Pacquiao new champ, yo! / Fund campaign for justice - HERE'S THE SCORE by Teodoro C. Benigno

We had never been a stout-hearted Manny Pacquiao fan. Now, by golly, we are. The 122-pound Filipino fist-tosser climbed a steep and slippery mountain last Saturday and came down as though he had stormed Valhalla. He had left Lehlo Ledwaba behind, a stygian-black South African flat on his back and plain goofy in the thick fog that devoured him after Pacquiao’s fists wrote havoc on his reign as the world’s super bantamweight champion.

Pacquiao did it with style. He came in like a grand piano in full orchestra crescendo, his attack beating obbligato to the music of Hannibal coming home from the wars. Pacquiao did it with his fists. He – more than any other contemporary Filipino fighter – had every blow measured for maximum pain and damage. And he came in without any fear, heedless of the legend that Ledwaba had voodoo in his craft, demolishing 31 out of 32 previous opponents with his gloves allegedly soaked in deadly snake poison from the bush. And Pacquiao was next.

Pacquiao did it exactly like the "little brown dolls" of yore – Pancho Villa, Small Montano, Little Dado, Dencio Cabanela – who captivated America with a fighting prowess that combined dazzling skill, dark clouds bursting open, and a typhoon taking human form in the ring. Pancho Villa was the best of the lot. He dethroned Jimmy Wilde in 1923 with a seventh-round knock-out – and all the ships and tugs in Manila harbor cut loose with their sirens and fog horns to announce that a Filipino was the first Asian to win a world boxing championship. That was the biggest day, the biggest triumph in Philippine boxing.

Will Pacquiao become another Pancho Villa?

We don’t know. Not yet. Pacquiao will have to demonstrate his MGM Grand Garden Arena triumph, stunning as it was, was no fluke. That in succeeding fights to defend his new super bantamweight crown and whatever crowns he will tuck under his belt thereafter, he gets better with every punch, with every fight, with every sally into this most murderous sport that man has ever invented.

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"No retreat. No surrender. No Fear" is Pacquiao’s battlecry and well it should be.

For Pancho Villa was like that. As was Gabriel (Flash) Elorde, another Filipino ring immortal. Villa’s eventual Waterloo was not the ring. Pancho loved the heavily-lipsticked, scented broads too much, parties and all-night carousals. He spent money as though it was just plucked out of a gardenia patch. And not earned by the crackle of his fists and the sweat of his brow in a hundred, smoke-filled gymnasiums when he was still an unknown hungry fighter, fighting for peanuts, and waiting agonizingly for big time. He next fought, if memory serves, Jimmy Mclarnin, with a big and infected toothache tugging at his brains. It was a disaster. And Pancho Villa died soon after.

Pacquiao better steer clear of the broads. Of good time and the deadly lure of the drinking salon. Joaquin Henson reports that he has invested his earnings wisely, purchasing real estate properties in General Santos City, constructing a well-appointed bungalow for his wife Jinkee and family. Good.

Manny Pacquiao is only 25. He is not yet at his best. He still has to put on some more weight, raring to move up to the featherweight class. There a Nassem (The Prince) Hamed cuts a brash figure, a leering, derisive, haughty, show-boating lalapaloosa who carries his crown like a feudal liege lord. Well, let’s see what the bogus prince can put up once he is with Pacquiao in the same ring. Chances are that he will get hurt and run all the way to Montezuma like a frightened rabbit.

One little negative thing. Pacquiao’s hair often stands up as though he had just seen a ghost. That hair must be shorn. Otherwise, he is almost picture perfect for his prize-fighting role. He saunters, even rushes from his corner like a pirate with a long blade clutched in his teeth, that plunged upon sighting target – plunging again and again. Yes, the lad is a killer. And he must remain that way. A killer in the open. Prizefighting is a language of the body as Norman Mailer asserts. It really is. It is a language of maim and be maimed, destroy or be destroyed. Pacquiao personifies that, as his white teeth gleam with atavistic pleasure as he rains destruction on the enemy.

He comes down the pike like lightning taking on legs, atop which is a devil-may-care body with a sing-song head seeking loot in the prize rings over the recumbent bodies of defeated opponents. I like that. I like that very much.

