(Honored: While the Philippine Olympic Committee was not looking, the country received a distinct honor from international sports authorities. Dr. Jose Raul Canlas of the Sports Medicine Association of the Philippines was invited to keynote the IOC Regional Sports Medicine Conference last week. Canlas, a member of the Fiba Medical Commission who helped set up the Southeast Asian Regional Anti-Doping Agency, gave a total of four lectures and returned from Guam on Sunday. “Just wanted to share honors with you,” Canlas said in a text message.)
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MANNY Pacquiao has been against useless drugs, mainly contraceptives, one of the reasons he readily made a strong stand against the Reproductive Health bill.
For the record, the undisputed world pound-for-pound boxing king has been against the RH bill from Day One.
It’s therefore grossly unfair to hint that Pacquiao had to be pushed and goaded into making a solid stand.
Unfortunately, this was what surfaced after Pacquiao attended a thanksgiving Mass at the Shrine of the Blessed Black Nazarene in Quiapo last Saturday.
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It was reported that Monsignor Clemente Ignacio, parish priest of Quiapo, turned the “Thanksgiving Mass into a protest rally against the RH bill.”
“With the monsignor setting the tone,” said the report, “Pacquiao had no choice but to respond that the RH bill meant ‘disobedience to God.’”
Anyway, asked much earlier about his stand against RH, Pacquiao promptly announced he’s against it.
No ifs, no buts, because the ever-decisive Pacman is, above everything, president of himself. He’s also pro-life and pro-God, not necessarily in that order.
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Of course, it’s not plain coincidence that the drug-testing issue ignited by Floyd Mayweather Jr. against Pacquiao was resurrected while the debate on the RH bill was raging.
An embarassed Shane Mosley reportedly charged that Pacquiao must be into steroids or something illegal after that shameful loss to the Filipino sports hero.
Mosley next denied the allegations.
But what followed were fresh reports about medical authorities now divided on how to check the use or non-use of pep pellets and enhancers in a boxing match.
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With the issue threatening to blast off again, respected columnist Michael Marley offered a Solomonic solution.
Marley said Pacquiao could end all the confusion by doing away with the questioned Olympic urine check for a fight.
Marley asked Pacquiao to instead announce he’d be for random blood testing, which Mayweather Jr. insists the Pacman has been avoiding. Marley said Pacquiao could agree to the random test starting in 2012.
That way, Floyd Jr. would run out of alibis to avoid a confrontation with Pacquiao.
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Anyway, while at it, this reporter received this stunning information from a trusted and tested boxing expert in California.
Please share it:
“In light of the Shane Mosley drug rants on the Pacman, Shane will shut his trap once you decide to use this info with me totally out of the scene. Less than six months ago, Shane Mosley had surgery to repair seriously busted tendon/ligaments, exact medical terminology on Wikipedia. The most telling aspect of this heretofore unpublished story is its ill effects on Shane when he disobeyed his doctors’ moratorium on boxing for a year after surgery. An admonition he ignored understandably for multimillion earnings from Bob Arum caused by his acute need of Uncle Sam’s mighty dollahs. You know, costly divorce, costly lifestyle, very expensive new mistress etc.
“Maybe you can unearth the whole deal from the UCLA Medical Center, where the surgery was done, and using the Freedom of Information Act, get a clearer picture of the procedure performed. Hushing this up or keeping it under tight lid is violative of boxing rules.”
Three cheers for Truth.