MUCH has been said about Manny Pacquiao. His children have been interviewed at a rate more frequent than Thalia of teleserye fame was during her publicity tour; and his hapless mother has been repeatedly interrogated on the secrets of successful parenthood: “Suportahan ninyo anak ninyo kung saan sila masaya, kung hindi, baka hindi kayo maging milyonaryo.”
It has come to a point that hearing of Manny yet again on primetime news (singing his box-office hit, along with the grinning, lyrics-clutching President) or the mention of him now results in resigned moans from everyone but the most diehard fan. There are dozens of commentaries, specials, articles and reports that raise Pacquiao from the level of Ninoy Aquino’s pedestal to one that’s slightly above the Pope’s.
Fair warning: this is going to be one of them.
Early last Sunday, I sat through all 12 rounds of an undercard bout and what must have been five dozen million-peso commercials, patiently waiting for the much-touted Pacquiao-Morales rematch. I was already at the point where I was half-convinced of the superiority of Darlington socks (and the power of Alaxan) when I heard excited screams erupting from the apartment unit in the building across mine. My housemate and I bounced up from the couch and raced to the windows. I nearly fell off the window craning my neck, but all we saw were faint shadows through the curtains—and a satellite dish.
We spent the next 20 minutes telling each other that no, what we were watching couldn’t possibly be a delayed telecast, the networks couldn’t be that cruel; but our neighbors (and what sounded like the whole of the UP cheering squad) were squealing Morales’ and Pacquiao’s names with heartfelt fervor to the tune of the noise rising from more than 14,000 fans in the Las Vegas arena.
Needless to say, I spent the next two hours banging my head on the linoleum, plotting half a dozen ways of how to get ourselves invited next door (ranging from sugary smiles and batted eyelashes to “Excuse me, do you think our cat got into your apartment?”).
When the delayed telecast finally began, I was sitting on the floor a foot away from the TV. I like to think I’m a pacifist. Although I admit to having been a constant cause of physical harm, the torn ligaments, bleeding knees and sprained dignity have all been my own. The one exception was when I was 5 and sobbing my eyes out because my 12-year-old brother refused to run Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” on the player. So I picked up the “Snow White” Betamax tape, and for the first and last time in my life, hit the target where I aimed. The memory of my brother’s bloody nose attests to the fact that cartoons do induce violence in children.
That being said, sweaty, half-naked men trying to pound each other into a pulp have never held that much of an interest for me (unless the half-naked man happens to be Johnny Depp in swimwear).
Two minutes into the first round, I was bouncing around on my bare feet, punching the air and wincing with each hit that landed on Pacquiao. By the second round, I was out for blood. I wanted Morales crushed, maimed and broken. I wanted to see that gorgeous Mexican face connect to the business end of a boxing glove. I wanted him on the ground begging for mercy.
It didn’t help that I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I mean, sure, if one of them fell to his knees, I’d know who was winning. But if they just kept pounding away, how was a girl supposed to know who pounded better? Since I didn’t want to be left out, and I figured the people in the Thomas and Mack Center knew what they were doing, when they cheered, I cheered. When they gasped, I gasped. When they booed the referee, by God, I booed with the best of them. I thought it was a pretty good system. I only accidentally cheered for Morales once.
We received several text messages, all of which we ended up reading out loud in spite of resolutions to wait out the game to the bloody end. Another pal, who was camped out on the couch and chomping on chicken, called out a message from someone who claimed to be watching the game. “Morales won,” he read. I felt my face begin to crumple. “It’s on CNN already. Congratulations to the champion Morales,” he paused, “New president of Bolivia.”
By round seven, I had declared myself an expert at the sport. “Morales is getting weaker,” I said with the authority of someone who has never seen a boxing match in her life before. “I think it was the jab on the stomach, the one right before he got hit on the face.” It was then that I started praying and muttering the combination of a shrieked “Oh, my God!” and “let-him-win-let-him-win-let-him-win.”
When Pacquiao finally knocked out Morales, I stood in front of the TV for a whole minute before I realized it had ended. Pacquiao had won, the world was applauding on its feet, and I was one of the close to 90 million other people who could claim to share the same 300,000 square kilometers as the reigning lord of the ring.
An hour after, I called for a cab to go to work. I barely had half of my quite considerable backside on the seat when the driver launched into his interpretation of the match and Morales’ sheer foolhardiness for thinking he could measure up to the Pacman.
The same went for the drivers of every taxi, jeep and tricycle I’ve ridden in the past six days. In the market, the cashier was so busy agreeing that “Si Manny natin” was invincible that he forgot to ask me to pay for my kilo of tomatoes, while my professor lost his legendary cool and admonished the poor penitent lout who had the temerity to confess he had bet on Morales. For the last week, I’m willing to bet every awkward silence was smoothed out by one question. “Did you see Pacquiao’s fight last Sunday?”
We may be the second most dismaying country in Asia, and we may be in a position to claim to have the craziest politics this side of the world, but for that single point in history, that moment when a red boxing glove sent a strong man on his knees, we were the proudest. If ever the one they call the greatest fighter in Philippine history deigns to glance through this column, I want one thing known.
My kid is going to be a boxer. (And I’m going to be a millionaire.)
