Here’s a portion of the news that came out in the front page of this paper’s Nov. 15 issue under the headline “Councilor wants boxing clinics to search for ‘the next Manny.’”

“After Manny Pacquiao’s victory, a Cebu City councilor said he wants the Cebu City Sports Commission to build up its boxing clinics in the barangays. These clinics, said Councilor Alvin Dizon, may help the city discover ‘the next boxing hero.’

“Dizon, who chairs the committee on housing, also wants the sports commission to expand its boxing program and include the urban poor and resettlement areas.

“Cebu City hopes to discover a new breed of good boxing fighters in the mold of the Filipino champion Manny Pacquiao from our city’s barangays, said Dizon in his resolution.

“The program is also in line with the local government’s thrust to keep a training pool of amateur boxers who will be representing the city in various boxing tournaments in other parts of the country, he added.

“Dizon will propose that the sports commission provide free boxing gloves for each child or teenager from a poor family who signs up for the boxing clinics.

“The clinics should ‘incorporate valuable lessons on gang prevention and drug abuse deterrence, to those kids who are truly interested in the sport of boxing,’ he added.”

Mayor Michael Rama supports the plan. Rama said, and I dare quote: “In the interest of advancement in the field of sports and in all fields for that matter, I, in as far as I look after the welfare of the Cebuano populace, support through and through the move to build not one, not two, not even three, but mind you, plenty and numerous boxing clinics all over the city, in order that, and I say this with all humility, as epitomized by our great hero Manny Pacquiao, who is humble in victory and generous in wealth, the great people of Cebu will be united and become one in boxing, so that progress, peace and stability can be enjoyed by all and everyone.”

I’m wondering, what if it was not boxing? What if Pacquiao excelled in another kind of sports that is equally brutal, violent, life-threatening and popular, say beer-drinking? If you don’t consider beer-drinking a sport, here’s one Google definition for boxing that very well applies to drinking: “A chance for two men (or women) to square off without pretense and determine who is superior. It is one of the last honest expressions of the human condition, an outlet for the aggression each person keeps bottled up.”

Last Nov. 15’s news would have read:

“After Manny Pacquiao’s victory, a Cebu City councilor said he wants the Cebu City Sports Commission to build up its beer-drinking clinics in the barangays.

“These clinics, said Councilor Alvin Dizon, may help the city discover ‘the next beer-drinking hero.’

“Dizon, who chairs the committee on housing, also wants the sports commission to expand its beer-drinking program and include the urban poor and resettlement areas.

“Cebu City hopes to discover a new breed of good beer drinkers in the mold of the Filipino champion Manny Pacquiao from our barangays, said Dizon in his resolution.

“The program is also in line with the local government’s thrust to keep a training pool of amateur beer drinkers who will be representing the city in beer-drinking tournaments in other parts of the country, he added.

“Dizon will propose that the sports commission provide free beer for each child or teenager from a poor family who signs up for the beer-drinking clinics.

“The clinics should ‘incorporate valuable lessons on gang prevention and drug abuse deterrence, to those kids who are truly interested in the sport of beer drinking,’ he added.”

Of course, Mayor Rama would support the plan. But no, we don’t want another quote from him.

(SUN.STAR CEBU, NOV. 23, 2010)

“MANNY Pacquiao is tough, compact and sweet. Manny Pacquiao has 6.8 percent cholesterol, 7.6 percent protein, 6.4 percent carbohydrates and 3.7 percent calcium, plus iron, niacin and vitamin E. Truly, Manny Pacquiao is good for your health.”

If that didn’t hook you to read on, you must be some kind of a scrooge who despises everything that engenders fun writing. Even if an article started with something like “Pacman is best when dipped in hot sikwate,” you would think your favorite boxing champ had been actually kidnapped by a De La Hoya fanatic and subjected to a weird form of torture called “Death by Tsokolate.” You’re that kind of person. Get a life, one that has a lot of humor in it.

Of course, Sarmiento’s story that came out last May was about the Pacman bread, the bread, named after Manny “The Pacman” Pacquiao; the bread that tastes just like any bakery item your P5 can buy, only it is shaped like a fist – not Manny’s but the baker’s. Come on. Do you really think Pacman sat down with the baker to have his fists measured for oven accuracy?

While we’re at it, how should you bake bread to make it taste like you’ve been hit by a solid left? And who cares what “niacin” is, or how much cholesterol is “6.8 percent cholesterol?” It’s Manny Pacquiao, the People’s Champ! Any bread, beer product or lip gloss named after him is always hot.

The Pacman bread got me thinking if we haven’t had enough already of this thing we have with buns and boxers. Remember Elorde the bread? Ask your parents about it. Remember Pancho the bread? Ask your great grandparents about it. Or don’t bother. It’s the same plot anyway: somebody punches ass, becomes a world champion and retires to find his name immortalized as a breakfast commodity.

No big deal, actually. Give me some delicious bread in the morning to go with my 3-in-one and I will swallow it whole even if it’s named after the world’s lousiest Kung Fu fighter. I wouldn’t have written a column about it at all had a friend not told me over the weekend that our bakers are at it again.

This time, they have given our boxers a rest and decided it is our national heroes’ time to be with us at the breakfast table. By heroes I mean the ones who really sacrificed their lives for the country without earning millions of dollars from every fight.

