The rise, fall, and rise again of Manny Pacquiao
It has to be tough being a Filipino hero. As a nation with few highs and a laundry list of lows, we cling to the bright spots in our society tightly. We live vicariously through them. Just as we feel heartbroken when our favorite basketball team loses, we feel like gods when they win.
In the sport of boxing, our guy has always been Manny Pacquiao. In a nation of armchair sports enthusiasts, everyone has an opinion of what Pacquiao should have been doing these past few years. Retire and be a politician? Continue on and fight until he meets Mayweather? There are sides for each train of thought. But the one thing that united all of us was that we needed Pacquiao to be successful. We could all disagree over what he does outside the ring, but inside it, everyone concurred. He had to be unbeatable, perfect, immortal even.
But no matter how high on a pedestal you place someone, they will always fall. It’s the way of life. And Pacquiao fell. With a shot from hell from Juan Manuel Marquez, it all went away. In a sense, the punch was more of a knockout to our nation than to Pacquiao himself. Pacquiao was the one unconscious, but he woke up. He has the bruises to show for it, but it will all heal.
For the rest of us, this knockout blow will never heal. It will stay with us forever. Before, a Pacquiao fight meant that we could go online on Twitter and Facebook and proclaim to the world that the Pinoy Spirit is indomitable. This time, we woke up Monday to a new era. 2012 P.K. (Post Knockout).
Some have blamed God. That Pacquaio misrepresented Him by not holding on to a treasured religious symbol in our country. With that symbol, God would have found favor with Pacquiao and left Marquez in the dust. Or that his new found faith has numbed his killer side.
Others have blamed politics. That his attention was diverted away from boxing to an avenue where he is doing more harm than good. That his loss was a direct consequence of his stand on the RH Bill.
Lastly, many have placed the blame on Pacquiao himself. That he overstayed his dominance. That he should’ve quit when he was ahead. That he was doing it all for the money. That he had nothing more to prove with eight division belts, but had everything to lose.
We’ve placed the blame on everything possible under the sun.
But when do we blame ourselves?
When do we finally look at a mirror and realize that the reason why we’re so heartbroken by a Filipino losing a sporting event is because we’ve elevated him past what he couldn’t handle? That he changed his approach to this fight because we wanted blood, and a definitive end to this rivalry?
We made him out to be a god amongst men, when in truth he’s just one of us. Mortal, and human. Always has been, always will be.
For foreign commentators, their pre-fight chatter leading up to a Pacquiao fight has always been about how revered Pacquiao is in our country, how we elevate him, and are close to worshipping him for all the accolades he’s amassed. Outside of the Philippines, very few can understand why Pacquiao is so revered here, why we’ve set him up so highly. And why we’ve all fallen together as a nation this hard.
Post-fight, Pacquiao admitted that he became overconfident, that he believed that Marquez was ripe for a knockout. That he misjudged how much he had Marquez both on the proverbial and literal ropes. Sobering words from our fallen icon.
But just like fallen heroes from the streets of Gotham, what makes men heroes is their ability to rise up. To lick their wounds and get back to doing what they do best: winning.
The shine has been taken away from Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino boxer and unformed unbeatable Filipino hero. But maybe it’s the best thing that could’ve happened to him at this stage in his career. When he lost to Timothy Bradley earlier this year, no one could accept the loss because our eyes knew the truth. But there’s no coming back from this Marquez fight.
So now the narrative has changed for Pacquiao. Whether he continues to fight in the ring, or for the people in Congress, the story now is how he bounces back. How he learns from the error of his ways, and becomes a champion again. It may be a story no one considered before the start of Pacquiao-Marquez IV, but it’s a story we can all relate to now. When he bounces back, he becomes a true Filipino hero.
Immortality is for the movies. Pacquiao is a man who can be beaten. We should love him even more because of that. - AMD, GMA News
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