and where is Manny Pacquiao in all of this? THE SAD SAD STATE OF OTHER FILIPINO BOXERS ABROAD....
Published on page A1 of the December 11, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
DOHA, QATAR -- Believe it or not: Three Filipino boxers had to share the same shirt and shorts in the 15th Asian Games.
Flyweight Violito Payla, featherweight Anthony Marcial and light welterweight Delfin Boholst were forced to wear the same fighting gear, leaving Philippine boxing coach Patricio Gaspi red-faced.
Gaspi said there were “some communication problems” between Philippine amateur boxing officials and those of the Philippine Sports Commission.
“I don’t know what went wrong. Perhaps our boxing officials thought the contingent leader had enough playing (fighting) kits for the boxers,” he said.
“But when we got here, we found there were no kits for three or four boxers. This forced Payla, Marcial and Boholst to share one kit to fight. We had seven boxers in our team and now we have four left to compete.”
Manny Lopez, president of the Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines, and William “Butch” Ramirez, chair of the Philippine Sports Commission, could not be reached for comment on the embarrassing situation.
Happier of three
Despite the mix-up, Payla was left the happier of the three boxers as Marcial and Boholst failed to reach the semifinals.
That meant the 27-year-old Payla, an Army enlisted man from Cagayan de Oro City, had the shirt and shorts all to himself on Sunday when he fought and defeated China’s Yang Bo to earn him a berth in the finals.
And it comes as a convenience for Payla who, after all, was the first pug to give the Philippines something to hope for in the boxing competitions here after completely dominating Jitender Kumer of India in an RSC-Os (referee stop contest-outscored) match to reach the medal round.
The PSC, which failed to get support from the private sector, had earmarked no more than P30 million for the 240 athletes it sent to do battle in Doha
Insiders said the PSC had been saddled with funding problems after the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) failed to remit its P11-million annual contributions to the PSC the past two years.
The PCSO, in turn, had run out of funds because it paid for the Philippine Health Insurance cards of indigents who were enrolled in the Philhealth program in 2004. The program, according to political opponents of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was used to support her presidential campaign that same year.
Boxing history
Whatever, Payla may just make history by becoming the first Filipino who has had to share the same shirt and shorts with two losing boxers and win an Asian Games gold for his country.
Marcial bombed out less than an hour after Payla had booked his place in the final eight, running smack into the experienced fists of Kazakhstan’s Galib Jafarov, a former world champion, who dealt the courageous Filipino a 27-12 beating.
Boholst lost his bout against South Korea’s Shin Myung-hoon.
Light Genebert Basadre, super light flyweight substitute Godfrey Castro and bantam Joan Tipon were the other Filipinos who have barged into medal fights -- although they didn’t have to share their fighting kits with anyone. Agence France-Presse
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