(After an absence of almost two months, veteran sportswriter Recah Trinidad comes back with his widely read column to satiate our appetite for hard-hitting commentaries on sports and sundry. ? Ed)
MANILA, Philippines?You must be wondering what I?m doing here.
I am back after having made that emotional farewell a couple of months back.
I owe everybody an apology.
I did not mean to bluff and mislead.
I composed an obituary for my career hoping to take a different journey, away from the tyranny of deadlines.
Hello, good day, and thank you very kindly for opening your doors once more to this reporter and his expired pen.
This unscheduled, unannounced comeback piece should?ve been aptly titled ?No fish steaks for my cats.?
* * *
Please let me explain.
I sincerely thought I was doing the ethical thing when I followed the rules and called it quits on my 65th birthday, my stipulated date of retirement.
I was being too proud.
I made a wrong judgment, a victim of my poor ability at math and accounting.
For one, I allowed myself to be deluded by the post-employment benefits from our national security system, to which I had religiously contributed for over 40 years.
I did not count properly.
The least said about these benefits the better.
* * *
My friend, the California-based Percy Della, went as far as hail me when I strolled into the sunset, so to say.
Like a marathoner doing his final race, I obediently crossed what I felt would be the last stage in this long trek through the various playing fields in my life as a journalist.
Sorry, but I should?ve first made the right rehearsal. Indeed, that concluding act was not to be my last.
The PBA?s Dave Corros, who helped us immensely in setting up Tempo in 1982, reminded me that, in the first place, what I had finished was only the first half.
My kumpadre, the broadcast superhero Mike Enriquez, made the right guess when he told my son Chino that, like the morning bird, I would be back.
* * *
I?ve already made a request to cover AJ Banal?s fight for a world boxing title in Cebu on July 26.
This column will also resume in its regular frequency.
The reason is plain and simple.
As what Snowhite?s favorite dwarf loved to sing: We owe, so it?s off to work we go.
This means that my three cats, including the friends they regularly bring around the tray, will have to wait a little longer in the morning as I again tinker first with the old computer.
Not only that. These feline friends, all of whom I had dreamt of serving fish steak at least once a week, will have to make do with the old fare of leftovers every day.
* * *
Yes, it was hopeless, a horrible mismatch. With the continuing brutal blast of soaring prices, no thanks to a helpless government, practically everything has threatened to go out of hand.
You can feel everything, including thin faith in the system, going to shred.
It has come to a point when, as the great American novelist Norman Mailer put it, the dead are dying of thirst.
Even a dispensable reporter needs to wrestle with the world for a living, the reason he?s back abusing your hospitality.
Anyway, as things stand, it looks like only Manny Pacquiao can afford to readily retire without ever going hungry again
* * *
But then, how can this hero and legend go at this time when it seems only him?thanks to that native nobility he had shown the whole world in his last triumph in Las Vegas? who can feed the feeble hopes of the poor, hungry masses.
Of course, just like Pacquiao, the First Gentleman, with his immeasurable clout, can go anytime, already assured of riches for his future clans.
But, then, that?s another story.
Please, oh please. Stop wondering silly if Pacquiao could retire now that he has reached the greatest peak in his career.
If the Pacman leaves, who can the Pinoy turn to in order to stay sane?
