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Philippines, 23 Nov 2024 |
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AN OPEN LETTER TO NONITO DONAIRE, JR.: BULLET IS FASTER THAN A SONIC-BOOM PUNCH PhilBoxing.com Mon, 07 Mar 2011 Your father is a dear friend to me and through this message I hope I will be able to shake you back to your senses, bring you back to earth again and make you realize that the triumph that you have just achieved, the euphoria, the celebration and the adulation that you enjoy now will have an end. That would make you a better champion and son. Success is like alcohol and drugs. It gets you high. You will feel a sudden rush of blood going up your head. You will feel superior than the others and you will believe you are invincible. You will believe that the world will not move and will not be complete without you. If you do not know how to handle success, you are doomed to fail and fall. And when you fall, nobody will cry. Instead people will laugh at you and say: "There goes the big fart. Good for him." At the risk of being accused again of blowing my own horn, let me just share with you some of my experiences in handling success. A few days before my first birthday following my ascension to the Governorship of North Cotabato in 1998, I learned of a plan by the employees of the provincial government to serenade me at dawn of Dec. 16 (my birthdate) for the traditional ma?anita. I immediately summoned the head of the group, the assistant provincial treasurer who was eyeing a promotion, and asked her a very simple question: "Will you still serenade me even if I would no longer be your Governor?" She was dumbfounded. That ended the tradition which I believe is a perfect example of sycophancy. My decision not to be carried away by the perks and trappings of power helped me to blend back to private life after the 2010 elections. I was just like a drop of rain that fell into a pond. You are a boxer with immense talents and if you keep your feet firmly on the ground, you will score more victories and along with that will come the proverbial fame and fortune. But there is a flaw in your character. You talk and blabber too much that people cannot seem to remember any line of note. Manny Pacquiao is not as eloquent as you are but people remember what he says: "You know!" and "Boxing is not for killing." You must have heard of that funny Chinese saying: "Many talk, many mistake; less talk, less mistake; no talk, no mistake." And you look so insincere when you talk, especially in that video after the reconciliation where you blamed the media for the scandal that rocked your own family. You could not even look straight at the camera. At times, you sounded very arrogant. Be a man and own up the mistakes that you have committed. It was you and your wife who accused your father of all of those misdeeds, even saying on national television that your father kept on asking money from you to spend for his mistress. Now you deny that and blame the media for making it up? It does not speak well of your character. Do not castigate the media for writing about your private life. It was you who talked about all these issues in your interview with Trish Dixon prior to the Fernando Montiel fight. It was your group which did that interview with Cameron Dunkin and Morris East to malign your father by claiming he stole the training money. It was you who started this, not the media. Standing up like a man and owning up mistakes committed make us better persons. And believe me, it will make you feel better. I have to admit that in handling the story of your feud with Nonito Sr. I was biased in favor of your father. He is a dear friend and I saw how he was pained and how he suffered during the three years that you abandoned him because like him, I am a father. In all of those times, I comforted your father telling him that the crisis will certainly have an end. The reconciliation came as a pleasant surprise to me, although I still have my reservations on your real motive in making that sudden turn-around. You see, I know that prior to that reconciliation, your father was already talking to a lawyer to initiate the filing of libel charges against you and your wife. He also asked me to consult a lawyer in the Philippines and ask if an American citizen could file a libel case against American citizens in the Philippines. This cannot be denied because my Iphone keeps a logbook of all of the conversations I had with your father. I did not want to divulge this initially because I respect your father and I know he does not want to strain your relationship again. But I feel this should be done to make you realize that you cannot just blabber and threaten people without taking the risk of a raise-back. Anyway, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. I will take that reconciliation as a sincere move on your part to reach out to your father and not just a result of the threat of legal Sword of Damocles hanging over your head. By the way, I dare you. If you are really sincere in your reconciliation with your father, why don't you take him back as part of your team, even just as a cutman? That would really be the best proof that you action was sincere. With that issue laid to rest, let me remind you again: Victory has many fathers; Defeat is an orphan. Many will express their love to you now, many will claim to be your relatives and friends, many will embrace you and tell you that you are the greatest because you are a world champion. But when you suffer defeat, when your popularity will be gone, these same people will disown you. Even your wife will abandon you. The only people who will embrace you will be your father, your mother and your brothers and sister. Plant your feet firmly on the ground and do not be carried away by all of these praises heaped on you now. Puede kang magyabang ng kaunti dahil champion ka na. We politicians do it to sell ourselves. But do not cross the line towards arrogance. Drill a little hole in your head to let that hot air out. It will free you from that dizzying feeling brought about by your success. By the way, just a friendly advice and this will be good for your health and well-being: Do not threaten me or other media people with your Sonic-Boom punch that knocked out Fernando Montiel. You could get into legal troubles with that statement in the Philippines. You could get sued for grave threats and that is a crime. Also, do not brag about you Sonic-Boom punch. Remember this: a bullet travels faster than a punch. (Notes: I hate to mention this again because I already clarified this in the past but I read another post in the forum blaming me for the unpaid purse of Luisito Espinosa in his fight against Carlos Rios. Please check your data before posting that. The Espinosa-Rios fight was held in Koronadal, South Cotabato in December of 1997. I became Governor of North Cotabato in June of 1998. The Governor of South Cotabato at that time was Hilario de Pedro. South Cotabato and North Cotabato are two distinct and separate provinces. I had absolutely no involvement in that fight. Manny Pinol) Click here for a complete listing of columns by this author. Click here for a complete listing of this author's articles from different news sources. |
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