Pinoy divers get scorn, sympathy after making a splash for wrong reasons in SEA Games

SINGAPORE — A video of Filipino divers competing in the 28th Southeast Asian Games went viral on Thursday.

For the wrong reason.

John Elmerson Fabriga and John David Pahoyo netted zero scores from the judges in the 3-meter springboard competition after totally messing up their dives, drawing ridicule from netizens as soon as the videos were posted in Singapore-based websites.

Netizens had a field day making fun of the videos, which saw Fabriga land on his back in one dive and Pahoyo slip on the springboard and consequently hit the water with his dive far from finished.

However, not all were happy with the reactions, with one Filipino based in Singapore leaping to the defense of the two divers in the face of the ridicule they got from both the websites and their commenters.

“I am unhappy with your captions for the video," said the reader who used the handle Jethro M. "It (showed) total lack of respect for the Philippines and our athletes. As a host nation, how can Singaporeans laugh and mock them? Is this a show of your graciousness and kindness?

“The sarcastic remarks about the Philippine divers would not do any good. Even if it is true that they are not the best of divers and probably lacking skill, they still do not deserved the humiliation. Instead of putting them down, why not encourage them to do better.

"These are professionals who have trained hard and exerted effort in representing my country so please, I call on to the administrator of this page to remove the video as well as its sarcastic remarks.”

Here are gifs of the failed attempts by the Filipinos posted on Singaporean sites 

John Elmerson Fabriga

John David Pahoyo

But Fabriga actually made a fine first dive at 25:41 of this video, and Pahoyo also does well at 31:01.