I’m talking about the Cory bread. I have yet to see and taste it, but I can already see its color. Boxers are not giving bakers a difficult time because they have their fists. What does a hero like Cory have? A pair of eyeglasses? That would be so Ninoy. Rosary beads, perhaps? Or can the bakers work around an image of a hero’s annoying youngest daughter? That bread wouldn’t taste good. Is color yellow enough to represent a woman’s sacrifices for her country?

But I’m not a baker, I’m a writer. And in case I have to write a news feature about the Cory bread, I will start it the way Sarmiento started her Pacman piece:

“CORY Aquino is tough, compact and sweet. Cory Aquino has 6.8 percent cholesterol, 7.6 percent protein, 6.4 percent carbohydrates and 3.7 percent calcium, plus iron, niacin and vitamin E. Truly, Cory Aquino is good for your health.”

By Insoy Niñal
Sun.Star, Sept. 15, 2009

PAMUHUAN Festival in Pinamungajan is one celebration that will be a subject of future debates, at least among the town’s residents and history buffs, as to whether it authentically represents the town’s origins.

If tradition is to be followed, ‘bunga’ is the root word of Pinamungajan, not “pamuo,” as the festival suggests. It’s “bunga” to the town’s old folks and thugs, fish vendors, the naughty barber across the church plaza, even the parish priest who has spent more than half of his life hearing the confessions of the town’s sinners.

It’s “bunga” to the natives.

But a debate on the matter at the moment is a spoiler, a damper to an otherwise festive celebration of being one town, one people. In this case, the town’s elite, not the ordinary folk, are the teachers of history. So, Pamuhuan it is, as of the moment.

Besides, Manny Pacquiao and his fans don’t care. When the country’s boxing icon visited the town yesterday and acknowledged his roots in Pinamungajan, the townsfolk cheered, rendering everything else about the celebration less significant.

“Makita ninyo sa akong nawong ang akong kalipay (you can see in my face how happy I am),” Pacquiao told the crowd gathered at the Pinamungajan Municipal Gym.

The municipality, poor since birth, finds in Pacquiao a new reason to feel proud of home and to reach out to reestablish familial roots. So the town council submitted a resolution honoring Paqcuiao for his contribution in making the town proud. They also unveiled a marker dedicated to Pacquiao. The marker carries the town’s origin as farming and fishing village.

In her speech, Pinamungajan Mayor Geraldine Yapha admitted having second thoughts about organizing a festival. But she assured the public: “This is not the best but the most that we can do.”

Pamuhuan, the organizers say, is a festival about the townsfolk’s bayanihan spirit, where neighbors work together during the harvest so they could bring home food enough for the family to survive yet another day.

The debates will take care of themselves.

Please, please, stop dissing Manny Pacquiao for his gambling and womanizing. He’s just a child. Ask his friend Erik.

But I was frustrated because RnB princess Kyla failed to do a Christian Bautista Part 2. It was a boxing match. I was in a mean mood. I wanted to see people drop dead at the ring, if not from killer punches, at least from embarrassment. I heard Pacquiao had orders from Malacañang to hit Kyla with a left if she missed a line.

Lupang Hinirang is one scary song to sing in front of a crowd. It’s double the scare if some dork before you messed it up big time and an entire country is expecting you to correct the error. It’s a difficult song to sing to begin with. You have to be in short pants to sing it well. Remember how we never missed a line of it during flag ceremonies in grade school? The song seems harder to sing as life gets more complicated.

But then maybe national anthems are really written to make life difficult for a nation’s people. The Star-Spangled Banner is one difficult song to sing too, even more difficult than ours. The Star-Spangled has a range of one and a half octaves. That’s hell for us, lovers of Lito Camo songs.

What songwriter in his right mind would want to write a song in that range and expect an entire nation to hit the notes right, from the lowest “say” to the highest “free”? I read somewhere that the Star-Spangled was a poem set to the tune of a popular British drinking song. A drinking song! That probably explains it. But why would we want to sing Star-Spangled, anyway?

And the Himno Nacional Mexicano, well, Marco Antonio Barrera lost. The lyrics, which allude to Mexican victories in battle and cries of defending the homeland, failed to give Barrera a glorious career exit. Let’s leave it at that.

What about our national anthem? It’s a marching hymn. Julian Felipe’s composition was called “Marcha Nacional Filipina.” He composed it for bolo-wielding revolutionaries and gallant generals marching in victory. That’s the reason it was set to the original 2/2 time signature, which is ideal for marching. For marching, not for singing, because the lyrics came only after more than a year.

Now our singers, whenever they perform the song solo, are expected to sing it the pop way using the friendly 4/4 time signature. It’s where the problem lies. How do you sing a song whose music was actually for marching? And there’s our Constitution to consider. Republic Act 8491, or the Flag and Heraldic Code of the Philippines, specifies that Lupang Hinirang “shall be in accordance with the musical arrangement and composition of Julian Felipe.”

Literally, this means our national anthem should only be performed by a pianist or by a brass band, as these were the only versions that were produced by Felipe. Maybe it’s the only way to do it right. Which got me thinking: If Christian Bautista was marching in military fashion, with bolo in hand, when he sang Lupang Hinirang, he wouldn’t have probably missed it.

(sun.star cebu, opinion)