EDITORIAL – The way Pinoy writers see it, Marquez has no hands

It has been said that the best writers in the world cut their teeth in sportswriting. But if you believe all the stories about the coming rematch between Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao, it is as if Marquez will be entering the ring without hands.

Of course this is all hype. But one would have expected the hype to come from the camp of Pacquiao, not from supposedly professional journalists who are expected to be objective and impartial in their reports.

As it is, Filipino boxing fans here in the Philippines, who do not have other sources of news about the fight except what these sportswriters dish out, are in grave danger of being conditioned into believing that it is all over except the raising of Manny's hand.

Good if Pacquiao wins, which is what every Filipino is hoping and praying for. But what if he loses, which is not exactly a remote possibility, considering that all things are equal, and that Marquez actually came back from the dead to salvage a draw with Pacquiao back in 2004.

A loss by Pacquiao will be devastating to Filipinos not only because of the loss itself but because they were made to believe he could not lose, that the fight against Marquez was a walk in the park.

For God's sake, they are even already talking about two, three fights into the future, all anchored on the certainty of a romp over Marquez. Yet, for all the daily dribble of stories about the fight, not one has been angled from the perspective of a possible Marquez win.

Maybe one of the reasons why Filipino sportswriters do not care about the bias is because, in the event tragedy strikes and Pacquiao loses, they can always attribute the loss to anything under the sun except that maybe, just maybe, our boy simply got outfought.

Many Filipino sportswriters are not only not very objective, they are not very gracious losers as well. In the matter of Pacquiao alone, look how they pushed thin socks or the use of Winning gloves instead of Cleto Reyes ones as alibis for some dismal performances by Manny.

Perhaps the better way to go into the coming Marquez-Pacquiao fight is to be on our knees in prayer, first for the safety of Manny, and then for the bonus of a win. Let us not give too much weight on press releases disguised as sports stories.