I’m not a big boxing fan, but over the past few years, possibly because we haven’t had a champ in a while, I always made it a point to watch the fights of Manny Pacquiao. I must say that in his bout with undefeated Mexican champ Jorge Solis in Texas last Sunday, Manny fought an incredible fight, the likes of which we won’t see in a while. He fought like a wounded lion as he savaged the Mexican champ. Reports say, however, that his trainers, Freddie Roach and Justin Fortune, were “unimpressed” because they felt Manny was “toying around” and not “that serious.” But to this fan and probably millions around the country, he didn’t look like he was toying around. He wanted to rush in and hit Solis hard, except that the latter’s long powerful arms repeatedly barred him.
Pacquiao took a lot of blows, but the turning point was when a head butt left an ugly wound over his eye. At that point, he probably got worried that given Solis’ long reach, the wound could become serious. That was when he decided to go for the kill, and braving a few blows to get close enough, Manny barreled went in and pummeled Solis again and again until he fell down twice. The glint of anger in Pacman’s eyes was evident. What a fight it was!
By the way, many people were amused when the guy who announced his victory also called him “a congressional candidate.” It’s probably the first time a Filipino candidate was endorsed internationally.
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The media reported how the whole nation, including political candidates, stopped to watch the fight. We left Manila early Sunday morning for Dagupan City to check out how House Speaker Jose de Venecia was doing in his fight against Dagupan City Mayor Benjie Lim. When we got there, De Venecia, who’s fighting for his last congressional term, had just left the house, but he rushed back before noon to watch the fight.
It was interesting to watch De Venecia during the fight. He watched the first six rounds very quietly, uttering no word and showing no emotion. I was sitting beside him in another chair and screaming at the top of my lungs, and felt constrained to move to the back and join the other noisy women, like his sister-in-law, Betchay Nakpil. We laughingly theorized that De Venecia probably found boxing unexciting, compared to the fireworks he has witnessed in the House during his four terms as Speaker.
When Pacquiao sent Solis to his knees for the first time, De Venecia leaned forward but remained quiet. When the Mexican fell a second time, he still said nothing. But when the referee counted up to 10 in Spanish, De Venecia suddenly sprang up ahead of all of us and with his arms stretched, screamed and jumped up and down with joy.
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Also interesting is the local fight in which De Venecia is now embroiled. As his wife Gina put it, “Iba talaga ang local” [“The local is really different.”] The contest between De Venecia and Lim has all the signs of an uneven match, but the Speaker and his wife are leaving nothing to chance, and are now campaigning as though he were a neophyte. Media reports say Lim’s camp is saying that while De Venecia, the fourth highest official of the government, has enjoyed a vast national and international reputation, he has failed to devote enough attention to the fourth district and his province of Pangasinan. During my interview, De Venecia disputed this assertion with printed data on how many roads (including the diversion road in Dagupan City that would expand it by a third), schoolhouses, bridges, etc., he had undertaken. He recalled his authorship of the Dagupan City Earthquake Rehabilitation Program, which completely rebuilt the city damaged in 1991, as well as many fisheries projects he has brought to the city.
Lim is reportedly saddled with some cases pending before the Ombudsman dating back to his stint as chief of the duty free shops as well as a P300-million loan from the Land Bank of the Philippines to build the public market, which, to date, remains uncompleted. De Venecia partisans point out that during the three terms of Lim’s predecessor, former immigration bureau chief Al Fernandez (who is now running for mayor again versus Lim’s son), Dagupan was a first-class city without any debts. Today, they claim, it’s a second-class city “teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.”
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Genuine Opposition (GO) candidate John Henry Osme?a called to explain why he’s questioning the credibility of the latest opinion survey by the poll group Pulse Asia that gave him a lower rating. He pointed out that the survey’s field work was supposedly conducted from April 3 to 5 among 1,800 respondents, and the results were processed next day. Osme?a pointed out that the field work dates fell on Holy Tuesday to Holy Thursday, when many people were off on excursions or on the beaches, while the processing was done on Good Friday. Were the survey’s people truly working on those dates? he asked.
Osme?a also said surveys command big money, with Pulse Asia’s survey reports, costing P300,000 a copy, subscribed to by around 300 clients, including multinationals and embassies. Yesterday, Osme?a was scheduled to go to the Commission on Elections to press for an investigation into the operations and methodology of poll survey companies. He is not the first or the last to question the credibility of the surveys. Some officials of the administration coalition fear that some surveys could be laying the basis for questioning results should Team Unity grab a majority of the senatorial seats, owing to GO’s disorganization as well as its lack of funds and grassroots machinery.
I told Osme?a he surprised many when he agreed to run, after having retreated to the boondocks of Negros Oriental as a gentleman farmer. He said he was encouraged when he realized that GO had no Visayan candidate.
I’ve known Osme?a for almost 25 years now, during which we’ve had healthy differences over a number of issues. I think having him in the Senate is better than not having him there, given his first-rate analytical mind and his independent, but not destructive stance, on issues.
