Salamat [Thank You!]

If you're a Filipino, staying in the country, consider yourself lucky to be living at this time of the year. You lived through the devastation caused by Typhoon Ondoy/Ketsana, you're not among those who traveled to Maguindanao who were greeted with excessive fireworks, and had endured another year of seemingly endless reign of unbelievable political machinations from all sides.

Can't help it if you feel much better had you been among the victims but [it's not just a matter of perspective] in no other time had we been showered with equal blessing on the world stage. Yes, our small and tiny country.

Not once but twice. What makes it even special is that they were not borne out of privileged Pinoy existence. Humble origins, much like the majority of kababayans.

Efren and Manny.

You can never say enough about them and what they accomplished. I'm sure I'll be regaling kids with tales that happened in 2009.

And even better, it won't be just us in the usual tambayans, but in every bit, those living in all parts of the world, who had read about them or seen them, too.

Related:
Boxing gives thanks to [who else but ... ]
Extraordinary

Everybody's Half-Filipino (plus cloud rescue)

Mural commisioned by Nike Phil painted on canvass the size of a boxing ring.

As I was leaning on the cocktail table, barely even uttering a word, while my wife was sitting beside me, and as my eyes surveyed all corners of this big place with one large screen and four 40+ inch LCDs, plus classy food being served around, I began to ponder the unthinkable.

What if he loses?

I'd probably find excuses and the rationale for that but it would all just be a facade to mask what would hover like a dark cloud over the coming Christmas. Even worse is, watching the fight, I can feel my whole body stiffen and couldn't even touch any food or drink that on any other occasion would be too good to pass up. I thought I'd suffer a heart attack.

But time and again, just like on this day, Manny Pacquiao would prove doubters wrong and even more, showed another aspect of how great a boxer he is.

And it's significance?

That we are fortunate that he did so during this lifetime, that we were able to be witnesses!

And probably, most important of all, is that he has proven that, having risen from obscurity and squalor, can conquer odds and make it. A story that will always ring true in the hearts of men anywhere, for all time.

As Filipinos, we can't help deny that he is not just ours anymore. Being the first to hold seven titles in different weight divisions and doing so without pompousness but instead with grace and humility, it's inevitable that we'd have to share him from this day onwards with the rest of the world.

Related:
The New York Times, CNN, WSJ, TIME and virtually every major sports and media press had him covered but these two made me, err, sob.

Enjoy Pacquiao While You Can (Ring Online)
Manny Pacquiao: A Moon Landing

******* [7 stars]

Ahh, if it were just saved in the hard drive of my desktop PC, I'd say it was goners for sure.

I thank Yahoo! Mail and of course, the cloud.

Now, I've again entrusted this document albeit to the cloud again, unauthorized but not after exhausting all means of trying to contact Mr. Tom Thompson, whom I thought early on grasped or had an inkling of how special Pacquiao was, writing for defunct site, Tiger Boxing - which I loved back then, and make it far more accessible.

A travesty if just forgotten and left to the recesses of memory.

Reyes a Glass to Manny Pacquiao