LEST we forget, the Las Vegas showdown in a non-title super featherweight fight called The Grand Finale was between a Filipino and a Mexican. Which reminds us that our forefathers connected with Mexicans for hundreds of years, remember?
Mexican priests assigned to Philippine diocese, who Filipinos thought were Spaniards, passed on their love of avocados, chicos, or papayas to Filipinos who had not previously seen them at all.
Think, too, of the period of the galleon trade. It was during those days when Mexico was then called New Spain and Spain was trying to wring trade out of the conquered archipelago it later called Pilipinas, and of the East.
So why not rekindle an old relationship, even as things seem to be falling in place, like the Las Vegas showdown and the Mexican government exhibit in Manila?
In the pre-fight press conference, prize boxers Manny Pacquiao and Erik Morales, as friendly adversaries, had their picture taken together at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas. The photos were ?bannered? in city and community papers.
To put in an ingenious twist to the fight story, a Manila photographer covering the visit to Pampanga of Miss Earth 2006 candidates, asked Miss Philippines and Miss Mexico to come together and pose for the camera like long-time friends. It would be some few days before the final choice of Miss Earth. The photo was a head-turner in the front page of Manila Standard Today.
As for the Las Vegas ring heroes, it?s true that the most moving gesture there, as seen on screen after Manny?s victory, was when he embraced Erik. There was even a news item about how Manny also said he was sorry, as though to say, ?I know it hurts, but you?ll be all right, amigo.?
The duo had been at each other?s punches for more than once, like old friends, so that a Filipino could miss Erik the Terrible after all this.
Why, even the champ?s winning in dollars and Erik getting a consolation dollar prize would eventually mean pesos for both fighters. That would be a similarity to reckon with, when the Philippines years ago decided to use ?peso? as money denomination.
A coincidence also stood out. In this past week, the Mexican ambassador and the National Museum director (all women) came together to organize an exhibit in Manila on a second look at the ties between the Philippines and Mexico.
Now we can?t help but trace it.
There was a time when Spain?s best business idea was the galleon trade between Mexico and Manila where China or other countries in the East put in goods for sale across the Pacific, such as the popular China laces. The galleons followed a route to the New World that was first discovered by Legaspi.
The over a hundred galleons that sailed to Mexico from Manila and back were actually built in Pangasinan, Albay, Mindoro, Marinduque and Iloilo. The hardwood needed from the rich Philippine trees were cut by thousands of natives who made timber out of them and hauled them to the shipyards.
But even in Mexico, such as in San Blas, the early OFWs were carpenters who repaired and put galleons in tiptop shape.
Also a few Filipino women worked there as sailmakers. So it?s not surprising to find in the past or present two or three villages where Filipino-Mexicans drink ?tuba fresco? or fly kites or eat mangoes, or meet a local with a name as strange as ?Maganda.”
On the other hand, there are many Mexican fruits and vegetables we learned to eat and call native—avocado, pineapple, peanuts, even cassava, papaya, tomato, squash, among others.
The galleon trade couldn?t continue in the throes of the Mexicans? fight for independence from Spain. Magallanes was the name of the last galleon that arrived in Acapulco. In the revolutionary army in Mexico were recruited some Filipino-Mexicans under the command of a general who became Mexico?s first black president.
Such are the colors of Philippine-Mexican ties that we can now stir up as friends. It would be for sentimental reasons, for friendship?s sake and, of course, for the business agenda.
There will always be a tie between Manny and Erik. In each Grand Finale, there is a winner in a loser.
