Filipinos are Champions

Peñalosa vs Martinez

We congratulate our group of six boxers for demonstrating once again that our country is a force to bereckoned with in the lower weight classes of international boxing by winning the Boxing World Cup.

Together with the string of victories that Manny Pacquiao has been enjoying, the triumph of the Filipino boxers can be expected to trigger greater interest in boxing both as a professional and an amateur sport. Many impoverished youths will see boxing as a ticket out of the mire of poverty.

But the development of boxing should not be made at the expense of other sports in which Filipinos could excel. Baseball was one sport in which Filipinos excelled before World War II. But after Liberation, because of the heavy American influence, basketball became the most popular sport among the masses. Filipinos seem to forget that because they are a race of short people, they cannot excel at basketball, in which Caucasian giants enjoy a natural advantage. In the recent Fiba Asia Championships, for instance, not even the addition of tall Filipino-Americans to the Philippine team could win it a slot in the finals.

Soccer, the truly international sport, is another game at which Filipinos, with their speed, natural agility and balletic grace, can excel. But it is played mostly only in the provinces and as a spectator sport it draws big crowds to movie houses and sports restaurants only during the biennial World Cup. Perhaps big corporations can help popularize soccer, and revive interest in baseball by sponsoring teams.

Boxing, often called "the manly art of self-defense," will always be seen as the poor man's ticket to riches. Because of its violent nature (many boxers have died as a result of ring injuries) and its identification with gambling, boxing has had a controversial history. There have been periodic calls for outlawing the sport, but especially in a poor country like the Philippines, such calls cannot succeed. Meanwhile, the best that can be done would be to ensure that boxers are given enough protection in the ring and that those who are retired are assured of some means of livelihood. Many boxers have been a source of national pride but some of them have been reduced to pathetic figures by penury. They should be accorded recognition not only when they bring honor to the country, but also given support in their twilight years.

Photo by Ed de la Vega courtesy of PhilBoxing.com.