Ateneo’s Sam Reyes says ‘I felt I could’ve done more’ to save Baterbonia

Photo from Rene Baterbonia’s Facebook

MANILA, Philippines—Sam Reyes said he “felt guilt,” adding he “could’ve done more” to save his teammate, Rene Baterbonia, from drowning during the Ateneo men’s basketball team’s training camp in Dipaculao, Aurora on June 8.

Reyes said he and Baterbonia were beside each other 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 keep 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 were times when I was just awake and that same night when we were still in Aurora, it was already 12 (midnight). I tried to sleep, and I would still see his face. When I was carrying him, I saw his face, and when I tried to sleep, I would see his face. And then when I slept for a bit, I woke up suddenly around 3 a.m. in disbelief cause we were roommates, Rene and Divine, I would see them in their beds like last time I saw them,” added Reyes, who, along with guard Kieffer Alas, recounted the tragedy and the events leading up to the deaths of Baterbonia and Divine Adili.

Making matters even worse were comments on social media blaming the players for their 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 but it’s also killing us at the same 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 first one is losing our two teammates, and now being criticized for their deaths. We lost them, we’ve witnessed it happened. 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 put into words, but like, this is what we’ve been feeling this past week, and we can’t really talk to anybody about it. Sam and I had a hard time going here. We usually voice our anger to our teammates only because we experienced it with each other.”

The two, who also bared surviving near-death experiences, also shared that some of the players have received death threats.

When asked if speculations would have been contained had Ateneo de Manila University provided more information about what really transpired in the training camp instead of the school’s early silence, Alas thinks so.

“Honestly, yes. I feel like the speculations and rumors and the threats and hate towards us players were due to maybe not [having] enough information, so that just made them guess from all the photos and hearsay around. I think that’s what caused this.”

The incident has launched formal investigations by the PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) are also ongoing. The UAAP and Ateneo de Manila University have also launched their own probes.