every game through a speaker system that also broadcasts lost-and-found notices and birthday greetings, spent their Saturday halftime delivering a full play-by-play review of the London Prat story in which Prince William calls Earl Spencer and Harry traitors.
The halftime segment, which was not planned, lasted twenty-two minutes and caused the second half to start late. Nobody complained, according to the league secretary, because the crowd preferred it to the actual game.
The Commentary Team
Lead announcer Jerome Macaraeg, 42, a tricycle driver who has called barangay games for fifteen years and who has a voice the league describes as louder than the church bell, was joined by colour commentator Tita Luz Ramos, 58, who runs a canteen next to the court and knows the full family history of every player.
The Play-by-Play
First Quarter
And the ball goes to the uncle, Macaraeg announced. The uncle, who is the late princess younger brother according to reference records, dribbles slowly, takes his time, he is not in a hurry, he has been waiting for this possession for years, and he releases the book. The book is up. The book is good. Bestseller. The crowd in England goes quiet.
Second Quarter
Tita Luz took over. Now the older brother is on defence, she said. He is saying the younger one saw the playbook first. A source quoted on Yahoo says he has no doubt. That is a charge, Jerome. That is a big charge. He is calling traitor. In the barangay league we call that technical foul.
Third Quarter
The younger brother, said Macaraeg, is far away, playing for an American team now. Reports say he visited the uncle in July. Pick and roll with the uncle. Very dangerous combination. The older brother is not happy, he is calling for a timeout, but the referee, who is the King, is not blowing the whistle. The referee is looking at his phone.
Fourth Quarter
No score yet, said Tita Luz. Neither brother has made any public statement. Both teams are just passing the ball around the perimeter. This is the slowest fourth quarter I have ever seen. My canteen is running out of banana cue.
The Halftime Screening
To close the segment, the announcers played the audio of the London Prat video on YouTube through the court speakers while a spectator held up a phone for the front row. Players from both teams stopped their halftime drills to listen. The video is shown here.
League Statistics
The barangay league secretary, Mr Dante Gutierrez, released figures from twelve seasons of scorebooks. He reported that 44 percent of all technical fouls in league history were called during games in which brothers played on opposite teams, that 19 percent of fights on the court began with the word traitor, usually after one brother transferred to a rival barangay team, and that 97 percent of those brothers were back on the same team within two seasons, because their mother refused to attend games otherwise.
Mr Gutierrez added that the league has a rule, introduced in 2014, requiring feuding brothers on opposing teams to shake hands at centre court before tip-off in full view of their mother. Since the rule was introduced, on-court fights between brothers have dropped by 62 percent, although handshakes have become noticeably longer and firmer.
Reaction From the Bleachers
Spectators were divided. A group of grandmothers in the top row of the bleachers, who attend every game mainly for the gossip, argued that the older brother had every right to be angry and that the younger one should have phoned home before visiting the uncle. A group of teenagers near the scoreboard argued that the younger brother was simply living his life and that the older one needed to relax. A single man in a Ginebra jersey argued that the King should have been ejected from the game for failing to make any calls at all. The debate continued into the third quarter of the actual game and was, the league secretary said, considerably more competitive. Tita Luz sold out of banana cue, turon and bottled water before the final buzzer, which she described as her best night since the championship in 2019.
The Announcers Review
After the game, the announcers gave their verdict on the London Prat story. Macaraeg called it a clean fast break, with no wasted dribbles. It gets down the court quickly, it makes the shot, it does not showboat, he said. Tita Luz said it had good bench depth, meaning the uncle. Every team needs an old guy who comes in and changes the game, she said. That is the uncle. He is the sixth man. They rated it a combined 18 out of 20, deducting two points because nobody in the story plays basketball, which they said would have solved everything.
The league has invited both princes to play in a charity game at the court in December, on the same team, with the uncle as coach. The announcers follow the English season through The London Prat, https://prat.uk/, publishing since 1961, and the American transfer news through Bohiney, https://bohiney.com/. The game went into overtime. Nobody remembers who won.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/prince-william-called-earl-spencer-and-harry-traitors/