Cheap thrills July 6, 2006

I WISH we’d have some sense of proportion.

I mean I’m all for Manny Pacquiao trying to pick up another million dollars, which translates into P53 million (or haven’t you noticed that the peso has climbed back to P53 to $1, something government has been keeping silent about as earnestly as it crowed about its getting to P51 to $1 some months ago?). Who wouldn’t, particularly if it’s easy money? We all can do with the extra dough, even if some of us are no longer poor. Indeed, even if some of us can’t seem to have enough products to endorse.

Even the great Muhammad Ali wasn’t beyond it, putting up a string of fights with nobodies, the better to pocket some loose change in the form of millions of dollars and showcase his skills without risk of soiling his pretty face. That was after his spectacular win over the invincible George Foreman the year before in Zaire. I remember in particular his fight with Chuck Wepner in 1975. Wepner was a patsy who rose through the ranks in the 1960s, fell into obscurity after losing several fights and racked up a string of wins and went up again. He got a crack at good money to fight Ali, but no one expected him to be anything more than meat for the meat grinder.

He surprised everyone by punishing Ali, who hadn’t taken the fight seriously, sending him down on the canvas in the ninth. Wepner lost eventually, the fight being stopped in the 15th and ruled a technical knockout, but not after giving the champion a scare. Sylvester Stallone was among those who watched it, which inspired him to make “Rocky.” The movie did far more magnificently than the fight, spawning several sequels. Ali himself would go on to rise again after this, indeed to greater heights with his bloody encounter with Joe Frazier, called the “Thrilla in Manila,” which many consider to be the greatest boxing match of all time.

I was “thrill-ahed” when Pacquiao gave Marco Antonio Barrera a boxing lesson -- so complete was his domination of him -- some years back. I wasn’t so sure he plucked out a draw from Juan Manuel Marquez, but thought to myself, well, maybe there’s something to be said for decking a guy three times in one round even if you lose the rest of the fight. I felt pain when he lost to Erik Morales the first time around, Morales giving him a boxing lesson in turn. And I felt boundless joy, along with 84 million Filipinos, at his victory over Morales in the rematch, the ecstasy all the sweeter for the previous agony.

But Pacquiao-Larios? I felt embarrassed. I felt even more embarrassed by the aftermath.
Like I said, I don’t mind that Pacquiao decided to pick up some cash, but I do mind that his fight with Larios would be billed as another “Thrilla in Manila.” It was just another “Wasteland in Cleveland” without the surprise Wepner sprung on his audience, quite apart from his opponent. I do mind that Pacquiao keeps saying he is dedicating his victory to the Filipino people. If a diva dedicated “My Way” to me during my birthday, I’d feel sore too. I deserve better. She deserves better. A deciding match between Pacquiao and Morales, that would be another “Thrilla in Manila,” or in whichever “la” it is held. Or a Pacquaio-Marquez rematch: That should put to rest doubts about the epithet, “Mexican-Destroyer,” one way or the other.

It’s not just ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. to blame for making a mountain out of a molehill. Though, speaking of mountains, ABS-CBN it was, too, that tried to turn our mountain-climbers’ ascent onto Mt. Everest into an achievement of epic proportions. I mean, I’m proud of it too, and the accomplishment is epic in the sense that our mountain climbers have done so amid the utter dispossession of support, moral and material, that they’ve always been heir to. But let’s not squeeze from it more than it can yield. The path to the top of the world is not an unexplored one, it is a beaten one. We thump ourselves in the chest for it, we do not parade ourselves before the world, we embarrass ourselves before the world.

But ABS-CBN aside, what was that parade all over Manila, with Mayor Lito Atienza hanging on the coattails, or boxing shorts, of Pacquiao for dear life, all about? What the hell does “Champion for Life,” which Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who would not be outdone, promptly conferred on Pacquiao, mean? For what? For beating an 11th-ranked journeyman desperately trying to make a buck in the ring and even more desperately eyeing an alternative career as a karaoke singer?
This sound-and-fury does not signify that the Filipino can do, it signifies that the Filipino can make do. It does not signify that the Filipino can make a saga of himself, it signifies that the Filipino can make a spectacle of himself. It does not signify that the Filipino has finally been filled by the spirit of aspiration, it signifies that the Filipino has finally been felled by the weight of desperation.

The last is particularly worth noting. The way we’re going about it, we seem to have invented two new responses to life’s challenges. Either we set for ourselves servile ambitions, and crow like roosters at the crack of dawn when we have achieved them. That isn’t just seen in the way we celebrate Pacquiao’s victory over Larios, calling ourselves champions. That is seen in the way we celebrate our doctors becoming nurses and invading the hospitals of England, calling ourselves “global.” Or from the opposite end, like King Canute or Queen Gloria, we bid the waves to hold still, banishing all obstacles with the wave of the hand, proclaiming, “basta lang” [just like that], we will become an Enchanted Kingdom or First World country in 20 years, proclaiming, “basta rin lang” [also just like that], that we have more than enough classrooms for the kids; and who is the education secretary to say otherwise?

Cheap thrills. And I’m not so sure they’re cheap.

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