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Philippines, 04 May 2024 |
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AN OPEN LETTER TO MANNY PACQUIAO PhilBoxing.com Sat, 15 Nov 2008 November 13, 2008 Dear Mr. Pacquiao, Champ, congratulations on all your achievements and may you continue to realize more success not only as an athlete but also as an accomplished and well-rounded human being. Ever since you masterful and methodical annihilation of David Diaz last June, a fight I was privileged to have seen in person, the boxing world has not stopped talking about you. With your mega fight with Oscar De La Hoya just 3 weeks away, boxing scribes and sportswriters in general seem not to run out of materials to write about you. Everybody knows about your god-like status in the Philippines but more importantly now, you are also becoming better known in the United States not only among avid boxing aficionados but also among casual sports fans. With your recent well-received feature in the popular ESPN E:60 and the forthcoming airing of HBO?s 24/7, the American sports fan will get to know you very well. With your enormous success, wealth and fame, everyone wants a piece of you. You are surrounded by genuine and sincere friends who wish nothing but for you to reach the pinnacle of your God-given capability. Unfortunately, I am sure you are also well aware that there are some people around you who may not have your best interest in mind. As you well know , there will always be opportunists lurking around you; ready to pounce on the first chance you let your guard down. I realize that you already have very competent and excellent professional advisers to help you wade through your vastly complicated life. Mr. Freddie Roach is God-sent to you. You also have knowledgeable and experienced group of brilliant friends and supporters, like Cris Aquino, Secretary Atienza, Gov. Singson, Mr. Salud and many others who share with you their own secrets of success in life and in business. You have given so much pride to us Filipinos, I thought, to show my appreciation, on my own little way; I would like to offer some thoughts that you might find helpful. If you can pick a pearl or two from this letter, I would be so honored. GOD Continue to give glory to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Your strength comes from Him. You have been given an extraordinary gift so that you can be an instrument to help uplift the plight of the less fortunate Filipino people. You are an inspiration for no t forgetting the source of all your blessings. FAMILY You have a very beautiful and loving family. After some turbulent times, as any marriage may sometimes had to go through, I am so glad to hear you making every effort to be the very best husband and father you can be. There will always be temptations, and it can get worse with your ever increasing celebrity, but by turning to God for strength and support at all times, you can endure any storm that may come your way. As a professional boxer, you are forced to be away from you loved ones for extended periods of time. This is almost inevitable but I know it can be overcome. Your wonderful children are growing up so fast and you are being blessed with another one. Financially, you have set them for life but you want to do more. You don?t want to look back 20 years from now and second-guess yourself on what could have been. In one of you columns last summer, you wrote about the priceless and exhilarating experience you had when you spent a lot of time with them just being a ?regula r? family. I am sure you want to do that all the time. Even when you are training, I am very confident you can spend quality time with them without causing undue disruption on your preparations for your fights. Right now, being away from your children must be killing you and Jinkee. I just cannot imagine the sacrifice you are doing. It must be breaking your heart but you have a job to do. I thought there might be a solution. Not only for the Dream Match training camp but also for all your future training camps. Why don?t you buy or lease a house, let say somewhere in the Orange County area where your family can call home while you remain at the Palazzo. Your family should be far enough from Wild Card Gym not to cause any distraction but near enough to be able to spend time with your wife and kids more frequently. Obviously, you are concerned about the boys? education being disrupted. I am absolutely sure they can be temporarily accommodated by a number of excellent private schools in the area. The new school experience would even broaden their horizons. I am convinced that this will not only give you the added peace of mind but it will make you even more focused and determined in your training. You will no longer have a vast ocean separating you and your family to worry about. Clearly, this will be in a win-win situation. You are fulfilling your parental responsibilities at the same time you are doing the best you can to prepare for your fights. As you well=2 0know, there are a lot of great fighters who remained with their families during training and have done very well. Simply being the biggest celebrity in the Philippines, your time with the family is further diminished as you are asked to be in every corner of the country almost every day. Once again, being such an accommodating person, you end up accepting more invitations than you should. Hopefully, you would be able to say no more often without being perceived aloof or impolite. Time flies. You do not want to miss the wonderful growing up stage of your young family. BOXING As a fan, I hope that your boxing career will never end and you will fight until you are 100 years old. You are one of a kind. Very special athletes like you come around only once in a lifetime. Unfortunately, just like everything else, your boxing career will come to an end. Just like many of your fans, I wish that it would not be too soon. Right now, you are at the peak of your illustrious career. Most experts agree that you can compete at the highest level and fight with the boxing elite for at least another 3-4 more years. Certainly you are set financially and you have pretty much accomplished almost everything you can achieve in your Hall of Fame career and you can retire in your terms after another couple of fights next year. I just hope, like many of your fans, it is not so. We hope that you will continue to provide excitement for your fans and see you battle against Hatton, Mayweather, Marquez, Campbell, J. Diaz, Valero, Soto, or