TO GRASP Manny Pacquiao?s artistry inside the ring, I never take my eyes off him. Manny?s genius is in the details. He is in perpetual motion, dictating the tempo and steps of the fight as if he owns the choreography. His ring steps are movements to set up defense or offense, artful as dance steps of boogie-woogie, cha-cha and bossa nova. His legs have springs so he can leap like a cat with nine lives. His head bobs and his shoulders sway playing catch me if you can. As always Manny?s knockout punch comes from nowhere. He is the master of the unexpected.
I watch Manny?s eyes intently. There are details in his thoughts. As he eyeballs his foe, I see his gut and his guile. His eyes are like the eyes of the Philippine eagle, ready to pounce on a prey sighted hundreds of meters beneath its wings.
Every time Manny?s opponents came crashing down, be it Barrera, Marquez, Morales, Hatton, or Cotto, I declared with pleasure the emergence of a brown (Pacquiao?s skin color and ours) supremacist, against the claims of traditionalists that it had to be white (Rocky Marciano) or black (Muhammad Ali).
Brown supremacy was the only triumphalist phenomenon I could claim since our one and only victorious event happened 500 years go in the battle of Mactan, when Lapu-lapu (a brown warrior like Pacquiao), killed a white conquistador named Fernando de Magallanes.
At the weigh in, ?Tijuana tornado? Antonio Margarito appeared very tall and heavy, he dwarfed Pacquiao. God! The s.o.b. is a giant. Can Pacquiao beat him?
As soon as Margarito climbed the ring he disrobed and did the spread eagle, showing his arms several inches longer than Pacquiao?s. Can Manny dodge his straight jabs? Fear gripped me but I got rid of it quickly as Manny promptly began with rapid fire punches, combinations of left and right that knifed their way to Margarito?s face with the bang of a hammer.
To fully indulge in my Pacquiao passion I watched the fight in the company of hoi polloi Filipinos in free TV (courtesy of our barangay funds) shown in a jampacked basketball gym where I merged cheek by jowl with the madding crowd. Only Pacquiao can bind us totally like walis ting-ting (stick broom), weak as a single strand, but solid strong when all are bound together. We were jampacked to the rafters: tricycle drivers, construction workers, coiffed matrons, housemaids, fast-food waiters, call center girls, security guards, municipal clerks, retired generals, ice cream vendors, businessmen, company managers, fish vendors, nuns, priests and hundreds of new graduates unable to find jobs. I sat beside a neighborhood toughie wearing a sando shirt and my wife whispered, ?Amoy paksiw siya, ?di naligo? The fat lady at my right, I think, was a fishmonger because she hurled cusses at Margarito. Behind us, a nasty fart wafted and the coiffed matron hissed, ?Naku naman. It stinks!? And we all snickered.
In the sixth round, Margarito, with a painful swollen eye, became a raging bull pushing Manny to the ropes, pummeling his ribs. I saw the hurt in Manny?s eyes before his quick escape. My wife cringed, her hands covering her face.
Our humongous crowd heaved as one, sighed as one, ?ouched? as one and exulted as one in all of Pacquiao?s critical moments. Our oneness with him was boundless, extending beyond boxing, into the realm of our hopes and dreams.
Pacquiao ennobles us as a people. When he fights, we are possessed with racial pride and passion, exposing our nationalist souls. Pacquiao erases the divisiveness and rancor of our political, religious and regional differences. When Pacquiao kneels in prayer before the fight, he reminds us that we are all Christians fully dependent on God?s love for our survival.
We all relate to Pacquiao with our full sense of the native and common heritage. Our ancestors came from the feudal poor, habitual job seekers with nothing but a rice-carbo-built physique sturdy enough to work on odd jobs to keep body and soul together, their pipe dreams tucked inside a little corner of their hearts, hoping that luck will strike someday in another part of the world; Hawaii pineapple plantations, Salinas Valley farms in California in the 1920s and Saudi Arabia at present.
Box, dance and sing are traits of our southern people. Pacquiao loves to do all three. It was Freddie Roach, a world-class trainer who saw and harnessed Pacquiao?s potential for greatness in boxing.
?Before you can build, you must first destroy,? said the eccentric cubist Pablo Picasso.
Pacquiao was methodical in his 12-round demolition job. He chipped away Margarito?s bravado, brick by brick, round by round. By the eighth round Manny had literally won his eight championship belt in eight divisions. No living boxer on earth achieved what Pacquiao did. Margarito, the giant, ended up with his eyes half blind, his eye-socket fractured and his boxing career in shambles.
As the referee raised Manny?s hand, we all went wild brimming with superiority complex. Brown supremacy! Filipino Pacquiao passion never felt so heady. No ?Noli Me Tangere? of Rizal, no tearing of the cedula by Bonifacio in Pugad Lawin, no Edsa I of Cardinal Sin can match the Pacquiao passion in uniting our hearts and minds to bask in the sunshine of our pride as one people.
In CNN?s Pacquiao interview last year, the pretty blonde correspondent touched on his state of affairs regarding pretty women attracted to him.
Manny?s face turned shy. ?I?m a man? (lalaki ako), he said sheepishly. A non sequitur. Careful, Miss CNN. A Filipino boxer sporting a moustache is deadly. Ask a pretty Filipina named Jinky.
Minyong Ordo?ez is a retired advertising executive. He is a member of the Manila Overseas Press Club. Email: [email protected]
