The creator of the website that has become a repository of all articles and links about Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao finally broke his silence over repeated attempts of an American to take control over the popular www.mannypacquiao.ph web account.
In a rare editorial posted in the said website, Dong Secuya revealed how he was bullied into entering into an onerous ?partnership? with self-anointed defender of the Pacquiao brand who goes by the name Timothy James Sladeck.
Dong, who created the Manny Pacquiao fan page more popularly known as Pacland in 2003, said Sladeck threatened to shut down Pacland if Dong won?t agree to a partnership.
I happened to be one of the few privilege contributors of www.philboxing.com, a spin-off website created by Dong after the huge success of Pacland, with whom Dong shared his misadventures with Sladeck.
It was sometime in June when Dong called me up saying he wanted to talk to me via Skype.
He gave me details of what Sladeck ?offered? him and how the American almost blackmailed him into signing a partnership paper sans any remuneration for the Pacland web owner who happens to be a website designer and a visual artist.
In our own Visayan street lingo, Sladeck was ?sabay sa tama? ? freeloading!
I offered to do a story about it but Dong prevailed and requested that this be kept under wraps.
Dong has been known among the boxing circle as an unassuming man who created the website out of love for the sports. He resisted commercializing his website even though it is now among the top five boxing websites in the world with 35,000 unique daily visitors and which forum has over 60,000 members worldwide.
I personally met Dong in 2006 in Manila while covering the Pacquiao-Larios fight although we have been communicating through e-mails already.
During the weigh-in of the Pacquiao-Larios fight Dong asked me to introduce him to Atty. Jeng Gacal, a fellow 1977 high school graduate of the Notre Dame school system in General Santos City.
At that time, ABS-CBN threatened to sue Dong for using the official fight poster in his website which he himself designed.
As it was, all things ended up well.
Dong would go on to cover many of Pacquiao?s fights in the US after that except for one or two occasions.
Pacland has since become a blog aggregator, pooling stories almost exclusively about Pacquiao.
Without doubt, Pacland help re-invent Filipino boxing and push further Pacquiao?s popularity among Filipinos and boxing fans around the world.
Dong won?t admit it openly but a friend of him says many boxing writers are practically begging him to link their sites/articles to Pacland in order to generate viewers/visitors.
A good article that is carried by Pacland can easily gather more than 15,000 views, all unique.
Dong?s site is now among the top 30,000 websites in the world. That?s not something to sneeze at considering that there are almost 1 billion websites and blogsites in the information highway.
This is probably what drove Sladeck to co-opt Dong.
Sladeck?s attempt to generate the same number of views by creating his own website with a tag line of ?Official Website of Manny Pacquiao ? probably is a big failure by Pacland standard otherwise he won?t be bothering Dong no end.
Manny was quoted as saying he will look into Dong?s problem Tuesday.
Maybe he should into Sladeck?s.
Sladeck is a Johnny-come-lately.
He has no business bullying Dong who has never made money out of his website.
Dong deserves respect.
