LIKE the Tour de France, life is also by stages.
In the beginning, it’d be dreams. Just dreams. Next, ambition. Then fame. Fortune. Power.
The poor and rich go by different routes.
Mostly, the poor just wants money, the rich fame. Money and fame, respectively, are dreams to both.
When the money’s there, the poor wants some more: Fortune.
When the wealth is there, the rich wants some more: Fame.
Usually, with fortune comes fame. Sometimes, even with fame and fortune secured, the poor becomes extra ambitious. He’d go for power.
The rich know that by heart.
Fortune is power enough. It can transform man into dog, the principled into a blind follower.
The rich are born to it but not the poor.
Thus, the poor becoming rich is sometimes more dangerous than the born rich. Greed is what would soon topple the poor becoming rich.
Thus, in this country, power is an automatic magnet to many of our rich, the new rich included.
Thus, like moths attracted to light, most of our rich enter politics, or buy corporations/institutions at the flick of a finger and become chair/CEO.
Show me a senator who is poor.
Robert Kuan, the Chowking founder, is St. Luke’s chair.
Manny V. Pangilinan, the Smart-TNT owner, is Makati Medical Center chair.
Soon, don’t be surprised if Manny Pacquiao, the people’s junior lightweight boxing champion, becomes mayor of GenSan.
Oh, yes, Manny Pacquiao, a stowaway at 14, whose power-packed fists were his weapons to gain fame and fortune.
In a striking similarity with Manny Paquiao, Tiger Woods, parenthetically speaking, also used his fists to gain fame and fortune through his golf exploits.
Like Pacquiao, Woods is rich, although Woods’ worth, by Forbes Magazine standards, is beyond compare with that of Pacquiao’s. Woods’s worth could be anywhere between $500 million and $1 billion.
And Pacquiao?
Ah, forget it.
Still, even if, say, Pacquiao is today worth $50 million that will easily be considered a fortune here. That should give Pacquiao 10 lifetimes already when his worth is converted into peso, given the prevailing dollar-peso exchange rate of P56 to a dollar.
But there’s no denying the fact Pacquiao has hit the big time.
Because Pacquiao now fights mostly in America, his purses come in dollars. That makes him an instant millionaire by Philippine standards. His recent off the ring victory alone in New York worth $33 million in an out of court settlement with Murad Muhammad, his former promoter/manager, speaks volumes already. Whether he got half of that or not is immaterial. That he won, in dollars at that, is what mattered.
With all that money being poured into his lap like peanuts tossed into a manhole—isn’t he also making a movie right now, one that’s paid him in the millions?—does Pacquiao still have the motivation to win more fights atop the ring?
While money is the one perk that drives man to aim for the moon, money has also been known to dull desires.
Boxing is a cruel sport. Unlike golf, boxing hurts, bloodies your face, if not cuts brittle brows and busts fragile lips. It also breaks jaws of glass, if not vows of worldly abstinence.
Money and all, Tiger Woods will plod on for that one remaining dream: Break Jack Nicklaus’ 18 majors. He’s got 10 already and, at 29, Woods is simply too young to abandon that dream, which even Byron Nelson, the legend of another era who is now 93, believes will happen.
But boxing being entirely different from golf, the case of Manny Pacquiao offers a plethora of ambiguities, is a paradox.
With all his money, plus fame, Manny Pacquiao, an adopted son of both Manila and Para?aque, can quit now and still live comfortably with his winnings.
Maybe in his mind, he has quit already. And the movie he is making right now could be the movie in his mind.
But wait, it’s not over till it’s over. Did I not say about power being part of the stages of a man’s odyssey in this world?
Vote Pacquiao for mayor, if not in GenSan, either in Manila or Para?aque.
The election’s still about a couple of years from now.
Yes I know, but then, doesn’t the early bird get the first worm?
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