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