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It’s time we took over where we left off before this columnist took a vacation. This is our Fund Campaign for Justice, actually financial help sought by this columnist and the Council on Philippine Affairs (COPA) for the private prosecutors helping Ombudsman Aniano Disierto prosecute criminal charges against fallen president Joseph Ejercito Estrada,.

The latest news is disheartening. The Sandiganbayan Monday postponed anew the arraignment of Estrada and son Jinggoy on plunder charges, moving the date from today to July 10. What we saw in court after this postponement decision was shameless and sacrilegious, to say the least. Defense lawyers Rene Saguisag and Juan Flaminiano did a Tessie Oreta. They did not dance but they sang in obscene jubilation, a ditty that spat on the blindfolded lady with the scales who since the outset sought speedy justice for Erap Estrada.

It was like dancing on a grave. But Saguisag and Flaminiano are used to that – legal vandalism. And we wonder why, oh, why, the Sandiganbayan postponed the case again simply because there was a pending defense motion to dismiss the charges on constitutional grounds. I warn them. They are playing with fire. There will come a time when civil society cannot take it anymore – and the hordes will return to the streets. And this time it could be bloody and Saguisag and Flaminiano and, yes, that runt Raymond Fortun better watch out. The latter should have been disbarred during the Senate impeachment trial when he and his brother Siegfried pulled a dirty trick on the august chamber by inventing a false witness who was nowhere to be found in the stands. Remember the Delia Rajas caper?

I had been made to believe that Justice Anacleto Badoy, chair of Sandiganbayan’s Third Division, was a man of cast-iron, who yielded to neither man nor beast in his application of the law. At the rate Badoy and his Third Division are going, giving in again and again to the silly and stupid importunings of the defense to delay, delay and still delay, Estrada in the end might be able to escape arraignment. That is the defense strategy, wire the case to the moon and the Milky Way, till finally everybody loses interest.

That’s what they think. You just wait. Those streets will roar again. And this time, blood might flow. And please, don’t sing again. It makes everybody vomit.

Anyway, let’s call the contribution roll. First on the line is a P100,000 cheque, anonymous with no address. Wow, thanks. Also anonymous is a P10,000 cheque (initials ADG) with this message: "I hope Erap will ultimately admit he did a grievous wrong to the Filipinos and repent." Still anonymous is another P5000 cheque (initials EAC and RRC). Not anonymous is a P5000 cheque from Dr. Augusto P. Sarmiento, no message. From a close and dear friend (DG) with the note: "May the Holy Spirit continue to guide your formidable and super thoughts for the salvation of our country’s many problems."

A P1000 cheque comes from an anonymous lady accordion player. A P1000 cheque from Dr. and Mrs. Alfredo C. Estanislao ("from a retired couple who believe in you"). A US $20 cheque comes from Danilo V. Sardilla, 63 8th St., Apt. B1, National City. CA 91950. A P500 cheque comes from USAFIP, NL, sent by Vicente Encarnacion, Secretary. A postal P500 cheque from Luis S. Gordo, Brgy. Sabang II, 6405 Allen, Northern Samar. Another P500 cheque from Stephen and Dulcinea Villanueva ("For the love of our motherland"), Trapiche, Oton, Iloilo, 5020. "Don" sends US$20 in cash, no address, with the note: "Just a little help toward closing the book on Jose Erap Velarde Estrada." US$12 in cash from Gian Gamboa, eight years old, and Jack Gamboa, six years old, Valencia, Los Angeles, Calif. Kiddos, thanks.

We have a P500 postal cheque, anonymous, initials ASV, another P500 postal cheque from Mr. and Mrs. Juan L. Javilles, MTC, Miagao, Iloilo. Last for today is another P500 postal cheque form the Espinosa family, Manila with the brief message: "We pray always for your safety." More will be published in our next column.

Now that we are back, keep them coming. We won’t allow the dastards of the defense to sneer us into limbo, that’s where they are mistaken. Another thing. And we repeat. No big shot, no big name, no big business firm from Makati or Ayala Alabang has until now responded to this column’s continuing appeals for contributions – even if anonymously. Gentlemen, aren’t you ashamed? One day, I shall phone you one by one, and still if you don’t give, then you do not deserve to be called Filipinos.

Jeezus, where is your conscience?