Pacman's greatest contribution to the world

SHOOTING STRAIGHT By Valeriano Avila Updated May 05, 2009 12:00 AM

For the past three days, Manny Pacquiao has been in the national headlines, two days before the fight. I’m sure that it would slide to more days after he won the fight against Briton Ricky Hatton. As many of our friends predicted, Manny Pacquiao won this boxing match in the most dramatic fashion, earning him accolades from numerous World’s Boxing aficionados who declared in CNN that Manny Pacquiao is the greatest pound-for-pound boxer. I’m no boxing aficionado but I’m sure you’d be able to read the fight’s analysis from the front pages of our local and national dailies and even international news media networks like CNN or BBC. Manny Pacquiao has now caught their attention and are so generous in giving praises to Manny as a great boxer.

“From my viewpoint, the greatest contribution that Manny Pacquiao gave to the world is that, in front of the hundreds of thousands inside the boxing arena and beamed to the millions if not billions around the world who saw his fights, Manny showed them how to pray before the fight and to thank God after the fight. Manny may just be a nominal Catholic like most of us, but when he prays before the fight, the whole world sees that. Even the atheists would see that and when he won and attributed his win to God’s grace, the world’s audiences saw that as well. Manny may not be an evangelist, but his act of prayer teaches the world that prayer does work!”

Manny also gave a great contribution to local politics. How? We already know that there were at least 50 Congressmen (some say they are Tongressmen) who went to Las Vegas. I’m sure that there were many others national and local government officials as well who spent a lot of money to see a two-round fight.

But only Manny Pacquiao has the distinction of being greeted by former US Pres. Bill Clinton, hence Manny is now on a first name basis with Bill Clinton, whose wife is one of the most powerful persons in the US Government today. On that alone, Manny beat all the politicos who went to the US to watch his fight, but if Filipino politicians wanted an audience with Bill Clinton, I doubt if they could get an appointment with Clinton’s appointment secretary. Clearly, Manny has strong connections in the US!

I’m sure that the Telecoms Industry lead by Globe, PLDT/Smart and Sun Cellular must have made a killing when Filipinos all over the world texted each other proclaiming the victory of Manny Pacquiao against Hatton. But the best text message I got came from a dear friend, Fr. Carmelo Diola who texted me this, “A play on words: ‘Manny Pacquiao’= from ‘Immanuel’ +”Pacquiao’= God with us’ + ‘Wholesale’ = ‘We win wholesale if God is with us.” It had to take an intellectual like Fr. Melo to conjure up those words, but he is correct, if we are with God wholesale, we will always be blessed!

Contributed by Joe B. Jagap.