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Rugby: Orphan goes from sniffing glue to playing for the Philippines

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Joshua Melvin, Agence France-Presse

<div class="media-content"><div class="slider-for"><div><img src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2019/afp/09/10/lito-ramirez-afp-1.jpg"/></div><div><img src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2019/afp/09/10/lito-ramirez-afp-2.jpg"/></div></div><div class="media-content slider-desc"><div class="item-desc"><p>According to Philippine Rugby Football Union boss Jake Letts, wing and fullback Lito Ramirez has developed from a raw talent to a &quot;dangerous&quot; player on the pitch. <cite>Noel Celis, AFP</cite></p></div><div class="item-desc"><p>According to Philippine Rugby Football Union boss Jake Letts, wing and fullback Lito Ramirez has developed from a raw talent to a &quot;dangerous&quot; player on the pitch. <cite>Noel Celis, AFP</cite></p></div></div></div><p>Long before Lito Ramirez was one of the Philippines&#x27; first homegrown rugby stars, he was a 6-year-old orphan addicted to sniffing glue who survived on trash and begging. </p><p>If there was any luck in his hellish world, it was that the brand of glue he and other street kids used to get high was called &quot;Rugby&quot;.</p><p>The name still resonated with Ramirez years after he stopped using and was building his life in a Manila orphanage.</p><p>Counselors there had urged him to pick a sport, but he didn&#x27;t like football or basketball, the national obsession. Then they asked him if he wanted to give rugby a try.</p><p>&quot;I didn&#x27;t have any idea it was a sport,&quot; he told AFP. &quot;I thought it was the glue. That&#x27;s why I chose rugby for sports.&quot;</p><p>This fateful misunderstanding would redirect his life, giving the scrappy 5-foot-6 wing/fullback a way off the streets and into the sort of full-time career he can only have dreamt about.</p><p>It culminated with him becoming, in 2015, one of the first born and bred Pinoys to land a spot on the Philippines national squad, the Volcanoes. </p><p>To this day, the team is composed mostly of foreign-born players whose primary tie to the nation is a Filipino parent.</p><div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2019/afp/09/10/lito-ramirez-afp-3.jpg"/><figcaption>Lito Ramirez says he took up rugby mistaking it for the substance he was sniffing. &quot;I thought it was the glue. That&#x27;s why I chose rugby for sports,&quot; he says. <em>Noel Celis, AFP</em></figcaption></figure></div><div><strong>- &#x27;He&#x27;s been through it all&#x27; -</strong></div><p>Jake Letts, general manager of the Philippine Rugby Football Union, has watched Ramirez develop from a raw talent to what he called a &quot;dangerous&quot; player on the pitch.</p><p>&quot;His strength is his speed and his agility. It&#x27;s really hard for a big guy to catch him,&quot; Letts told AFP. &quot;When they do catch him it can be painful.&quot;</p><p>Letts said Ramirez&#x27;s brutal upbringing is now a strength: &quot;He&#x27;s definitely got the grit. He&#x27;s been through it all.&quot;</p><p>Ramirez says he has no memory of his parents and is not even sure of their full names. In fact, he has no birth certificate, so he&#x27;s not sure of his true birthday. </p><p>He uses March 17, 1994, which was assigned to him when he was taken in by an orphanage. That makes him 25 years old, on paper at least.</p><p>After his parents went missing, he and his older brother had ended up in the hands of a man he believes was an uncle. The man was an addict who sent the boys to beg on the streets of Manila, which is where they were introduced to glue-sniffing.</p><p>So-called &quot;Rugby boys&quot; have been a problem in the Philippines for decades, despite promises of reforms from solvent manufacturers, merchants and the government.</p><p>A small bottle of solvent still costs less than $1 in most shops.</p><div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2019/afp/09/10/lito-ramirez-afp-4.jpg"/><figcaption>For rugby Philippines general manager Jake Letts, Lito Ramirez has become the type of player he is because of his tough childhood. <em>Noel Celis, AFP</em></figcaption></figure></div><div><strong>- &#x27;I miss being a family&#x27; -</strong></div><p>Ramirez and his brother lived a perilous existence. They dug for food in the trash and were chased by the police, who arrested child addicts.</p><p>&quot;We slept wherever the night caught up with us,&quot; he said. </p><p>That changed when a woman, shocked by how the boys were living, led them to an orphanage. They bounced between facilities over the coming years.</p><p>Ramirez says that during that time he broke his addiction to glue because he was cut off from it and the bad influences of the street.</p><p>Eventually the brothers ended up at Tuloy sa Don Bosco, a home that shelters street children and aims to teach them a trade.</p><p>Playing rugby wasn&#x27;t one of the options -- Ramirez studied to become a baker -- but when he was 11 he had the pivotal, if accidental, introduction to the game.</p><p>He fell in love with the fast-paced action of the game and excelled at it. He started with small clubs, but was getting noticed in the tight-knit rugby community.</p><p>Around 2012, he was asked to try out for the Philippines under-18 team. He kept rising until he won a spot on the Volcanoes in 2015.</p><p>Yet that success cannot erase the gap left by his missing parents, and whether they are still alive is something that Ramirez thinks about every day.</p><p>&quot;I want to be with my parents. I miss being part of a family,&quot; he said. &quot;I just don&#x27;t know how I can find them.&quot;</p><p>For more sports coverage, visit the <a href="https://sports.abs-cbn.com/">ABS-CBN Sports website</a>.</p>

<p>A brutal upbringing is now a strength for Philippine Volcanoes wing and fullback Lito Ramirez.</p>

A brutal upbringing is now a strength for Philippine Volcanoes wing and fullback Lito Ramirez.

Rugby: Orphan goes from sniffing glue to playing for the Philippines

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Rugby: Orphan goes from sniffing glue to playing for the Philippines

Joshua Melvin,

Agence France-Presse

Published Sep 10, 2019 10:28 PM PHT

Read More:

Philippines Volcanoes

Lito Ramirez

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