Anthony Villanueva as our sparring partner

We were in the middle of a planning session of the Philippine Track and Field Association (PATAFA) in the office of British American Tobacco chief executive officer, track coach and PATAFA consultant Jim Lafferty Tuesday last week, when Liezl Beldea, common-law wife of 1964 Tokyo Olympic boxing silver medalist Anthony Villanueva, texted me around 12 noon that “Anthony is gone”. I immediately called up Liezl and she told me that Anthony’s remains would be brought to Loyola Memorial chapels in Sucat, Parañaque.

Immediately after we finished our planning session around 4 p.m., I proceeded to Loyola with De La Salle University track coach and former national decathlon champion Romy Sotto and former track Olympian (Rome, 1960 and Tokyo, 1964) Claro Pellosis. The three of us were the first non-relatives to get to Loyola to pay our respects and we were told that Anthony’s body was still in the morgue.

The Loyola staff told us that Liezl was still in one of the rooms choosing Anthony’s coffin. We entered a roomful of coffins and there was Liezl choosing a white coffin, that she said was the “most simple and the cheapest.” Anthony had bought a memorial plan and now the plan was coming in handy. After Liezl chose Anthony’s coffin, we accompanied her to the administrative office where she presented the title of the plot that Anthony had bought many years ago.

Liezl said that Anthony had planned to have the remains of his father, Jose or Cely, and his mother transferred to his plot in Loyola but he was never able to carry out the transfer since he and Liezl were pre-occupied with keeping Anthony alive. Sustaining his fragile life was a daily struggle that sapped them both of energy, finances and eventually Anthony’s will to live.

I first met Anthony when my late father, Felipe, enrolled me and my two older brothers, Luis or Sonny and George, in summer boxing under Anthony’s father, Cely, at the old Philippine Boxing Association (PBA) gym along Legarda, near the Tanduay fire station and the San Sebastian chapel. It was 1956 and I was nine years old and had just finished grade four at De La Salle.

My two brothers and I would be brought to the gym by our father around three in the afternoon in the second floor of the building. The gym was, as people would say, “amoy mama” and reeked of massage oil and winter green. We were the youngest boxers in the gym and were constantly teased by the professional boxers for “not yet having attained our manhood” when we would go to the change room to put on our boxing shorts (mine was yellow with white piping) or when we would shower in the slippery bathroom. It would take me another two years when I would go through that rite of manhood at the University of Sto Tomas hospital.

Among the boxers in the PBA were Tanny Campo, Al Asuncion, Domy Ursua and a host of Philippine- and world-rated sluggers.

Sonny recalls that our dad used to pay Cely Villanueva P5 for each session for each of us. Sonny and George had their own sparring partners and for some reason, Cely, assigned his 12-year old son, Anthony as my sparring partner. The lessons were three times a week and consisted of some loosening exercises shortly after our arrival in the gym, followed by some shadow boxing and some time with the speed ball and the heavy bag. After these warm up exercises, we would then be summoned to the ring for three-rounders with our sparring partners. Very often, our sparring partners were bigger and older than us who really looked they meant business and looked forward to teaching “La Salle boys” a thing or two in the ring.

The sessions went on smoothly and all three of us took our lessons seriously even if I had some difficulty with my eyesight as I started to wear glasses at the age of nine. Anthony was doing exactly everything that his father Cely had told him to do, to go easy on me and just to let me go on the offensive. Anthony’s job was keep me busy with some light counter punching.

One day, Anthony did not show up and I was told by Cely that he was down with the flu. I therefore sparred and practiced with another guy for one week. After one week, Anthony showed up and, for some reason, he started to clown and horse around inside the ring during our sparring session. In the course of his showboating, I tagged him with a left uppercut in the chin that staggered him and backed him into the ropes. Incensed, Anthony chased me, cut me off, faked with his right and as I was moving away from his punch to my right, a strong left hook hit me right smack in the right eye. I literally saw black and stars and within seconds, Cely jumped over the ropes and smacked Anthony in the back of his head screaming, “You play around and when you get hurt by my students, you hit them hard.  You don’t do that.”

Years later, in New York, where he was working as security guard in the Philippine center, I would narrate the story and of course Anthony could not remember. He had beaten up more guys than he would care to remember.

When he came back to Manila in the late 90’s, we would get together often and during those times he would express bitterness about how winning the Olympic silver did not improve his life at all. I, of course, tried to help both in my official (I was then Chairman of the Philippine Sports Commission) and personal capacity, even up to a few days before he passed away.

I have more stories about Anthony (and Liezl), especially about his life as a professional boxer, but space constraints do not allow me to narrate these in some detail. Let’s just say, Anthony left us with good memories and that his death should be a wake-up call to society in general on how we can best provide for athletes and others who bring honor to our country.