Posted by Administrator
Friday, 27 January 2006 02:21
From nearly biting the dust of poverty, his hand healed, and The Bulldog of New Jersey lived to fight another day as a blue-blooded boxer, as did the rest of his countrymen.
Our own Manny Pacquiao rose from relative anonymity and grinding poverty associated with rural life. He was making his own "comeback" and did his homework this time with patience and plain old hard work. He is "masa" [of the masses] to the bone, just like most Filipinos who watched him fight, glued as the entire Philippines had become to their TV sets in a communal exercise of dread and anticipation. Just like in the movie, we are in our own version of The Great Depression, but the similarity with America ends there since ours had nothing to do with drought or luck.
Pacquiao helped rekindle the much-needed fire of courage, flicker of hope and triumphant spirit into the hearts of every Filipino, the way our victory in the Southeast Asian Games allowed us to lift our heads up high again before the world. Yet even before the fairy-tale dust has settled, the ugly smog of politics darkened our TV screens, with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's henchmen wanting their 15 seconds, hungrily stealing the limelight from Pacquiao, and leaving a very bad taste in every spectator's mouth.
This government will stop at nothing to promote itself, but ultimately becoming the biggest anti-climax in its attempt to cover for its ineptitude and crookedness, with its brand of lying and PR-hoodwinking as its only idea of strength. It is bent on killing people power and democracy as we know it, even as it calls for unity and economic take-off in a contrived disguise called Charter change.
{mospagebreak}
It's time we Filipinos become Pacquiaos and throw our punches with raised fists as we define our own nationhood away from the dictates of traditional and mediocre politics. Just look at how this government has been pocketing our overseas workers' income remittances, taxing every worker's hard-earned income, and lately pocketing the Marcos ill-gotten wealth, while we continue to wallow in destitution. These, and the government's repressive policies, constitute the Philippine's ticket to our own Great Depression.
If there is one thing that the Southeast Asian Games' and Pacquiao's victorious moments have proven, it is that we do not need this government to show us that we can be true "Cinderella Men and Women" as we fight the "Wicked Witches" that continue to rule the "Palace" and its "forests." We always have a choice between a fairy tale come true or a living nightmare, if only we would raise our fists and go for gold this time.
INQ7.net DENNIS TORRECAMPO, Nanjing, China (via e-mail)
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
