23/08/2026
๐๐ ๐ช๐ฎ๐๐ป'๐ ๐ง๐ต๐ฎ๐ ๐ ๐ฆ๐๐ผ๐ฝ๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐๐ฒ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ผ๐บ๐ฝ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ
For a long time, I believed the story went like this: I quit chess because I lost my competitive spirit. The fire faded, so the study stopped, so the game stopped. That was the version I told myself, and it was tidy enough to believe.
But sitting with it longer, I think I had it backwards. I didn't quit chess because I stopped wanting to compete. I quit because the level of study chess demanded to actually go somewhere was, realistically, almost equal to the level of study law school demands โ and I chose law because I believed it would be more rewarding. The competitive feeling didn't die on its own. It faded after I had already decided, somewhere quieter, that one path paid off and the other didn't.
If you've ever felt like your drive for something is disappearing and told yourself it's because you're "not competitive enough anymore" โ I'd ask you to check that. Maybe the drive isn't gone. Maybe you've just already answered, underneath the feeling, whether the effort is worth it.
That's the harder truth about chess in the Philippines, at least from where I sit. It is not that Filipino players lack fire. It's that studying chess seriously here has rarely translated into something reliably rewarding โ not the way years of grinding a bar exam or a licensure track can. So the "loss of competitiveness" so many of us feel isn't really about spirit. It's about return on years spent.
But I don't want this to be a discouraging post, because something is actually shifting.
Misamis Occidental will be hosting two international chess events back to back this year. That matters more than it might sound. It means the stage is coming closer to home. It means the study, the sacrifice, the years spent over a board โ for once โ have a nearer place to be seen and to matter.
I hope that's enough. Not necessarily for me โ I've made my choice, and career comes first now โ but for my students. I'm in a different part of the field than they are these days, watching more than playing. Still, I love this game enough to want it to be worth their hours in a way it wasn't quite worth mine. If these events are the first sign that studying chess here can finally pay off, then maybe the next person who feels their competitive spirit fading will be wrong to blame themselves for it โ because the reward, this time, might actually be there waiting.
