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My Turnby Toni Tabora-Roberts |
 |
From The Asian Reporter, V19, #46 (November 24, 2009), page 6.
Portrait of a Filipino superstar
On October 31, my brother dressed up his son — my one-year-old nephew — as Manny Pacquiao. Funny? Yes. My cherubic nephew is not quite as chiselled or endowed with facial hair as the champion boxer. Amazing? Heck yeah. A Filipino famous enough to be represented by a Halloween costume and in mainstream media is at once inspiring, bizarre, and fascinating.
On November 14, Filipino boxing sensation Pacquiao decisively won the World Boxing Organization welterweight title from titleholder Miguel Cotto of Puerto Rico. As I’m not much of a boxing fan, I won’t try to report the details of his victory or the statistics of his career. Suffice it to say the man has broken all kinds of records and is now being hailed as the current best boxer, pound-for-pound, in comparison to the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, and Muhammad Ali. Even I know those names.
The much-anticipated Pacquiao-Cotto match packed a sold out 17,000-seat MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas and sold more than 1 million buys on pay-per-view. A whole lot of people around the world watched the match. Pacquiao has received dozens of accolades, including non-boxing honors in TIME magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people and Forbes magazine’s 2009 Celebrity 100. This boxer has become a Filipino hero and a veritable international superstar.
With all of Pacquiao’s accomplishment in the boxing ring, the one thing I keep thinking whenever I read another article about him is that he is so Filipino. I mean it in an affectionate, happy-that-he’s-being-portrayed-with-some-complexity, yet slightly-embarrassed-by-my-crazy-cousin way.
As the Cotto match drew near and afterward, every major news source highlighted the "PacMan" (his full nickname is "PacMan the Destroyer") with features such as "Behind the Fighter Manny Pacquiao, the Fight for His Favor" (The New York Times), "Pacquiao delivers hits outside the ring as well" (USA Today), and "Filipino soldiers stop shooting to watch Manny Pacquiao beat Miguel Cotto" (The Times of London). Having a fellow Filipino in the media spotlight can be a cringe-anticipating experience because one never knows what reporters might dig up, magnify, or take out of context. (I write those words acknowledging my own role here.)
For better or worse, in all seriousness and jest, Pacquiao seems to exhibit the following traits, which I would characterize as quintessentially Filipino. (Full disclosure: These traits are purely from my unofficial surveys and observations.)
Multi-talented — PacMan is not only an impressive boxer, he is also an actor and the lead singer of a band named Calsada. In my rough estimation, most Filipinos love to perform, especially sing, evidenced by the number of Filipinos I know who own and regularly use their karaoke machine. I’ll bet he’s a pretty decent dancer, too.
Political — Manny Pacquiao has already run for (and lost) a political office in the Philippines. In March he will run again for congress. His biggest fans say he’ll be president of the Philippines someday. Somehow it seems any Filipino has at least a chance to become president, whether royalty (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo), a housewife (Corazon Aquino), or an actor (Joseph Estrada).
Generous — The New York Times article I referenced earlier reveals a glimpse of Pacquaio’s bizarre day-to-day life by following his now infamous and massive entourage of helpers and assistants. It reminded me of my own family’s good fortune. On one of my visits to the Philippines I remarked to my cousin about my slight envy at her having a maid and a cook as a middle-class Filipino. She divulged that she felt it would almost be wrong of her not to hire folks to help if she has the means. In this same way, with Manny’s unprecedented success, it seems as though he’s trying to bring as many people up with him as he can. He is also a well-known philanthropist who recently started his own foundation.
At this point, most of the press coverage of Pacquiao has been quite positive. Which begs the question: Is he being raised up to someday fall from grace, like so many celebrities before him? I suppose he’ll keep on making headlines and we’ll keep on reading. Go PacMan, keep it real if you can.