We use cookies to ensure you get the best browsing experience. By continued use, you agree to our privacy policy and accept our use of such cookies. For further information, click FIND OUT MORE.
No, my household didnât spend that Sunday morning and the rest of the day excited about Manny Pacquiaoâs fight. Papa was fast asleep and woke up only to leave for work. Mama woke up and asked: âMay live ba tayo?" To which my answer was no, as always. Not one of the channels on our cable subscription could deliver a real live telecast of the Pacquiao-Margarito fight. Like the past eight other fights, we depend on over-acting super biased radio announcers on AM and FM radio to get a sense of whatâs going on. This time though my Twitter contacts kept me updated; Mama was looking at a live blow-by-blow on Yahoo; one of Mamaâs FB contacts posted a link to some free live streaming of the fight â it was a dead link. The radio announcers were ecstatic and announced that the fight was Mannyâs. Our TV was still on delayed telecast, showing an earlier non-Pacquiao fight: we were shaking our heads in disappointment. Mannyâs advertisements came on one after the other; we shook our heads at the absurdity. Even more so when it was tweeted that Mommy Dionisia had fainted, and the source of information was nobody else but Vicki Belo; even more so when the image of Jinkee, Mannyâs wife, appeared on TV, in a slinky red dress and sleek straight hair, looking whiter than usual. Maybe just different. All these inform this different perspective I take in viewing Manny, as I look at his particular celebrity and find that while itâs borne of his being the greatest boxer of our time, it is also extraneous to it at this point given its largeness, its breadth. Athletes like Manny are few and far between for this nation, maybe thatâs why we donât know how to reckon with what his fame has become, all-pervasive in the way that only a pop starâs celebrity is. Yes, even when we canât watch the darn fight like the rest of the pay-per-view world.
Manny as Pinoy celebrity Where we come from, the creation of a celebrity is particularly wrought with a crisis: how much of the personal do we reveal to the public, how much of the public image is actually real? In Mannyâs case, this is even more complex: he isnât an artista in the conventional way, and athletes like him usually limit their exposure to some TV hosting (ala Christine Jacob), or to doing some comedy (ala Freddie Webb, Benjie Paras, Olympic boxer Onyok Velasco), or to a movie or two (such as the triumvirate of Alvin Patrimonio, Jojo Lastimosa and Jerry Codiñera). It also isnât new, the sportsman who decides to become public servant in Congress or the Senate, such as Robert Jaworski and Ramon Fernandez. What is new is the fact that Manny does all of these â pag-aartista and being public servant â while he is a professional boxer. In fact, since 2008 heâs been visible on TV, first as a host of Pinoy Records with college basketball heartthrob Chris Tiu and recently as a comedian on Show Me The Manny with star Marian Rivera. The celebrity status would come to a head with his first major movie Wapakman in December 2009, the making of which coincided with his training for the November 2009 fight with Miguel Angel Cotto. He won the latter of course, but he also had to contend with talk about his infidelity, complete with footage of his wife Jinkee refusing to be touched by Manny, post-fight. Suddenly, Manny was fodder for both sports show and showbiz talk.
And in perfect showbiz fashion, Manny denied committing infidelity; Jinkee meanwhile was suddenly selling a weight reduction injection for a beauty clinic, with a billboard showing her fab new body beside an injured Pacquiao in the context of the flashing lights of a boxing match. We were supposed to go figure. And yes, I said billboard. Because that is what being a celebrity on these shores is about: getting endorsement deals and some billboards if possible. There is a major difference though between Manny as celebrity worthy of endorsement deals and international athletes on his level who have the same. The likes of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, Kobe Bryant and David Beckham will sell mostly sports products, i.e., Nike and Adidas, Spalding for Bryant, AeroProDrive Racquets for Nadal. When these international athletes do sports-unrelated endorsements, theyâre given TV commercials that respect their status as world-class athletes. Those Rolex advertisements of Federer, and Nadalâs Kia commercial are wonderful; their advertisements in their native Switzerland and Spain are the same. So how have Mannyâs local endorsement deals treated his world class stature? Well, most of them make him speak in English for one, which necessarily makes them funny given his Bisayan accent. This isnât because viewers are discriminatory, itâs because these ads mean to be funny for better recall. Mannyâs celebrity has also sold everything from deodorant to shampoo, ice cream to milk, mineral water to a fast food chain, pain killers to car batteries, making it seem like heâs saying yes to every endorsement deal that comes his way, regardless of the kinds of ads theyâll make him do.
