Siftings
The May elections, for starters
(Conclusion)
I had to wait for March 14 for the outcome of the Pacquiao – Clottey bout. As it turned out, the fight was a predictable win for Manny. Clottey was large, sure, but he was slow and too wary, almost to a point that he looked like he wasn’t going to fight at all. From beginning to end he kept his fists before his face, even stepping on Manny’s foot to keep the latter from retreating when he, Clottey, would go in for the attack that never came. Hewing to that kind of non-fighting stance, Clottey managed to stay in – on figuratively out of – the fight, making this one of the most boring fights of Manny’s career, no thanks to the people’s champ. Although Clottey managed to pommel Manny a few times in the 10th round – which was credited to him and caused our champ a swollen eye and cheek — still Clottey’s obsessive defense managed to take some of the glory out of Manny’s triumph. Why? Virtually there was no fight at all! To my mind, all that excellent training of Manny in this fight went to waste, having yielded 11 rounds for Manny and only 1 for Clottey, but yet, it was the winner who sustained injury to the eye! Can you imagine if Clottey had stopped being a coward and gone on to combat Manny’s skills with his own? But he did not have the speed and faith of Manny, he is just your ordinary boxer out to get fame and fortune even though he knew he didn’t have a chance of defeating Manny.
The reason I waited for the outcome of Manny’s fight before concluding this protracted column entry is because Manny will now be almost assured of winning the Congressional seat in Sarangani. Why? Because the Filipino loves hanging on the coattails of winners, and we have them: Pacquiao, Donaire, Arnel Pineda, Charice, Efren Peñaflorida, even Angel Locsin’s “Lobo”, Dante Mendoza’s “Katay” (Katay ba iyon?). The list threatens to get longer every year.
But our sense of pride in our “world class” winners gives us a false sense of security, although we badly need it to make us stand on equal footing with bigger, richer, older and more developed nations. But wait. Did these Pinoys win because of hard work, aside from the God-given talent? Do we hear these winners saying they made sacrifices, worked hard despite odds, extolled the values of honesty, honor, integrity, generosity, kindness, etc.? Can we equate their triumphs with the nation’s struggle for justice, freedom from corruption, nationhood? We have forgotten these, haven’t we? Along with so many other things that have made the world’s memory so short, in the sense that we have forgotten the glorious struggles for freedom and democracy that the world’s no. 1 superpower seems likewise to have forgotten as it copes with global change, global progress, etc. I refer to the US of A, now in danger of losing its ascendancy as the #1 Superpower even as its old Nemesis China shakes off its centuries-old dragon’s sleep and creeps relentlessly onward on its multipede powers to claim the throne of #1.
It’s strange, this crippling sense of being unable to stop an imminent decline even as we know it’s coming. Like our sense of insecurity, of impending doom, even as we know we should take steps to ensure that the May 10 automated polls are clean, violence-free, credible – in short, the mature electoral exercise of a mature people; even as we know that we have a tremendous task ahead, which would entail tremendous energies to undertake the safeguarding of our votes!
Kaya natin ito. As Manny and Arnel and Charice and Efren and Dante and whoever else have proven, the Pinoy is world-class! Let’s prove that we are, indeed, world-class, by accomplishing an automated elections that is honest, violence-free, and uneventful this coming May 10, 2010! Manny Pacquiao has attained billionaire status sans cheating, wheeling-dealing, compromise. Let’s be like our hero in that sense. Manny, despite Krista, is still a winner. Let’s be winners! We owe it to ourselves, more than we owe it to the world.
And the wings of Glory will be ours!
