MIRACLES happen everytime 130-pounder Manny Pacquiao fights. Worldwide, Pinoys hold their collective breaths, eyes peeled wide open, hands clasped in prayer for their idol. Hereabouts, crime incidence dramatically drops as even hardened felons and the criminally inclined take to watching a 5’4″ Filipino swap fists for gold and glory. Pacquiao becomes Pinoy pride, bruising through a gauntlet of indignities, yet struggling on to claim two-bit humanity, maybe, push a whit of luck to thrive and triumph.
A Pacquiao fight unites a divided nation—neither grand gesture nor impassioned speech of a Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a Jose C. de Venecia or a Prospero Pichay can do that.
Today, the nation turns breathless anew in anticipation of a Pacquiao victory. Never mind if a gaggle of congressmen have hied off again on a junket at the Pinoy taxpayer’s expense to the Las Vegas
fight site to watch The Battle. Never mind if a gentleman ensconces once more in a $20,000 a night hotel suite. The blaze of a Pacquiao win often sweeps such dirt under the rug.
A win spawns off the usual rousing ticker-tape parade down Manila’s streets. Prepare a truckful of political spittle to welcome a hero’s homecoming. Line up a mile-long list of courtesy calls. Get ready for a lot of photo opportunities that can afford politicos to bask and rub in on themselves some reflected glitter of a prizefighter.
That’s outright robbery on Pacquiao. It demeans a fighter’s steeling process that he plunged into.
Let Pacquiao bleed and spill his innards and become champion in his sphere of action. Let him win the Filipino people’s hearts and minds.
He’s our idol. Leave him be, please.
He’s much a part of that global army of Filipinos of various skills and competencies who plough back into our shores some $12 million per year to keep the nation propped on its feet. In their respective arenas, battlegrounds, workposts, and tasks they also bleed, spill their guts, and emerge as champions.
Ah, Erik “El Terrible” Morales also counts in as among the millions of Mexicans who bring in $18 million a year to their homeland. They are fighters and strugglers like us. We share that unity with ’em.
Amigos, golpeemos cojones!