anybody else who could give you the utmost challenge. Of course, such fights would not only give you huge financial windfall but also would give you the opportunity to clean up the lightweight and junior welterweight divisions. (I am not sure if it is wise for you to fight again in the welterweight division). I really wish you would reconsider your plan to retire in 2009. Last July, I was so sure that you and Oscar De La Hoya would fight that I made my hotel and airline reservations at that time. The electricity and excitement the Dream Match is generating are unprecedented. Fans a re looking forward to a very exciting, action packed and competitive fight. I am sure that you will not let us down. The reports coming from Wild Card gym seem very reassuring. However, I just wonder why Mr. Roach is giving a lot of ammunitions and ?bulletin board? materials to give Oscar more motivation to win. However, I think they make good stories to drive up the PPV buys. Although it will not happen, but if indeed you lose, your will not taint your image and you will still come out with an intact reputation. On the other hand, a win will surely send your career to the stratosphere. Doors that you never knew existed will be opened for you. Opportunities will simply be endless. And just like Mr. Larry Merchant said in ESPN E:60, you will be among the select company of boxing?s greats. Once again, please give us fans a few more years of exciting Pacquiao brand of boxing. POLITICS You have such great concern and compassion for our kababayans that you strongly feel that you will be able to help them more by entering politics and being a public servant. I can see your genuine desire to make a difference. I really applaud the sincerity of your heart. Nevertheless, in my humble opinion, I believe you will be able to lend a better hand to the Filipino people not as a politician but being a philanthropist, providing help through your charitable foundation. I really hope you would deliberate on this matter more and reconsider your plan to run for office in 2010. In the end, whatever, you decide, I am confident you it will be for the best. BUSINESS Because of your humility, I think you are not fully aware how really colossal you have become. Your life and evidently, your financial situation have become immensely complicated. I can appreciate your desire to be very much involved and have a hands on approach in running the20business side of your career. Your ?business empire? has grown to the point it is now comparable to a fairly good-sized U.S. Company thus requiring to be structured as such. I am well aware you already have good advisers. With due respect to your current business advisers, but I thought that the ?Pacquiao Corporation? has gotten so enormous that you have outgrown them. You should have a CEO and a CFO with proven track records in big business, preferably from an established international business corporation. Your prospective CEO must have managed and successfully led a highly regarded and profitable company. We have a lot well educated and extremely capable corporate managers in the Philippines but you don?t have to limit your choices to Filipino CEO?s if it would mean more financial stability for you. Possibilities are endless and you should consider international business managers, just like Oscar De La Hoya reaching out to Swiss investment banker, Mr. Schaefer. You would do very well to have trusted professionals reporting to you regularly while handling the Pacquiao Corporation achieve greater heights. Micromanaging your business interest may not be the best way. Delegating tasks to respectable, honest and business savvy associates would spell better outcome. The bigger financial giant you become, the more you will be able to provide assistance to our kababayans in so many different ways. And with a trusted CEO running your day to day operation, it will free you from undue worries and in turn make you focus more on your family and of course, boxing. You could very well equal, if not surpass Golden Boy?s business success. You could also follow the Magic Johnson?s model of business diversity. There is simply no stopping your success outside of boxing. EDUCATION It is so refreshing to see you work hard on educating yourself. You have indeed become an outstanding role model for our youth. With your fame and fortune, you could have easily said to yourself, ?why bother going to school?? but you did not and instead, you made an effort above and beyond what could be expected from an already affluent man. You have sent a very strong message to the Filipino youth about the value of education. You don?t need to physically attend class at the university (I am sure you cherish the experience as you were not able to do so when you were youngster) but you go ahead and continue to expand your knowledge, not only in business but also about life in general. I find you to be an=2 0inherently intelligent person. In such a short period of time, you have greatly improved your command of the English language. There are still a lot to learn. It would not hurt to have a personal English tutor shadow you around, just like what the Houston Rockets did to Yao Ming, to make you a skilled English speaker quicker and make you more comfortable in expressing yourself with confidence. Mastery of English will further create prospects for you as you become more well known in American sports circle. With your innate desire to be the best you can be, there is nothing impossible for you. I am fully aware that you get a ton of unsolicited advice from well meaning and not so well meaning people. I would not be surprised if you have heard already everything written in this letter. But as I said in the beginning, if you pick a pearl or two, I would have achieved the purpose of this letter. I am looking forward to see you celebrating a hard fought victory on the evening of December 6. You have always dedicated your fights to the Filipino people and carry 90 million Filipinos with you on your shoulders to the ring. In return, from Appari to Jolo, the Philippines comes to a standstill to watch you. It would be most fitting, if you can convince your number one friend and supporter, Her Excellency, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, to attend the biggest fight of your boxing career and lead the whole Nation cheer you to victory. May God continue to bless you and your family. Very truly yours, Greg R. Penilla, M.D 14309 Manchester Road St. Louis, Missouri 63011  |
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