Nesthy Petecio’s silver still glitters like gold

Second-placed Philippines’ Nesthy Petecio celebrates after the women’s feather (54-57kg) boxing final bout against Japan’s Sena Irie during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Kokugikan Arena in Tokyo on August 3, 2021. (Photo by Luis ROBAYO / POOL / AFP)

Boxing heroine Nesthy Petecio surely feels down for not bagging the gold in the Tokyo Olympics, but Filipinos are all in awe of her silver performance and rewarding her for it. They are making sure she comes home to a hero’s welcome that is now worth at least P15 million in cash, with a house and lot, a condo and other blessings to boot.

Petecio will reap a windfall from her groundbreaking performance in the featherweight division of women’s boxing, second only to the rewards that await the Philippines’ first gold medalist, weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, in the quadrennial games.

Not long after the Davao del Sur native’s bout with Japanese boxer Sena Irie on Tuesday, private sector donors began announcing the incentives awaiting Petecio when she returns to the country.

Of course, previously announced rewards from MVP Sports Foundation and San Miguel Corp.—each promising P5 million in cash to Filipino silver medalists in the 2020 Tokyo Games—still stand.

These will be on top of the P5-million reward any Filipino Olympic silver medal winner is guaranteed to receive under a law enacted in 2015, bringing her total cash haul to P15 million.

And then there are the recent add-ons from the corporate sector, many of them cheering the best overall performance of Filipino athletes in nearly a century of participation in the world’s biggest sporting event.

Megaworld Corp. says that its subsidiary Suntrust Properties Inc. will give the featherweight boxer a residential condominium unit worth P10 million at its Lanang property development in Davao City.

The fully furnished unit is located in a mixed-use township that includes a park and a lake, and will be slightly more than an hour’s drive away from Petecio’s hometown of Santa Cruz, Davao del Sur.

Another property developer, Ovialand Inc., adds in a social media post that it will gift the boxer with a P2.5-million house and lot at the company’s Caliya Candelaria development in Quezon province.

The country’s biggest airlines also gifted more winning and participating Olympians with free flights on Tuesday.

Silver medalist Petecio will get unlimited free flights for five years, according to AirAsia Philippines. Philippine Airlines is giving the boxer a lifetime reward of 60,000 Mabuhay Miles a year.

Earlier, Cebu Pacific awarded all 19 Filipino athletes in the Tokyo Olympics with 25 free flights.

Apart from unlimited flights of gold, silver and bronze medalists, AirAsia Philippines says 14 other Filipino Olympians will get three free roundtrip tickets to any local destination.

Finally, of course, there’s Nestlé Philippines, whose Nestea iced tea product has been repeatedly mentioned on social media over the past few days for sounding like the boxer’s nickname.

In another social media post—showing an iced tea sports bottle in contact with a boxer’s glove—Nestlé says it will donate company products to Petecio’s hometown as well as a nonprofit organization of her choice.—With a report from Miguel R. Camus