By Ron Borges, Boston Herald
LAS VEGAS — At a time when many athletes seem to run from the very idea of being a role model, Manny Pacquiao fights for those who can’t.
Tomorrow night, the most popular fighter in the world will wear yellow gloves when he enters the ring at the MGM Grand to face Shane Mosley, not because someone paid him to, but because he hopes some kid will eat because he did. Although he has become a fistic and financial phenomenon who will earn a guaranteed $20 million for facing Mosley, Pacquiao has not forgotten the most basic of things. He has not forgotten what it felt like to be a boy alone in the streets with an empty stomach and nothing to fill it but a jug of water and a dream.
“All my life, I’ve had to fight,” the reigning WBO welterweight champion said before what is potentially the biggest pay-per-view event of his career. “As a child I had to fight just to eat. Now when I fight, the Filipinos call me a hero. I think the world needs more heroes.
“I believe the biggest fight of my life is not in boxing. The biggest fight in my life is how to end poverty in my country. I will be wearing yellow gloves into the ring as a symbol of unity in the fight against poverty.”
Pacquiao grew up scavenging in the streets of first General Santos City and later Manila, a boy who left home on a boat because he knew his mother could no longer afford to feed all the mouths in her household. He came to Manila to work with his hands, but his hands were blessed with the kind of concussive power that can render someone unconscious or at least willing to sacrifice their dignity and concede defeat rather than eat those fists any longer. Even when his stomach was empty, his hands were loaded.
Now 32, Pacquiao has won world championships in six weight classes from flyweight to junior middleweight, although his promoters claim he is a seven-time champion by adding the featherweight title to his resume even though he never won a sanctioned championship at 126 pounds and certainly doesn’t need it to enhance his reputation.
Although it carries with it no sanction, Pacquiao (52-3-2, 38 KO) is also considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, a mythical title signifying nothing but people’s opinion yet something fighters respect mightily for it means if all things were equal — which they seldom are in boxing or in life — he would be the most dangerous man in the world.
For most of us, that would be more than enough titles, but for Pacquiao boxing has only been the beginning. He is now a singer with a new single out, stars in a popular Filipino TV show, is a pitch man for everything from perfume to laptops and, most importantly, was elected a congressman in the Philippines last year, a title he takes as seriously as the one he is set to defend.
With success like this has come riches beyond any dreams Pacquiao had during long nights when his stomach growled, but they did not arrive unencumbered. They came with long tentacles, ones that might envelop some men but seem only to hold Pacquiao in a light and loving embrace.
“People, they are always expecting a lot from me,” Pacquiao admits. “There’s pressure, but I can handle that. I started from nothing and now I have something. So I give.”
When Pacquiao fights, his country stops. Police in Manila claim even crime takes a holiday the night of a Pacquiao fight. He is mobbed wherever he goes, but is not bothered by this. It is simply the life God has given him.
“Manny thrives on chaos,” says his publicist, Fred Sternberg, “maybe because he causes it. He isn’t the result of it.”
Pacquiao understands why this is so and feels the weight of it, a nation’s self-esteem riding on his slight shoulders. But he runs from none of its responsibilities. Instead, he puts on yellow gloves to remind those watching that hungry people are out there still. People who need help from a fighter but also from everyone whose belly is full.
The kind of grinding poverty Manny Pacquiao once knew was not erased by the erasure of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos or his own elevation, either as a fighter or a politician, and so he fights on for himself and for a people he believes have become his responsibility.
“When I started fighting professionally, every time I saw poor people sleeping in the streets, it made me think that one day I hoped I could help them,” Pacquiao said.
“It will make my heart happy to see yellow colors in the crowd. It will be a beautiful and special thing for everyone to unite in this way, with boxing, and hope and charity. It will be like everyone is supporting a team.”
Source: bostonherald.com
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