A government housing unit promised to the bereaved family of Ateneo Blue Eagles player Rene Clert “Bobet” Baterbonia has moved from pledge to delivery, the Provincial Government of Agusan del Sur said Friday, with the National Housing Authority granting the family a condominium the provincial government valued at P2.266 million.
The unit sits at Madayaw Residences along Sierra Madre Road in Bangkal, Davao City — a five-storey government housing project that was the NHA’s first low-rise building put up outside Metro Manila. Its condominium-type units run between 36 and 42 square meters in floor area.
For a household that had long made do with a flood-prone ancestral home, the grant answers something the 19-year-old athlete had hoped to do for his own family before he died. Baterbonia’s mother, Rovelyn, had earlier recounted that the family left their original hometown precisely because the area kept flooding, a recurring hardship they carried as they sought steadier footing for their children.
The arrangement traces back to a directive from NHA General Manager Joeben Tai. Agusan del Sur Gov. Santiago Cane Jr. first disclosed the offer on June 24, the day Baterbonia was buried, sharing a message he said the agency had relayed to him: “This is to inform you Gov. that, upon the directive of NHA General Manager Joeben Tai, a condominium unit at Madayaw Residences, located at Sierra Madre Road, Bangkal, Davao City, will be granted as housing assistance to the family of Mr. Rene Baterbonia.” Regional NHA representatives were set to sit down with the family that Friday to walk them through the grant.
Other forms of help had already reached the household before the housing announcement. Ateneo de Davao University, where Baterbonia finished senior high school, extended full scholarships through college to his six siblings. The Philippine Sports Commission committed P250,000 in financial aid split between the families of Baterbonia and teammate Divine Adili, while Ateneo de Manila University said it would provide both families assistance over a “period of time,” framing the gesture not as a “legal settlement” but as a “moral responsibility.”
Baterbonia and Adili, a Nigerian national, drowned on June 8 during a team-building activity of the Ateneo men’s basketball team in Dipaculao, Aurora. What police initially logged as a drowning accident has since widened into a multi-agency accountability inquiry, with the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group saying its early findings pointed to a death that was “not an accident.”
Cane has signaled the province may yet take a more active role beyond aid. He said the local government could extend legal assistance if the family requests it, and indicated that an unsatisfactory outcome from the autopsy and ongoing probe could prompt the provincial government to step in.
