Lawyer Romy Macalintal isn?t giving up hope that someday soon, the White House will release the pictures taken during the historic meeting between President Barack Obama and Manny Pacquiao with wife Jinkee at the Oval Office last February. Like millions of Filipinos, Romy is wondering why an embargo on the photographs. Surely, showing the Pacquiaos with Obama will impact positively on both sides of the world. Pacquiao is the world?s No. 1 pound-for-pound king while Obama is hailed as the leader of the world?s most powerful nation. The speculation that Obama wouldn?t like to be viewed as coddling up to Pacquiao in deference to Floyd Mayweather Jr. is hogwash. Obama is known to receive world champion athletes and teams of various sports at the White House and uses the occasion to inspire others with the example of achievers. He doesn?t play favorites.
Top Rank chairman Bob Arum once said leaders of developed countries like to single out Pacquiao as a Third World hero who came from abject poverty to metamorphose into a global icon because he serves as a symbol of hope for those struggling for a better life.
So why are there still no pictures of the Pacquiaos with Obama in media or even the far corners of cyberspace?
?For sure, there were photos of that momentous event,? said Romy who never fails to watch Pacquiao?s fights at ringside, no matter where they?re staged. ?But since then and until now, millions of Pacquiao?s fans all over the world have not seen a copy of any of these photos. I doubt if Pacquiao has his own copies for otherwise, the same would have been published long before. And almost everybody is asking ?Where are the pictures taken during that meeting???
