Boxing needs total reprogramming, genuine change

IT MAY be a disaster, a debacle, an anomaly, disgrace and scandal. By any name, the shameful showing of the two over-hyped, over-traveled, overfed Filipino boxers in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics was a super boo-boo that caused a horrible stink.

With the monumental foulness, the head of the national amateur boxing agency had no choice but try and step out of the unbearable scene.

Ricky Vargas, president of the Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (Abap), offered to resign. At the same time, he blindly suggested that national boxing superhero Manny Pacquiao take over his post.

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Pacquiao did not tarry. He readily agreed to serve.

Yes, why not, Pacquiao said: “Susuportahan ko ang boxing, diyan ako nanggaling.”

Great move, and this could only mean the national amateur boxing body can now look forward to fresh crucial changes.

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Relevant rehabilitation should be forthcoming, although we’ll never know how and when.

Meanwhile, everything in the national amateur backyard hangs.

The Abap executive director, whose duty it is to explain, if not admit, where they had failed, has been unheard of, so far.

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Well, in case they haven’t realized, Tokyo 2020 is closer than they think, if we consider how the Abap has wantonly squandered golden opportunities these past eight years.

They can’t go on with the coreless grope-fly-and-miss method applied by the ruling national boxing body in the last two Olympics.

In fact, Manny Lopez, head of the Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines responsible for the last Philippine boxing medal, the silver won by Mansueto Velasco in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, came out firing by crying that big money alone can’t vouch for medals in the

Olympics, alluding to the boundless financial assistance given by the MVP Group of Companies to the national boxing body.

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Getting to the core of the problem, Lopez also decried how the Olympics and other foreign competitions had been freely turned into sightseeing tours by certain lead amateur boxing officials.

Lopez did not say it, but the sorry situation in the national boxing backyard cries for genuine change.

A total reprogramming is imperative. We hereby suggest studying the secret of world boxing power Mexico, whose successful program, anchored on an informal boxing academy, was bared to this reporter by the late Don Jose Sulaiman, longest serving president of the World

Boxing Council. We will detail that secret, intended for the Philippine Sports Commission, in the next column.