November 14: a historic day of Philippine unity

Houston Boxing Examiner | Marv Dumon

This weekend, at a hotel, I came across a Mexican repairman and his assistant. Speaking very little English, he tried to communicate with me. I had difficulty understanding him. He pointed upstairs and it became apparent that he was looking for a particular hotel room to fix. I pointed in the direction to help him find the place of his job for that morning.

I decided to break the ice. I asked them if they followed boxing. Both nodded no, that they did not really follow it. "Oh really? What about Manny Pacquiao?" His assistant immediately nodded up and down (yes, yes). The head repairman, a gentleman in his late 40s, in broken English said "Wow, Pacquiao? Whew!" He managed to garble up a broken Mex-English of the word "incredible." "When [doo] he [ppiiight]?" he earnestly asked. I said, "next week." Repairman: "Ooohhh, [neesccktt weeek]. Woww. Pacquiao, wheww!"

CLICK: Pac's and Cotto's Last 10 Wars

Near the lobby, I made coffee for both gentlemen. Man to man. I saw his eyes. He had a heart of pure gold. I've had educated co-workers: fluent, good upbringing, and has a way with words. Some practiced cunning, deception, and manipulativeness. I never asked the name of my new friend, but I was glad to converse with a simple man of high character. Abraham Lincoln never went beyond grade school in formal schooling. (He studied independently.) In some way, here was another man cut of the same stainless cloth.

Manny Pacquiao, indirectly, broke down the language barrier that morning. I was afforded just a simple but satisfying conversation. For him, and the entire country of the Philippines, what is at stake on November 14 is far greater.

Tough Conditions

In the street squalors of Manila, neighborhood prisons like Tondo – a forgotten band of Filipino youth may thrust rusty knives into the stomach of an unwilling victim, daily nonchalant occurrences of pickpockets and small-time thieves, dripping streams of blood on an unkept sewage.

Yet, they form an unfortunate detailing of the dire desperation of the average citizen. Drug-infested shanties that harbor mass usage of dangerous methamphetamines, under the barely lit bulbs. Here, vendors sell “recycled food” to the urchins, a cruel euphemism for eaten food thrown in the garbage, only to be collected by vendors. These are then illegally re-cooked for a second round of unhealthy consumption. The customer has no money but for a few pennies, and against the backdrop of starvation, and the choice of eating from the stenched garbage can herself, and the choice of teenage prostitution, and the choice of pickpocketing, she decides to purchase the used-cook food. She aspires for a formal elementary education – she is stuck on the streets, without a future, and awaiting the imminent horror of an abused, hopeless life.

CLICK: Pacquiao's Quest for Boxing Immortality

This story is multiplied by the tens of millions in the Republic of the Philippines. An artificially strung archipelago, of thousands of islands named after King Philip of Spain. Of bountiful natural resources – copper, gold, forestry, fishing, sugarcane, mango, the coconut – of virgin shores, and yet through the complexities of geo-political developments, structure, and infrastructure, the nation did not find a way out of the abyss. It dug a deeper hole in the ground. In these impossible circumstances was born a certain Manny Pacquiao. He got into his first fight at the tender age of 11 when two kids made fun of his brother. The protector beat them up.

Gen. MacArthur's Speech at the Battle of Leyte
If General MacArthur yelled for STRIKE!!! . . . for the sons and daughters, and the future of the country, to “follow the Holy Grail of righteous victory,” Pacquiao answered the call 50 years later. He answered the call each single instance, with cavalier daring that risked his health, against progressively larger fighters. When he fought Oscar de la Hoya, they were naturally separated by three weight classes. He was a 2-1 underdog. When the 10-time champion campaigned at welterweight in the late 1990s, street urchin (born of squalor) Pacquiao was a flyweight – eight divisions beneath the towering U.S. Olympian.

STRIKE!!! Each Filipino begs for an even more brutal blow with each swift combination, to bludgeon the face of a ring enemy - a foe that becomes symbolic of lost hopes. The street Filipino is sick of living in hell’s squalor; of the familial tirade in each leaky house-hut, that there is no food to eat. If rancorous savagery brings triumph, do so with maximum zeal; the gusto of which can at least elate the penniless even in dire circumstances. To give joy even to the damned. “Manny, give us back our dignities, our pride, our hopes and dreams – that for hundreds of years were taken from us.” The Spanish mandated the Pilipino servile to don the barong, a transparent white shirt, so that any subject carrying weaponry would have the threat visibly exposed. Punished with swift death.

