HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE THE MOTHER OF A woman scorned.
The mother of the former girlfriend of Manny Pacquiao has flown to Los Angeles, California, for a confrontation with the boxing superstar over the plight of her daughter and grandson.
In an overseas phone interview with the Inquirer
yesterday, Marissa Bacosa-Yamamoto said she had sought a meeting with Pacquiao, who is set to fly to Los Angeles after the Holy Week to train at the Wild Card Gym.
“(Pacquiao) is a big shot in Manila. We couldn’t even see him there anymore like we used to. I could probably talk to him here,” she said, fuming.
Pacquiao is to spend three weeks of training in May at the gym in Hollywood for his World Boxing Council super featherweight fight with Mexico’s Oscar Larios at the Araneta Coliseum on July 2.
Closed-door training
After LA, he will train four more weeks in Baguio City. His training will be held behind closed doors.
Marissa flew two weeks ago to Los Angeles from Japan, where she lives with her second husband, a retired Japanese ship captain. In Los Angeles, she is staying with her eldest daughter.
Marissa said her three other daughters and a son wanted her to keep quiet but she just couldn’t.
“I feel guilty. I have failed her once. I feel I have to take up the cudgels for her this time because she still has a good future ahead of her,” she said.
And if Pacquiao refuses to see her, the 49-year-old Marissa said she was ready to picket his training center with a group of placard-bearing Filipinos to demand that Pacquiao respect the rights of women.
Threat of lawsuit in US
While waiting for Pacquiao in Los Angeles, Marissa said she would be conferring with an American prosecutor about a Nevada law prohibiting a boxer from fighting if he was facing a suit involving minors.
Before this interview, Marissa spoke with her daughter’s lawyer, Victor Rodriguez, about granting an interview with a group of American newsmen inquiring about Pacquiao’s alleged son.
The American reporters, she said, wanted to find out if it was true that her daughter, 24-year-old Joanna Bacosa, was only after Pacquiao’s money.
Not mine, says Pacquiao
She was indignant, of course, she said.
Joanna’s counsel told Marissa to go ahead with the interview with American reporters in Los Angeles.
“I am mad. You print that,” Marissa told the Inquirer. “Why can’t Manny be man enough to face my daughter in court? Can a man just impregnate a woman and be allowed to get away with it?”
Pacquiao has denied that he is the father of Joanna’s 2-year-old son, but said that he was willing to support him if a DNA test proved he was the father.
Pacquiao thrice snubbed a one-on-one meeting with Joanna at the office of Assistant City Prosecutor Ma. Gracia Casaclang of Quezon City, where he has been charged with violation of Republic Act No 9262, which protects women from violence.
Pacman’s promise
“I can support my daughter and my grandson, but Manny Pacquiao ought to recognize his son and honor his obligation to him,” said Marissa, a commerce graduate from the Philippine School of Business Administration.
She said she met Pacquiao at least 10 times during his two-year relationship with her daughter.
“He promised me that he would never forsake my daughter,” she recalled Pacquiao telling her several times over dinner.
“How could he deny that the boy isn’t his son? Eh, kamukhang kamukha niya! (He looks like him).”
Mother’s cross
That her daughter fell in love with a married man who now refuses to recognize her and their son has become, to Marissa, something of a family tragedy.
“This is a mother’s cross [to bear]. I failed her as a mother,” she said.
She said she was physically fit, but she won’t dignify the challenge of Pacquiao’s own mother to a fistfight.
“I find that so cheap,” she said.
