Objectivity and flag waving during a fight

It somehow seems irrelevant to be concerned with sports and Brian Viloria’s successful defense of his World Boxing Council (WBC) light flyweight title over Mexican challenger Jose Antonio Aguirre at the Theater of Performing Arts at the Aladdin Hotel-Casino Sunday (in Manila) when thousands of Filipinos in Southern Leyte have still to be accounted for after Friday morning’s mudslide.

As of this writing, a little more than a 100 people have been rescued alive buried under the mud with thousands, most of them children, unaccounted for and feared dead.

I am reminded of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption on June 12, 1991 when huge parts of Central Luzon and Metro Manila were blanketed by ash spewed out by the long dormant volcano. Sports events like the Philippine Basketball Association games were suspended by league officials in view of the "misery all around."

Sports therefore gave way to the national emergency. Public assembly facilities like coliseums, gymnasiums, track ovals and playing arenas were converted into evacuation centers if only to emphasize that the sports community was lending a helping hand to the thousands displaced by the eruption.

In the case of the Southern Leyte mudslide, apart from the fact that sports personalities will surely come to the aid of the victims in their own quiet and anonymous ways through donations and fund raising, the victories in the sporting arena, especially in the boxing ring, that Filipinos have been enjoying over the past several weeks, provides hope to an otherwise gloomy situation. Without any sense of hope, there is nothing to which anyone can look forward.

A victory in sports or for that matter in other areas like the arts, film, business plan competitions among students, etc is most welcome at this time when most people feel dispirited given the catastrophic natural and man-made events that have been occurring with disastrous regularity and a heavy dose of bickering in the political scene.

We sure could do with a lot of flag waving, which is precisely what our colleague in The STAR, Quinito Henson, has been doing, as lead commentator, in the two latest television broadcasts of Solar Sports of the bouts of people’s champion Manny Pacquiao and Viloria. There’s nothing wrong with that, as far as I am concerned.

A number of Filipino fight fans do not share my view and have alleged that the broadcasts are biased and that scientific objectivity is most welcome and even expected of professional sports commentators.

Ordinarily, I would probably agree that cold objectivity is the mark of a true professional except that, in this case and at this point in time of our country’s history, frankly, the need of the moment is a lot more flag waving than the clinical objectivity of a commentator. Let me emphasize that at that precise moment of the broadcast, encouragement for both the boxer and the Filipino viewer is what is most critical. As stated by veteran writer Vergel Santos, "Advocacy and not balance is what is needed at that precise moment."

Correction or critical feedback or even harsh, no-holds barred criticism of how the Filipino fighter fought and how he could have done better can come later during the so-called Monday night quarterbacking sessions with his trainers and kibitzers, but not during the fight itself when every Filipino wants to feel good about the bout.

The last person who exercised his professional objectivity and got crucified for it was our good friend, Hermie Rivera who predicted that Pacquiao would lose to Marco Antonio Barrera. Poor Rivera had honestly thought that Barrera was far superior to Pacquiao and that the latter did not have a chance against the Mexican boxing icon. Rivera did his job and shared his opinion with the viewers. Within seconds, however, the network was deluged with comments that Rivera was a traitor and other unflattering remarks.

Others always go back to the so-called American way of sports broadcasting which is said to be the benchmark for objectivity and professionalism. Without getting into any prolonged discussion about objectivity, one can only sense some subtle bias against Filipino boxers or athletes in some of these broadcasts especially when slow motion replays too often show sequences where the Filipino was at the shorter end. It is also not unusual that American broadcasters themselves do a lot of flag waving especially after 9/11 and the start of the American invasion of Iraq.

On the fight itself, my own objective conclusion is that Viloria won 118 — 113, compared with the scorecards of the judges: 116 — 112 twice and 117 — 111. Viloria got going by the start of the fourth round after losing the second and third rounds. From the eighth round on, it was Viloria all the way.

During the post fight interview, Viloria commented that Aguirre is a tough and experienced fighter who did his homework and prepared for this fight. Viloria added that he learned a lot from the fight and that he needed the rounds since he can’t go around winning every fight by a knockout.

Viloria’s insights are very instructive and our athletes should take a cue from this American-born Ilocano (now living in Waipahu, Hawaii) who seems to be doing a lot of reflecting about his craft and thinking on his feet as he fights. Very often, when interviewed by media about the game or fight just ended, our athletes are hard put at providing any real insight about the game/fight and their opponents opting instead to use the worn out cliché "they were just lucky."

Surely, while luck and even Divine Providence played important roles in the victory, there are other factors in the game that the athlete who was in the thick of the action felt were responsible for the fight ending the way it did.