CLICK: Pac's and Cotto's Last 10 Wars

This common bond of regaining a people’s pride is a thread that, in the heart of Filipinos, cuts across any man-made boundary; whether social, ethnic, or religious. When their warrior fought Ricky Hatton, former rebels sat alongside Philippine Army soldiers and Marines to cheer on Manny. They forgot the squabbles about land.

November 14, 2009: A Historic Day of Unity
November 14 is a historic day for the Philippines. The people are tired of fighting each other; about wealth distribution; issues of secession, about corruption of the national treasury, and on simple pickpocketing from a lost and angry youth.

The great American president, Abraham Lincoln, declared that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Pacquiao wants his people to stand up and to rise above the petty; to lift their eyes beyond the illusory impossibles.

CLICK: Pac's and Cotto's Last 10 Wars

For one day, the unity of the Philippines is absolute. In cadence they hear the same clarion trumpet. For one day, unquestioned is the loyalty towards that inner spark of selflessness and sacrifice that arouses a mass rallying cry. Of bestowing courage that no longer renders death as an obstacle to a unifying goal. Filipinos once had an outburst against alien Japanese forces generations ago. On November 14th, they’ll have it yet once again. It is a precious moment. They have a new General. He was not promoted by some government or military command.

The people chose him. No military uniform but the stain of blood evidences whose side he fights for. No uniform but the prayers of millions evidences who the people support. So rare an opportunity that an entire people march behind its main hero as he goes to war in solo. He invades a foreign land. Filled with pugilistic three-headed beasts. War was declared. As their warrior clenches his fists, the army’s headcount behind him stands at a hundred million.

November 14, 2009 is a historic day for the people of the Philippines.

CLICK: Pacquiao's Quest for Boxing Immortality

The Battle of Leyte Gulf

General Douglas MacArthur promised to the Filipino people "I shall return." Years later, in October 1944, he landed in the island of Leyte, Philippines. The historic Battle of Leyte had begun.

I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God our forces stand again on Philippine soil -- soil consecrated in the blood of our two peoples. We have come, dedicated and committed, to the task of destroying every vestige of enemy control over your daily lives, and of restoring, upon a foundation of indestructible, strength, the liberties of your people . . . .

The hour of your redemption is here. Your patriots have demonstrated an unswerving and resolute devotion to the principles of freedom that challenges the best that is written on the pages of human history. I now call upon your supreme effort that the enemy may know from the temper of an aroused and outraged people within that he has a force there to contend with no less violent than is the force committed from without.

Rally to me. Let the indomitable spirit of Bataan and Corregidor lead on. As the lines of battle roll forward to bring you within the zone of operations, rise and strike. Strike at every favorable opportunity. For your homes and hearths, strike! For future generations of your sons and daughters, strike! In the name of your sacred dead, strike! Let no heart be faint. Let every arm be steeled. The guidance of divine God points the way. Follow in His Name to the Holy Grail of righteous victory!

CLICK: Pacquiao's Quest for Boxing Immortality

Historical Events on November 14th

On November 14, 1947, the UN passes a resolution stating that free elections should be held, foreign troops should be withdrawn, and a UN commission for Korea should be created.

On November 14, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln approves General Ambrose Burnside's plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, leading to the Battle of Fredericksburg.

On November 14, 1918, Czechoslovakia becomes a republic.

On November 14, 1940: World War II - In England, the city of Coventry is heavily bombed by German Luftwaffe bombers.

On November 14, 1965: Vietnam War: Battle of the Ia Drang begins - the first major engagement between regular American and North Vietnamese forces.

On November 14, 1969: Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon.

On November 14, 1971, Mariner 9 reaches Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet.

November 14, 2009, Manny Pacquiao attempts to accomplish what can never be erased from the annals of boxing history. Seven titles, seven weight classes. The Pacific Typhoon tries to swallow up a Boricua Bomber, flying in from the Bermuda Triangle of Puerto Rico.

CLICK: Pac's and Cotto's Last 10 Wars

Source: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-4514-Houston-Boxing-Examiner~y2009m11d7-November-14-a-historic-day-of-Philippine-unity