Never mind that the Nike ads by Manny have consistently let him be himself. His first Nike TV commercial had English subtitles because they let him speak in Filipino; a later ad shows some clips from his recent fight and a slogan thatâs creative and touching; the same is done for his training ad where what Manny does was deemed more important than what he says. In Nike ads that put together various international athletes, Manny appears with Nadal and Bryant, and as with his other Nike advertisements, it is reason for pride. And goose bumps. Itâs also reason to imagine that Mannyâs image could be better handled, with respect that befits him. Meanwhile, what we have is this absurdity: Mannyâs kids and wife in a fast food commercial here, a suka commercial there, wife Jinkee as cover girl in magazines, mother Dionisia dancing some ballroom on TV and doing a movie with ex-President Joseph Estrada. That last bit is reason for goose bumps too, but of the kind reserved for the absurd. Mannyâs humility Manny seems to be all weâd like to see, not just in an athlete but in a person, too, yes? There is humility to him that we donât know to be normal for world-renowned boxers, not when we remember ears being bitten in boxing. Itâs easy to think that this is also about his brand of professional athleticism in boxing: if thereâs one thing to be said about his training, itâs that it has kept him human. And for this Freddie Roach deserves some credit, for allowing Manny to be his humble self, much like the way managers will keep their showbiz talents grounded in the face of fame and fortune. At the same time I daresay that like singing, humility is something that we create in the hundreds in this country, especially in those who come from the poorer classes. These are the ones of us who know only to dream, and once itâs fulfilled can only be overwhelmed and be kept down to earth by the truth(s) that their beginnings hold up as mirrors. Itâs in every other celebrity who has lived the rags-to-riches story, which is to say itâs in most every athlete. This is a humility thatâs almost an ideology in the way being hospitable is, where sometimes we are abused for it, sometimes itâs unclear if weâre in control of what happens because of it.
Case in point, when Manny sings in the Jimmy Kimmel show with Will Ferrell, what exactly do we make of that? That is supposed to be funny, right? He is being made to sing, to showcase his talents, yes? But is this not a gaze that is farthest from being positive? Because Michael Jordan isnât made to sing in a late-night comedy show, though Iâm pretty sure he holds a microphone to do some karaoke, too. But Manny, because he has told the world that he sings â even has a CD and concerts â seems to be that world-class Pinoy athlete whoâs being egged on: come on, sing for us! Come on, we want to see this absurdity! Show us who you are, so we may feel better about ourselves. America isnât the kindest of nations, and I donât know why we even let these instances of making Manny reason for laughter, slide. There are many things we believe about Manny, and many Americans who believe him to be the greatest boxer alive. This obviously doesnât make him invincible to what is a silent racism, the kind that weâd rather turn a blind eye to: letâs not think about it, Manny seems to be enjoying himself. Of course that is beside the point. Mannyâs politics, or the lack of it Because the point is this: Manny, as with all athletes the world over, stands for nation in ways that only an athleteâs pain and determination and success can. For the Philippines though, Manny is also about dreaming and possibility, fame and politics. In the Philippines, Manny is athlete, but also artista and congressman; in the Philippines Manny is the one icon to rise from the masses and become everything that the upper classes wish they had amongst their kind. They forget that only the downtrodden will not mind getting their faces wrecked in a boxing match. Meanwhile, we apparently donât mind that someone like Manny will surround himself with politicians â even the ones that weâve decided are the most crooked and corrupt of them all. Apparently, he can endorse US candidates, and we barely care. Apparently, we will let Manny do what he wants, no matter that it reeks of everything weâve kicked out a President for: gambling, cockfighting, womanizing. Apparently, we will see him as credible still, regardless of the fact that he sells every other product in the market, including a beauty clinic. Apparently, we donât mind that he is Congressman, and after that last fight, we will dare say that he deserves to be Senate President, never mind that weâve been insisting that those we put in office be people who deserve it because they have proven themselves intelligent, honest, credible. The same goes for the calls to make him tourism icon. Apparently, Congress will celebrate his arrival by spending P300,000 pesos on a party, erasing all his absences and giving him the Congressman of the Year Award, forgetting that being the best boxer in the world isnât equal to being the best public servant in the Philippines, in fact at this point itâs farthest from it. But too, we seem to be absolving Manny of all possible faults, including the lack of a clear stand on anything. And I donât know that this is the most productive way to deal with a world-class athlete on our shores. Elsewhere in the world, athletes lose endorsements for bad behavior; elsewhere, they need to take good care of their public image, keep personal lives private, as a matter of gaining and retaining respect. Elsewhere, people dare to take athletes to task as public figures. On this side of the world, we are all just overwhelmed by Manny, so much so that we will forgive him anything, if we arenât blinded completely to his faults. It almost seems like we donât know how to bring Manny up. Or maybe heâs happened so rarely for us, we donât know how to deal with someone like him other than to coddle and humor him. Thatâs ultimately not bringing him up at all. - GMANews.TV