Another Pacquiao victory

From start to finish, boxing champ Manny Pacquiao made the Filipino people proud over his victory against American pugilist, Chris Algeiri to retain his world welterweight championship belt.

But in our home, it was not just the Filipinos who were cheering on the Pacman. Our visitors, Dutch nationals, Yde van der Veen and DouweRozendal, South African Ruebin Moos and my grandson Giancarlo Pasolini who is Italian, were cheering Pacman on.

My children were joking that we were celebrating United Nations Day at our place with different languages being spoken. They clearly marveled at how we Filipinos react to every round and the silence broken by shouts and cheers when the Pacman felled Algieri six times.

Soon, they too were joining us in our cheers until the final round when Pacman was declared the winner and high-fives went around.

Despite the language barrier, although they all spoke English in varying degrees of being understood, the universal sign language like the high-fives, the thumbs up and the hurrahs made up for everything.

Yde and Douwe though are not new to the Filipino culture. They have been coming and going to our country, learning a few Tagalog words like the greetings and would boast of this fact, greeting everyone in Tagalog.

In fact, since it was pre-announced that the game would start by 11 a.m., Yde came in early and greeted everyone magandangumaga. When noontime came, he started doing the rounds of magandangtanghali and after lunch with magandanghapon. Of course while it was not necessary, Yde just made sure everyone knows he has been trying to learn and love our language.

Ruebin has been here in the country for over two weeks and has learned some Filipino words as well which just shows that they value and respect our culture and try their best to impress us by showing off what they have learned in so short a time.

Of course, everyone pointed out to our visitors, Rep. Evelio “Bing” Leonardia who proudly carried the Philippine flagand telling them that the boxing champ is an adopted son of Bacolod. My daughter Mate’ was also flaunting her photo with Pacquiao taken recently when she chanced upon him on their flight back from the US.

Everyone had stories to tell about the Pacman. Our visitors admitted that they have heard of him but not in that popular fashion. I guess in Europe and South Africa, sports superstars remain in the soccer arena and as such they were surprised to see Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone hanging around and having their picture taken with our Pacquiao.

If there is one thing that elicited laughter and jokes, it was the presence of Pacman’s mom, Dionisia, whom we were all one in saying, was over-acting and grandstanding in all moments she was focused on television.

Personally, I think she made a mockery of her praying over her son in that fashion. One of my relatives went as far as calling it as sorcery rather than praying. Oh well, another one said she was doing it to probably impress her much younger boyfriend of 40-years old.

We were not impressed as well by the American singer who sang the Star Spangled Banner and we were all wishing our own rendition of the Lupang Hinirang will actually be better but unfortunately, we all agreed it fell short of our expectation. You would think that with Macau so close to our country, they could have flew in a better singer who will do us proud.

Nevertheless, the match and the Pacman’s solid punches against his opponent and his eventual victory made up for everything. It was worth the long wait and the laughter and joy from everyone who came over to watch with us, made it one enjoyable Sunday.

Oh and lest I forget, kudos to Mayor Monico Puentevella who rightly predicted that Pacquiao will win by unanimous decision but not a knockout win. He nearly did though, and we were all hoping that one of those six knockdowns would actually turn into a knockout round.

Algieri on the other hand had nothing but praises for the Pacman who in turn taunted Mayweather to fight him next.

I think until Pacman fights Mayweather, the world will always wonder who is the ultimate boxer and when that time comes, the Filipinos will once again unite and cheer our champ on.*

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