I WAS A BIT surprised to bump into former BAP-SBP executive director Pato Gregorio at a dinner hosted by Solar for newly crowned WBC lightweight champion Manny Pacquiao at the Dusit-Thani Hotel last Friday night.

Since he had given up the post close to a month ago, we had not been in touch. I had intended to call him for a short interview to find out how he was doing in his new job as Smart Telecoms’ head of sports marketing so I was delighted to have the opportunity to talk with him personally. Solar’s vice president for marketing Jude Turcuato said he invited some clients to the affair and Pato represented one of Solar’s biggest advertisers.

From solicitor, Pato has become the solicited in his new job. Highly solicited. In the short time that he has sat behind his desk at his office in Makati, he has already amassed a huge pile of solicitations.

His main task is to determine how Smart’s humongous advertising budget for sports would be spent.

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“How is life after the SBP?” Pato echoed my question.

“In effect that’s asking how my life is with Smart. I’d have to say that my new role is exciting, amazing.”

Pato related that he has just been to Camarines Sur where he was the guest of governor LRay Villafuerte, who is very much into sports and is strongly pushing for sports tourism.

LRay is the son of Rep. Luis Villafuerte, chair of the other BAP-SBP faction.

Pato was visibly impressed with the sporting efforts of LRay.

“LRay is developing a world class mountain bike trail. He has a world class dragon boat team and he is also into wakeboarding.”

Pato announced that Smart would be supporting the sports program of Camarines Sur.

“We will be there as a partner,” he said, explaining that Smart’s main thrust would be to work in partnership with communities.

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That evening’s dinner was an impromptu gathering of Solar and GMA-7 people, the two media groups that had corroborated for the telecast of the recent Pacquiao-Diaz Lethal Combination bout. It was originally scheduled for today, Sunday, but Manny requested that it be moved forward to Friday, the day he arrived from the United States.

As he had promised, the champ arrived a little over 8 p.m. with the usual entourage of about 15 people. Everybody stood up and rushed to greet and congratulate him. Pato and I stayed glued to our chairs.

To our surprise, Manny headed straight for our table, leaving the welcoming group to shake our hands.

Pato was visibly touched.

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Over one of the the best Thai cuisine I’ve tasted, Jude and Rikki Escudero, GMA-7’s VP for regional television, were discussing the Pacquiao-Diaz coverage loud enough for everyone at the table to hear.

Lethal Combination, they said, registered the highest television rating ever, in Philippine broadcast history: Eighty-Five percent!

“But that’s only the average. That means the number could have gone as high as 90-plus percent. This also means that practically the whole of the Philippines was watching the fight over GMA-7 that day, including those who had already seen it on pay-per-view earlier,” Jude said.

Why this particular fight rated higher than any of the other Pacquiao fights, neither Jude nor Rikki could explain.

Jude said the recent NBA finals between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers also got the highest television rating ever in its Philippine broadcast.

“It reached as high as 28.9 average share for Game 6 but all games aired over Channel 9 (C/S) top-rated overall for most of the second half,” Jude disclosed.

* * *

Thanks to the sports editor of a popular tabloid, now I know that Purefoods cager James Yap and wife Kris Aqino are still intact.

“I saw them dining in one of the restaurants here in Greenbelt. Just the two of them and a small guy. They looked like they were enjoying each other’s company. They were even laughing. I don’t think the Yaps are at war,” the editor said.