THE title sounds gross and that is how I want it to be. When a single event happens and the dear life of the entire nation, it seems, depends on it.
Manny Pacquiao fought Floyd Mayweather Jr. and we put all our eggs in one basket. Bad metaphor, eh? But why not—the thing with which we are asking that metaphor to stand for is gross itself.
Here is the tale of the tape. A boxing champ has risen from nothing. He has won many fights and, along with these, the hearts of many of his countrymen. I do not know why the nation went gaga over him. It must be his charisma…or the charisma that is attributed to him.
We have seen Pacquiao grow as a boxer. He did not stop at boxing; for some reason, he expressed early on his desire to improve himself.
That was good. That was good, in fact, up to a certain point. Then came the windfall, the money and the endorsements and more money.
With due respect to the other great boxers, Pacquiao came when the world of boxing has become heavily tied to trade and commerce. Boxing during his ascent was no more a sport than it was a game. A high-end game. Goodbye, Madison Square Garden! Hello, Las Vegas!
In a very poor country like the Philippines, the story of Pacquiao is more than a pocketful of miracles. A few years back, he was nothing. He was a hardworking laborer. His family, if we believe the reports, was dirt-poor. If Pacquiao and his family have a great memory of life, it is about the past and the poverty there and not of the future and the ostentatious wealth that beckons and keeps getting more massive.
The future for Pacquiao is brighter than any of the majority of the Filipinos.
It is no wonder then that when Manny fights, the world of Filipinos rally around him. The attention given to him by his fans is near adoration, if it is not there yet. People are just into him and his family.
Manny enters politics and all career-politicians are with him, The voters anyway are for him. The boxer is now a congressman and, if the reports are true, has one of the most number of absences. Criticisms abound about Pacquiao but they fall on deaf ears. Any criticism against politicians always fall on deaf ears. Writers criticize politicians but those who vote for them have deaf ears.
The admiration for Pacquiao extends beyond the boxer. His wife has earned the admiration and envy of many people. Jinkee, the wife, has entered politics and is now vice governor of Sarangani.
The mother of Pacquiao, for some reason, fulfills the story of the emperor’s new clothes: No one dares tell Dionisia what she really is. She matters to all, and that is all that matters. She is now called Mommy Di and has her own endorsements. When she celebrates her birthday, even Bob Arum travels all the way to the south to be with her and witness her do her ballroom dance. Everybody praises her and everybody likes her birthday. People think Dionisia is the real deal. No one questions that—or dares to question that. She is quite feisty but no one really takes her seriously.
Remember the shirt with the drawing of what was supposedly the Philippine map? That touched many Filipinos again, as anything about nation or national identity does. That T-shirt with the Philippine map has gone with the wind. It made millions for the person who saw the potential of a map as a badge of identity.
Something has taken the place of that map. It is Pacquaio before any fight. We rally around him. May I just remind you that early on, we christened Pacquiao as the “Pambansang Kamao” (the national fist). If there is a national flower or national animal, then we have the national fist. Our country is represented as a fist, a bodily part formed into an instrument of force. But no complaints there.
Not everything is rosy in the Pacquaio garden. There are the tax cases. At some points, there were paternity cases. They were all dismissed as insignificant tiny snakes in the garden.
Some troubles were more empirical—observable and measurable. The troubles come in questions. How does Manny fulfil his role as a congressman given that he is seen traveling all around the world? And, yet, those are questions that are asked by Filipinos who can’t appreciate the contribution of a Manny Pacquiao to the nation. And, may I ask, what is the contribution of Pacquiao to the Philippines? The answer: He unites us all. The fact that no one ever questioned that, the road to perdition and salvation was then marked for us all. The event that would mark us a nation not only of poor losers but of poor critical thinkers was the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight.
The press releases from both camps could put to shame a snakepit. Racism and chauvinism were hurled at Mayweather. Even before he met Pacquiao in the ring, Mayweather was already the Devil Incarnate. After the fight, that image was not diminished but even glowed with roseate cruelty. He is the bad boy.
A few days before the fight, I was surprised to see Facebook postings from friends waving their flags on the cover. It is the fight of the nation! Some of these postings were, mind you, from certifiable intellectuals. I’m not saying they have stopped thinking when they declared the Philippines as climbing the ring with the so-called national fist. What I’m saying is that, somewhere, the myth of Pacquiao had reached high and low, that, ultimately, whoever packaged Pacquaio had won the nation.
The journey then began. The family of Pacquiao, the retinue, started to arrive in Las Vegas. What would Dionisia wear to the ring? The hell we care. Aha, that is not the decorum for this event. We should care. Remember, this is the national fist fighting; ipso facto, his mother is the national what?
Whatever she is, TV cameras caught Pacquiao’s mother dressed as if she was attending the opening of the Congress and not the fight of the century.
All the nation’s eggs were in one basket. My late father is correct. Never put all your eggs in one basket. But we did.
Mayweather was declared the champion. We started lambasting the judges, the referees, the announcers, even Justin Bieber. We started calling Mayweather a runner. Away from the inspirational and rightist mode, the Facebook pages of Pacquiao fans are now littered with anti-Mayweather jokes.
Then, Pacquiao admitted to a shoulder injury. All is quiet on the warfront. Why did he lie, officials of the boxing federation are asking.
They should look at the nation’s eggs for they are all there in the basket.