Former World Boxing Association bantamweight and World Boxing Council featherweight champion Luisito "Lindol" Espinosa is finally coming back to the Philippines March 22 to receive a long-overdue award, as world boxing champion, in the 8th Gabriel ?Flash? Elorde Awards Night on March 25 at the Centennial Hall of the Manila Hotel.

After a 10-year stay in the United States, Espinosa was invited to come home by promoter Johnny Elorde to receive the award when they met in San Francisco, California last December. Espinosa, who won in his WBC featherweight title defense against Carlos Rios of Argentina in 1997 in Koronadal, will be honored as a former world and international boxing champion during the 2007 Elorde Awards Night-Banquet of Champions. Espinosa, 40, is one of only four Filipinos to have won titles in two different divisions after brothers Gerry and Dodie Boy Penalosa and Manny Pacquiao.

?The honor is long overdue,? said the young Elorde, who added that Espinosa was to have been included in the roster of former world boxing champions during the first staging of the Elorde Awards in 2000. After stopping Rios in 1997, Espinosa went to the US and never returned.

Espinosa will join an elite roster of former and current world champions in the Flash Elorde Banquet of Champions.

Highlight of the Elorde Awards Night-Banquet of Champions is the induction of boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao into the Elorde Boxing Hall of Fame.

Pacquiao will be the first champion to be elevated to the Elorde Hall of Fame, an honor accorded only to a boxer-of-the-year-awardee for seven years, the same number of years Da Flash retained the world junior lightweight crown. Pacquiao will also be inducted this year into the Hall of Fame of the Philippine Sportswriters Association. Correspondent Salven Lagumbay