By Ronnie Nathanielsz

 

Filipino ring idol Manny Pacquiao has come out against the protest action resorted to by the country’s sports leaders over the alleged biased judging in the Southeast Asian Games boxing competition which resulted in the Filipino men’s team surrendering to their Thai opponents.

 

Pacquiao said he was “sad when I learned the news about the walkout of our boxers.” He said that as a boxer himself he knew what it was to feel cheated but felt that the officials should have “complained but accepted the results because that is part of our life ad an athlete.”  Pacquiao added, the walkout was “not good.”

 

Pacquiao who along with the new-found “Godfather” of the sport, businessman-sportsman Manny Pangilinan of PLDT-Smart met with the boxers prior to their  departure and gave them a morale boost, expressed his views in his Abante column which was carried by philboxing.com.

 

Pacquiao recalled that he told the boxers to “fight as long as you can and don’t think about your opponent. No matter what he does, fight.”

 

Pacquiao said he felt the boxers wanted to fight but they had no choice but to follow the officials decision since they felt our fighters were disadvantaged. Pacquiao said even if we sent our class “B” boxers, if they had “trained well we would still have won.”

 

Pacquiao said “we cannot always be walking out because we are cheated” adding that there are many chances for us to make amends.

 

Pacquiao cited his own battle with current WBC super featherweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez who he dropped three times in the first round but the result was a draw. “There was nothing I could do because the fight was over and a decision handed down. That is why in my rematch in March I will make amends by doing everything to make sure that this time it wont be a draw.”

 

Pacquiao who celebrates his 29th birthday in General Santos City today also referred to his  loss to Erik Morales in their first fight. He said “I thought about what I had to do to beat him and did it” and won both the rematch and the third fight in what turned out to be an epic trilogy for fight fans. He said that was what our boxers must do.

 

Pacquiao advised the boxers “not to think about what happened but think about the future fights.”