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(The Los Angeles Times ran this article on October 6,
the day of the Pacquiao-Barrera rematch.)
Bob Arum
had it in his grasp, so close he could taste it. He had
a shot at pulling off one of the world’s greatest boxing
promotions.
Instead,
Arum was dealt a cruel defeat at the hands of dishonest
and unsavory people. No, not Showtime or HBO. The people
who run Philippine politics.
Tonight,
at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, three-division world
champion Marco Antonio Barrera of Mexico will fight
three-division world champion Manny Pacquiao of the
Philippines. They will box at 130 pounds, which is super-featherweight.
No title
is at stake, and that seems to matter little these days.
This way, Arum’s Top Rank and Oscar de la Hoya’s Golden
Boy, the joint promoters, don’t have to pay sanction
fees to some guy in Thailand who has a web site and gets
his expenses paid to the fight. They’ll charge $49.95
for the pay-per-view and expect the public to get a good
show.
But oh,
how Arum laments the loss of a potential great show.
The
28-year-old Pacquiao ran for election to the Philippine
Congress on May 14 and lost. The Philippine system is
similar to the United States, with a Senate and a House
of Representatives, meaning Pacquiao would have taken on
a role of high governmental stature. Some in his country
hoped this would lead to the Senate, where he could
truly become influential.
Arum had
all the big billboards in his sights. Barrera versus the
honorable Pacquiao. Revenge vs. Respect. A Vote or a
Veto? A Bill of Rights or Lefts?
“I was
already arranging for a luncheon with our Nevada
Senator,” Harry Reid, Arum says. “We were going to take
Manny to Washington.”
But
instead, according to the Pacquiao camp, the election
was rigged and Pacquiao was beaten for the seat in the
second district of South Cotabato, which includes his
hometown of
General Santos City,
by Darlene Antonino-Custodio of the politically powerful
Antonino family. By one estimate, it marked just the
52,344th Philippine political election that was
considered to be less than honest.
Pacquiao’s chief of staff, Jayke Joson, says, “In
politics in the Philippines, when you lose, you are not
actually losing. You are just cheated.”
Pacquiao,
apparently forgetting the concept of Florida hanging
chads, says, “Elections, they are fair here. In the
Philippines, it is different. You are cheated.”
And
Arum, who traveled to the Philippines the week before
the elections and witnessed it all, says, “It would have
made old Mayor Daley in Chicago proud.”
Arum
went to the
Philippines
at Pacquiao’s request.
“I was
practicing my speeches on the plane,” Arum says. “Then I
got there and got bad news and good news. The bad news
was that, as a foreigner, I could not actively campaign.
The good news was that, as a foreigner, I could not
contribute to the campaign.”
Pacquiao
says he decided to take on this rather strange side job
when he saw a way to help people in his
General
Santos City. When he is home, there are days when 2,000
people line up for money and gifts. Reporter Nick
Giongco of the Manila Bulletin, who covers Pacquiao as a
year-round assignment, says he has never seen anybody
get turned away.
“There
are usually plastic bags,” he says, “and they contain
rice and sardines and anywhere from P100 to P200 (about
$2 to $4). People just move through the line.”
Pacquiao’s chief of staff, Joson, says, “Manny never
says no to anybody. We do that for him.”
Had
Pacquiao won, he reportedly would have been able to
distribute about $1.5 million to the people in his
district, money that is unlikely to get to them now,
since Antonino-Custodio is from the opposition party of
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who hands
out those funds.
For all
but Arum, there seems to be silver lining in Pacquiao’s
defeat. The fighter himself says his loss does not mean
he is finished with politics.
“I have
a plan,” he says, nodding when it is noted that the next
major election in the Philippines is 2010.
Joson
says Pacquiao lost no ground in popularity with the
political loss.
“Something like 99 percent of the people don’t want him
in politics right now,” he says, “because he has so much
better an image as a boxer than as a politician. If he
wins the election, his image is reduced.”
The
reporter, Giongco, adds, “The joke in my country was
that if you asked 10 people if Manny should enter
politics, 11 would say no.”
Arum,
for his part, says his quick trip to the Philippines was
eye-opening and eventful. He says he went to nine
rallies in about 36 hours, with attendance ranging from
5,000 to 25,000 and made sure to have armed guards with
him. Pacquiao’s injection of $1.5 million into the local
economy would have made a great impact because “the best
breakfast buffet in town was at the local hotel and it
cost about 30 cents,” Arum says.
Before
Arum left, he saw a lineup of people in Pacquiao’s
backyard, offering to deliver large blocks of votes.
“One guy
was guaranteeing 32,000,” Arum says. Also key, according
to Arum, was that the people Pacquiao paid to watch the
polls didn’t, and the opponent’s did, raising, once
again, the age-old political question: Who watches the
poll-watchers?
So it
will be plain-old Manny Pacquiao boxing and plain-old
Bob Arum promoting tonight. There are about 12,000 seats
at Mandalay Bay Events Center. Expect a quorum. |
