FOOTBALL fans around the world are celebrating Italy’s fourth World Cup crown with its emphatic 5-3 win today over France in a Final match that was decided by a penalty shoot-out, only the second time in the tournament’s history. Not football-crazy like the rest of the world though, most Filipinos seem to care less. But what they continue to be ecstatic about is Manny Pacquiao’s victory over Mexican challenger Oscar Larios via a 12-round unanimous decision a week ago.
The Pacquiao-Larios fight is still talk of the town, the Internet particularly abuzz with Pacmania — to borrow Krip Yuson’s Philippine Star column title today — heaping accolades on the Filipino boxing champion. Never mind if the Pacman, a knockout specialist, failed to put away a run-of-the-mill boxer within six rounds as his camp predicted.
As Yuson announced in his column, Inquirer sports columnist Recah Trinidad is even launching a book on Pacquiao middle of this week titled Pacific Storm: Dispatches on Pacquiao of the Philippines.
Of course, not to be outdone, Malaca?ang earlier conferred on Pacquiao the title of “Champion for Life” by awarding him the Order of Lakandula — curiously though, as Jojo Malig points out, is a recognition based on a wrong reading, if not ignorance, of the warrior’s place in history.
But one fan’s tribute stands out, if only because it elevates Pacquiao, the boxer-turned-product endorser who has given Kris Aquino and Sharon Cuneta a run for their money, to the pantheon of our national heroes — his image inscribed in the five-peso bill that used to carry the face of Andres Bonifacio, and later Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, now no longer in circulation.
Why the five-peso note? Probably, it’s a sort of homage to the Filipino boxing ring gladiator, a veteran of 46 professional fights with 41 victories (32 by knockout), whose fighting heart somehow echoes the fierceness in battle and heroism of the Katipunan Supremo and El General.
But as Manolo Quezon also explained in his comment on Expectorant’s ruminations on the ten-peso coin last year, the logic of our currency is that the closer to the basic unit of one peso, which is reserved for the national hero (Dr. Jose Rizal), the more important the figure is.
In a way, Pacquiao does qualify in that regard too, towering over our pathetic national leaders no longer as a mere sports icon but a new “national hero” who makes his countrymen proud and gives them reason, if only momentarily, to be united as a people.
And to quote from Trinidad’s upcoming book, courtesy of Yuson’s column:
It was not what economic doctors had prescribed for the impoverished nation. But the expected happened. Pacquiao’s victory sent his poor nation tilting in ecstasy. He lit the bleary eyes of poor countrymen, thereby making it appear he had instantly knocked out poverty and assorted national aches with the Alaxan relief tablet he had been selling hard on television.
He had not.
Pacquiao did not usher in abundance. But his win-win feat was definitely noble, rich in relevance. Here was one genuine hero who was no product of fantasy — no borrowed courage, no artificial toughness, no rented heroics, no fake sideburns.
Unlike movie stars and entertainment icons that had freely stolen the adulation of gullible Filipinos, this big winner was emerging from a real blood-and-guts battle, no longer starring in a shallow blockbuster movie.
The social analyst was right. Filipino faith in Pacquiao appeared to have grown stronger because they saw in him their own resilience and ability to come back from defeat. As a result, Paquiao’s conquest also intoxicated his countrymen.
