The saga of the Pacman: The Philippines, you know?

This week’s winner

MANILA, Philippines –  Gabriel Hidalgo Bordado is now on his third and final term as vice mayor of Naga City in Bicol. On top of his job, he handles a project aimed at promoting reading as a tool for self-improvement and a supplementary feeding program for elementary school children.

Agence France Presse (AFP) filed a sobering report on the national euphoria over Manny Pacquiao’s methodical demolition of Antonio Margarito, punctuating it with this phrase: “…a familiar upsurge in pride for the impoverished Southeast Asian nation’s 94 million people.”

Of course, a lot of Filipinos were peeved, accusing the AFP of being a killjoy! Somebody even went to the extent of using a smattering of French (or what passed for it) to chastise the AFP.

Truth really hurts. Indeed, notwithstanding Pacquiao, the Philippines is as impoverished as ever. It is just a step higher than strife-torn Myanmar on the economic ladder. With Aung San Suu Kyi out of prison, Myanmar may yet overtake the Philippines in economic development. But, hey, Why include Pacquiao in the picture?

Since becoming a veritable giant killer and arguably the top draw in the world of boxing, Pacquiao has been the virtual national anodyne, giving Filipinos the opportunity to forget if only for a few rounds (depending on the outcome of the boxing match) their multifarious problems  from homelessness to hunger to utter hopelessness. As Rigoberto D. Tiglao, a former functionary of the Arroyo administration, aptly puts it: “We are starved of rituals and heroes to help us imagine our nation. That is why Manny matters much.”

A 27-year-old Filipina expatriate, Rachelle Dyanne Bascara, writing for a national periodical, bewailed “an absence of a viable expression of Filipino pride.” Manny Pacquiao, she averred, “ is the quintessential Filipino hero,” describing his rags-to-riches story and his almost superhuman performance in a brutal sport as “cathartic” for someone like her who, more often than not, has to explain to other people that the Philippines is not just a nation of housemaids.

Indeed, sportswriters, boxing aficionados, pundits, politicians, athletes and the proverbial man-on-the-street have been trying to analyze, dissect and explain the so-called Pacquiao phenomenon. Former heavyweight boxing champion Lennox Lewis even upped the ante by saying that “pound for pound, Manny is the best boxer in the world, but even more important than holding that distinction, Manny has connected with the people of his home country, the Philippines, to the point where he is almost like a god... I can surely see Manny becoming the President of the Philippines one day.”

This may sound a bit sacrilegious  and laughable  but from afar, that can be the perspective as millions of dirt-poor Filipinos hanker for a virtual savior, a demigod who can extricate them out of the quagmire of poverty and destitution.

Just off the press is the official autobiography of Pacquiao (written with Timothy James) entitled Pacman (My Story of Hope, Resilience, and Never-Say-Never Determination). It provides some fresh insights into the life and times of a man who has by now captured the attention  and admiration  not only of the Philippines but of the entire world. For starters, Pacquiao claims that he once wanted to become a priest. In other words, had extreme poverty not gotten in the way, a Msgr. Emmanuel Paquiao would have been serving the Catholic laity in General Santos City!

 “I think I must have been about eight or nine when the idea formed in my mind. It seems even as a young boy I always believed I could do anything, including becoming a Catholic priest. I knew that as a priest I could one day buy a bed for each of us and I could go off to church every morning to perform my duties for God and the people of the Philippines,” Pacquiao reveals in his autobiography.

The early years of Pacquiao, as he and his family struggled to survive from the boondocks of Kibawe, Bukidnon to the concrete jungles of General Santos City and Manila, could very well mirror the struggle for survival of probably a quarter of the Philippine population today. But as the book claims, “Manny is a miracle story...he peddled roasted nuts, fish, ice water, doughnuts and bread. Eventually, he found boxing as the only way for him to survive. Through it all, Manny did sell anything and everything, but never his soul.”

“To this day, I try to teach others to not settle for begging or for taking the easy way out, even if it is freely offered! Always work hard for what you get in life. As soon as you take the easy way out, you will continue to live the ‘hand me more’ lifestyle, and life will get harder for you. Working for your food and shelter keeps you strong and builds character. This was a lesson that remained inside of me even when I was starving on the streets of Manila,” Pacquiao says.

And speaking of God, Pacquiao has this unshakeable faith in a Supreme Being who will take care of him if he works hard enough. Her mother, on the other hand, taught him the “meaning of prayers” and the “meaning of hope.” Perhaps, the image of the Pacman kneeling in a corner of the ring and praying before and after every fight has done more to promote the faith than the sermons mouthed by tele-evangelists in all their sartorial splendor!

At this stage, one can fully understand why Pacquiao must be included in the picture. Or why he, particularly his life story and the virtues and values he cherishes, must form part of the nation’s collective consciousness. Faith, hope, love, daring, resilience, determination, hardwork, discipline, gratefulness, thirst for knowledge, the willingness to forgive and move on  all these and more may serve the Filipinos in good stead as they strive to strengthen the nation’s socio-economic foundation and put it on equal footing with the rest of the developed world.

As for the supposedly insipid national branding and slogan concocted by the Department of Tourism, somebody even proposed to use the photo of Pacquiao, with outstretched arms, flashing the now universally recognizable winning smile and the one- liner “The Philippines, you know” Pacquiao may yet score another spectacular knockout  but this time, on the highly competitive arena of tourism development.

Tourism poster boy or not, however, Pacquiao won’t simply rest on his unprecedented eight world boxing titles. In fact, Pacquiao is now visualizing a scenario  that one day, his promoter Bob Arum will open his door and exclaim “Congratulations, Mr. President!” Considering the Pacman’s “story of hope, resilience, and never-say-never determination,” that is not exactly farfetched.

And Lennox Lewis may have the last laugh after all.