Boxing for pesos

(With technical issues resolved, the Association of Boxing Alliances of the Philippines, formerly the Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines, will hold its elections at the Quezon City Sports Club on May 31. In the last polls  held in 2008 under the old Abap, business executive Ricky Vargas and his boss, tycoon Manny V. Pangilinan were elected by acclamation as president and chair, respectively. They are expected to be returned to office by heads of the association’s 32 chapters nationwide.)

I HOPE only egos get bruised when amateur boxing’s veterans of foreign wars tangle with fresh recruits during the Philippine National Games now ongoing until June 2.

I bring this up because of the PNG’s battle plans laid out in rapid-fire fashion previously by Richie Garcia, chair of the Philippine Sports Commission.

Richie also outlined the Games’ rules of engagement, ordering that an elite force, aka priority athletes in 10 sports, including the boxers, must report to the PNG frontline, or else.

So what’s the PSC chief trying to say here? That when you cross the brass, find yourself neck deep in dung at the brig?

The boxers and other priority athletes must show up for war or risk desertion, and face demotion in rank and pay. The fighters had earlier sought exclusion from the trenches.

Richie said the burden of proof is on each of the National Sports Associations’ Foreign Legion, including boxers, decorated or scarred in battles abroad. They have to share their good fortune by winning their assignments or eclipsing their own records. After all, each is paid a tidy sum of P40,000 in monthly allowances.

The onus is on the PSC to deliver since it holds the purse string for the NSAs. The agency has to show it is “just spending the government’s money the right way,” Garcia told the Inquirer recently.

Plainly, the idea of boxing for pesos had not gone well with officials of the boxing alliance. They had asked the PSC not to bare what the priority boxers can dish out until it’s time.

Pairing off veterans, the likes of Mark Anthony Barriga, Charly Suarez, Rey Saludar, Dennis Galvan, Josie Gabuco, Alice Kate Aparri, Nesthy Petecio and others against talents freshly picked for the national training pool creates monumental mismatches.

I am for the priority athletes to duke it out with each other. But ranging choice boxers for example, with the neophytes just selected from say, the recent national amateur championships in Maasin, Leyte, spells injury, to say the least.

Newbies are generally ill-prepared. How can they be expected to go up against the nationals who have had foreign exposure, train every day, twice a day the whole year round?

Mismatches happen even before the fighters get in the ring. The greenhorns will be quaking in their boots, and the veterans will be grinding their teeth. The scenario spells disaster all the way around.

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Sportsman Oscar Moreno in response to my previous column mentioning his election as Cagayan de Oro City Mayor says he hopes “to transform CDO into Mindanao’s sports capital.”

The former governor of Misamis Oriental, Moreno also vows “to elevate the region to higher levels in national competitions.”

That’s a tall order, “but we will endeavor,” says Oscar. His amateur boxers are standouts in the yearly nationals to find new talents for the boxing pool.