Pacquaio etc.

This is delayed reaction. Anyway, I’m not a boxing fan.

My daughter and I were on a bus on our way to Baguio when Manny’s fight was being aired, and being inside the bus where Manny’s fight was being aired is like being inside Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas watching Manny’s fight, live. There were shouting, stumping, fists flying; there were also lots of analysis, and of course lots of cussing. I’m not a boxing fan and I’m glad that Pacquaio won because if the result of the fight went the other way…I don’t know, but a stampede inside a bus…horrible.

There were no pedestrians. But while passing by appliance stores, I saw people huddled together, watching from display windows. Videoke bars also tuned in to the fight that I saw people flocking in there as if their gawking at a body of a brutally murdered murder victim. It’s like Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” killed another human being.

Geneva Cruz’s performance of the National Anthem created a lot of stir because of the way she sung it. The National Historical Institute blabbed about the law against the desecration of the National Anthem, and prescribed how the National Anthem should be sung complete with a CD playback how the National Anthem should be performed. Good! But why not prescribe a standard size for mangoes also? If the size of a particular mango does not meet the standard size promulgated by law, then the unlucky mango should be declared a non-national-mango and the planters and harvesters sued for desecration of the national fruit. Why not limit it to mango? Why not prescribe a standard weight for carabaos? See, if the National Historical Institute prescribed standard forms for our national symbols, the law of consistency dictates that we apply it all our national symbols. I was reminded of an article on Jose Feliciano (the blind Latino singer and guitarist famous for “Feliz Navidad” and “Once there was a love”…etc.) about the controversy he created when he sung “Star Spangled Banner” in his soulful vibrato de legato de nata de coco style. (The guy is cool. He is a flamenco guitarist and flamenco is all about speed, rhythm and lots of passion.) He was castigated by the U.S. government; he defended that he was just singing soulfully. Anyway, the issue had long been forgotten and now you can hear “The Star Spangled Banner” performed in various styles. Why, my late friend Jimi Hendrix even performed an instrumental version of the US National anthem during the 1969 Woodstock Festival complete with engine whines, explosions and sonic boom using only his Fender Strat, a wah pedal and a Marshall amp.

Why pick on Geneva Cruz? Why not arrest the girl who sung the National Anthem before Geneva? That kind of singing is criminally desecrating and blasphemous! If Manny had lost that fight, I’m sure that girl would be declared persona non grata by her own country.

You can’t expect Angono’s Banda Dos and the Cainta Elementary School Choir to go to Las Vegas and do a marching version of the National Anthem? Come on.

Come on…Come on…Why not arrest Bayang Barrios?

Her mother named her “Bayang” because it was their custom to name their babies after the first sound they heard and the first sound Bayang Barrios’ mother heard was “Bayang…magiliw...

Blah, blah, blah, blah…

There was a Philippine Flag being waved during Manny’s bout with the inscription “Vote: Manny Pacquiao”…hmmm…shoot them! They are desecrating American Soil.

And worst of all…Manny is running for a congressional seat.