Gloria went overboard with Lakandula

Are we proud of Manny Pacquiao? Of course we are. There is no doubt about it. Like last Sunday, when he fought the Mexican Oscar Larios, most Filipinos rearranged their lives just to be able to see the fight on television, myself included.

But for Christ's sake, did President Arroyo really have to bestow the Order of Lakandula on Pacquiao as Champion for Life? I do not think so. I believe the president went overboard with her emotions on that one.

Those who know boxing knew the fight was not even a real title fight. An international champion, which is what Pacquiao is being touted to be, is not a real title in the truest sense of the word, as it applies to world championship boxing.

An international champion, and its just-as-phoney cousin called continental champion, which interestingly is what Pacquiao's own brother Bobby is currently called, is just a gimmick to add extra weight to a bout.

The real champion in boxing is called the world champion. And in the superfeatherweight division where Pacquiao belongs, the world champion is another Mexican called Marco Antonio Barrera, whom Pacquiao once knocked out in a non-title fight.

Of course, Pacquiao, at this stage in his career, does not need a boxing title. He is one of the most exciting fighters in the world today, and any boxing card that has him fighting in it will always pack in the crowds and make people pay good money to watch it on pay-per-view tv.

Outside the ring, neither does he deserve an honorary title this early. Such honorary titles, like the Order of Lakandula, are given not merely on the basis of any string of successes or from what honor and pride alone can accrue from such successes.

In this fickle world, honor and pride can be very fleeting. In sports like boxing, they are even more fickle and can be won or lost on a single bout. And that is a very unstable fulcrum from which to launch an honorary title meant to continuously inspire and set lasting examples.

Such honorary titles are not given as a spur-of-the-moment token just because the giver happens to be pleased with Pacquiao, who from time to time endorses her and calls on Filipinos to support her government. Had Pacquiao been a critic, I doubt if she would even say hi to him.

The Order of Lakandula is a national honorary title and must be given for a reason that goes beyond the personal pleasure of the giver or the national euphoria that grips Filipinos each time a boxing hero fights and wins.

Such a title must be bestowed only when it is evidently clear that the honor it signifies has become so strong and unassailable that it can stand for all time amid eternal scrutiny. There is no recalling an honor. And there is no reviving it when it is dead.

Perhaps this is the reason why most awardees of honorary titles are people who are already in their prime, or past it, their lives already well-established highways for succeeding generations to follow and emulate, and which later circumstances can no longer bend or redirect.

But Pacquiao is not even 30 years old. He still has a full life ahead of him, a life over which he has no full control over. We may idolize him now. We may worship him as a hero. But what about next year, or the year after that? What about five or 10 years down the road?

Pacquiao is one of the great fighters of his time. But that is not what unites the nation behind him. It is the national condition desperate for a hero and found one in him. When he beats somebody to a pulp, it is as if we are exorcising our own demons. He came at the right time.

Believe me, had we been living in better, more progressive and economically beneficial times, I doubt if Pacquiao can whip up the same frenzy as he does now. In better times, I believe only boxing fans will idolize him.