Izenberg: Manny Pacquiao a national hero to Filipinos here and in homeland

on November 12, 2009 at 8:00 AM, updated November 12, 2009 at 1:30 PM
Manny PacquiaoManny Pacquiao says of his immense popularity in the Phillipines: 'The people suffer so much. They have so little hope. So maybe it’s because I bring them good news.'
"He is the bringer of a joyful occasion. His life has been a renewal of our aspirations. He is a rare person.”
Maria Altamirino, bank vice-president, on the passionate link between Manny Pacquiao and the Philippine community in Las Vegas

“When Manny fights, an entire country on the other side of the world goes to church and prays for him.”
Nonito Donaire, the interim WBA super flyweight champion and a Filipino, on what Pacquiao means to his homeland

LAS VEGAS — There are 65,000 Filipinos and Filipino-Americans living and working in greater Las Vegas. They were small in number until 2000, when a variety of reasons set off an unexpected migration from California. It began in cities such as Reno and Las Vegas, where Filipinos occupied jobs within the tourism industry as employees in hotels, shops and restaurants and in the health-care industry, primarily as nurses.

From that trickle a human wave of professionals began to make its way to Vegas. Now the 65,000 form the spiritual army that proudly says it has Manny Pacquiao’s back as he prepares to go where no fighter before him has gone.

He meets Miguel Cotto here on Saturday night for Cotto’s slice of the welterweight title. Should he win, he will have fashioned the kind of miracle that hasn’t been seen since Henry Armstrong captured three world titles and defended each of them between November 1937 and August 1938 in a world where the fighters were better than what we now have.

But, incredibly, a victory here would be his seventh world title in seven different weight divisions.

Wherever you go in this town, if it is a place where Filipinos work, or bank, or shop, or have dinner, the message is the same when you ask them about Manny — night and day.

In places such as Fiesta Filipina, Café Moda and Nanay Gloria, they all agree that Manny is the bringer of hope. Maria Altamirino is not a fan of boxing. She is a fan of Manny Pacquiao. She says that when Filipinos came into the bank where she works all week, they talked about the magic of Saturday. It was the same in the Filipino market called Seafood City. When she picked up her weekly copies of the local Philippine Times and the Asian Journal, Manny was on each cover.

‘‘They know what he means not only here but back home as well,’’ Nonito Donaire says. ‘‘Here in America it’s hard for people to understand that. You have to know that he is the first positive world figure we have had in decades. He is so important he makes a whole country pray for him. For years, there has been a civil war in the South between the government (of the largest Christian country in Asia) and the Abu Sayyaf, the anti-government Muslims.

‘‘But when Manny fights, there is always a truce — no fighting, no killing — two groups that hate each other pause to root for the same fighter.’’

Winchell Campos, who is writing Pacquiao’s biography, resides in both the Philippines and California.

‘‘I have noticed a strange and positive thing,’’ he says, ‘‘and it all comes from Manny. Filipinos say third- or fourth-generation Americans never made much of their background until Manny came along. I can tell you that since he has had an impact on them, Filipino-American student groups at USC and UCLA have doubled in membership.

‘‘Look. On Saturday, USC’s football team is playing at home. After the game, the Filipino-American kids are running parties to watch Manny fight Cotto that night. Back home in General Santos City in Mindanao, where Pacquiao lived as a child, they are erecting a television screen large enough to show all the characters in the original Exodus. Saturday, all over the country, will become Manny Day.

‘‘Why do they love you so much?’’ Pacquiao was asked after his workout Wednesday.

‘‘I think this is about pride and trust,’’ Pacquiao said. “We have so much bad news back home. It’s always the same — crime, corruption, typhoons, landslides. The people suffer so much. They have so little hope. So maybe it’s because I bring them good news.’’

Just like the rare right hook he throws with pinpoint power, these thoughts are right on the money.

Filipino politics have long been a mess. Corrupt government after corrupt government only serves to rub salt in the very deep wounds of the poor and, Lord knows, poverty over there makes poverty over here look like a bump in the road. Hope is the most elusive of all qualities for so many of that group.

‘‘He understands how desperately they need hope,’’ Donaire will tell you. “They come from the same hometown. My family was really poor. Behind us, closer to the sea, there was a very bad place with daily high crime all the way up to murder. It was a tough place, but I know Manny had it much tougher. At 12, he was on the street selling cigarettes to help support his family. Gensan City, we called it, and it was a hard place in which to grow up, but Manny overcame it all.

“He has fed the poor. He has built a school. I know how much he gives away. He believes God has touched him as an instrument to help the poor.’’

The Philippines is composed of more than 7,000 islands, so many dialects ... so many differences between the hustle of capital city Manila and the sea-borne economy of Mindanao in the extreme south. Then there is the civil war down there. But when Manny fights, nobody picks up a gun that night.

I am reminded of another fighter named Barry McGuigan, once a champion, too. He was in a mixed marriage during the senseless religious wars of Ulster. He refused to come into a fight behind either the Union Jack or the flag of the Irish Free State. On his fight nights, the IRA and Ulster volunteers put away their hatred and rooted for him.

The music for his entry to the ring was ‘‘Why Not Give Peace A Chance?’’

Manny’s example has simply changed ‘‘peace’’ to ‘‘hope’’.

We could use more athletes like them.