Artwork by Cynthia Li
By Veronica Bunnell and Alex Talamayan
It’s the early 2010s and a little girl is watching Avatar the Last Airbender, eating her ensaymada, which her Lola brought back from the Philippines. She had just returned from another failed volleyball tryout, remembering the distinct words “Can you even reach the volleyball net?” before she even had the chance to show her skills. A Capri Sun ad interrupts her TV show, with another male athlete who doesn’t look like her, adding another sour taste to her mouth. With a hand to her head, as she waits for the commercial to be over, she wonders whether she’ll ever get the chance to be one of those athletes on a Capri Sun pouch if the world would even let someone like her on one.
In 2024, a new wave is upon us. Women have been continuously breaking the norm and succeeding, not just for their local team, but for their country. The Philippines is making a legacy of pioneers and trailblazers, marking a new era for women’s sports and shedding light on Southeast Asians in mainstream media.
The Underdog: Sarina Bolden and the Philippines Women’s National Soccer Team
For the first time, led by former Australian Women’s National head coach, Alen Stajcic, the Philippines Women’s National Team qualified for the 2023 Women’s World Cup held in Australia and New Zealand. The team consisted of 23 players of Filipino heritage and while most players were recruited from the United States, they held the common goal of representing the Philippines with pride and joy.
The Malditas got their start in the 1980s and is an active participant in the AFC Women’s Asia Cup. Back in 2012, the national team scouts came to the States to find players of Filipino descent. Football is not a popular sport in the Philippines, so to make a team, coaches, and scouts had to look abroad where it thrived: America. As a whole, 18 players of the 2023 World Cup roster came from the United States as there is a large percentage of Filipino-Americans.1
Forward, Sarina Bolden, number 7, was one of the faces of the national team and led the Malditas to their first victory in the tournament with her goal, defeating host nation New Zealand. Bolden is a 27-year-old California native born to an American father and a Filipina mother from Pangasinan. Before their professional career, Bolden made a statement of their skills during high school, earning multiple awards as a varsity player. She then attended Loyola Marymount University to further her soccer career. In 2017, she received the opportunity to train with the Philippines National Team through her stellar performance with her then-university, Loyola Marymount, scoring 18 goals. Her consistent performance started her transition to her international soccer career. Currently, they play for the Newcastle Jets, part of Australia’s A-League.2
Breaking Barriers: Bianca Bustamante
With the ever-growing popularity of Formula 1 in mainstream media, F1 Academy was launched to introduce more female drivers onto the grid in a female-only single-seater racing championship within Formula 43 The championship is a way of gaining experience with the hopes of eventually racing in Formula 1, which currently has only male drivers on every team. In fact, the last female driver to have raced in a grand prix in Formula 1 was in 1976 which was demotivating for young female drivers with no current women to look up to4. Additionally, the lack of diversity in the sport is clear, with most of the current F1 grid being white European males, which is why social media “blew up” when Bianca Bustamante, a nineteen-year-old Filipina driver for Prema in F1 Academy, achieved her first win at Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia, Spain, during the 2023 season. Besides this win that has garnered the attention of the whole Philippines and the world, she was also the top rookie in the W Series, another all-female championship before it was canceled, along with another career win with Prema in Monza, Italy. 5
Bianca often credits her success with her love for karting, a passion she shares with her father. “Start them young” holds true for Bianca as she had her first racing suit at one. She even began driving at the mere age of three, dedicating her whole life, despite her young age, to her dream of racing in male-dominated motorsport. Additionally, Bianca was chosen to join McLaren’s Development Driver program and became the first woman to join this program that also developed two current drivers in Formula One, Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris. Her social media presence along with her supportive fanbase can attest to Bianca’s spot in McLaren as well as the program’s hope in supporting more female racers. Along with signing with McLaren, Bianca is currently racing with ART Grand Prix for the 2024 F1 Academy season and continues to represent the Philippines in a sport that the country had no prior fame for with the hopes of being the first Filipina on the F1 grid.
A Pioneer: Hidilyn Diaz
In her early life, Hidilyn Diaz grew up in Mampang near Zamboanga. She is the daughter of a tricycle driver and a sister to seven siblings. Before her weightlifting career, she wanted to pursue banking to help her family. Fortunately, her cousin introduced her to the sport and began training her with plastic-made barbels with concrete weights placed at the ends6. She joined her first weightlifting competition in 2002 in which she won gold. She continued to enter competitions such as the Southeast Asian Games and eventually made her way to the Olympics at only 17. The 2008 Beijing Olympics was where she faced the hard challenge of placing 11th out of 12 participants. Despite her shortcomings and injuries, she persevered and embraced those moments as a huge motivating factor in her competitive weightlifting journey.7
She had another shot at the famed 2020 Summer Olympics, an event for firsts with the introduction of new sporting events, the rise of new talented athletes, and the chance to shape one’s legacy and image. Hidilyn Diaz was the first Filipino athlete to win gold for weightlifting in the 55kg class, at a record-breaking 127kg. Though it was not her first time at the Olympics nor being on the podium as she won silver in the 2016 Rio Olympics, her victory symbolized the hope for future generations of Filipino athletes. The upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris will have not only one Filipino weightlifter but four due to the growing interest in weightlifting after her monumental win8. Through her gold medal, Diaz became the face of weightlifting for the Philippines and gained a huge social media following promoting her progress in the sport and encouraging others to follow in her footsteps.
Conclusion
Historically known for beauty pageantry, basketball, and boxing, Filipina athletes are inspiring the younger generation to embrace change and take opportunities to fulfill their dreams despite societal standards and challenges they will face. That young girl who felt defeated by the lack of representation, now at 24, is grinning at the ever-growing support and media that Southeast Asian women have been given. Bolden, Bustamante, and Diaz exemplify that beyond physical appearances, there is beauty and complexity in culture, strength, resilience, and unity.
Women’s sports are on a continuous high and will continue to reimagine a world filled with inclusivity and embracement of cultural pride and heritage to be shared with the rest of the world. For women and future generations, this is just the beginning.
Veronica Bunnell is a Global Liberal Studies Major and LS Student Leader who enjoys cafe hopping, reality TV, and women’s football.
Alex Talamayan is an Applied Psychology Major who is involved in many women-centered clubs and cultural associations, spending her free time trying new restaurants and watching F1 races.
- Simon, Scott, and Bushnell, Mark. “The upset-scoring Philippines women’s soccer team has strong roots in the U.S.” http://www.npr.org/. ↩︎
- Guiral, Angela. “Meet Sarina Bolden: The Fil-Am Teen Footballer Making Waves in Europe.” http://www.tatlerasia.com/. ↩︎
- F1® Academy. “The Official Home of F1® Academy.” F1® Academy, F1 Academy Limited, http://www.f1academy.com/. ↩︎
- F1® Academy. “The Official Home of F1® Academy.” F1® Academy, F1 Academy Limited, http://www.f1academy.com/. ↩︎
- “Racing Driver.” Bianca Bustamante, CBR-Media, 5 Mar. 1970, http://www.biancabustamante.com/. ↩︎
- Spin.PH Staff. “Everything you need to know about Olympic weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz.” http://www.spin.ph/. ↩︎
- Athlete365. Diaz, Hidilyn. “Hidilyn Diaz: Making History for the Philippines.” Olympics.com/. ↩︎
- Goh, ZK. “Hidilyn Diaz Exclusive: Paris 2024 “Maybe Last” Games But Will Be ‘Most Memorable’”. Olympics.com/. ↩︎
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