By Ronnie Nathanielsz

INTERNATIONAL Boxing Federation champion Florante Condes, who gave the Philippines its first in a string of five world titles in the past year, leaves for Mexico on June 4 to make the long-delayed first defense of his title on June 14 in La Paz, Mexico against undefeated Raul “Rayito” Garcia.

Condes, who won the title with a split decision victory over Indonesia’s Muhammad Rachman (61-5-5, 31 KOs) at the RTCI Television studios in Jakarta last July 7, is eager to get into the ring and trade punches with Garcia now that his managerial and promotional problems have at least been partially resolved.

To a large extent, Games and Amusements Board chairman Eric Buhain, himself a multi-titled national swimmer, played a crucial role in easing the burdens of Condes, a poor country boy striving to earn a decent living with the awesome power of his fists, which earned him the nickname “Little Manny Pacquiao.”

When the troubled Condes sought the help of Buhain, accompanied by his aunt Loy Valencia and her husband Apolinario along with their lawyer Edgar Padernal, the chairman was responsive to the fighter’s pleas and promptly exercised the powers of the GAB to place him under the agency’s “protective custody.”

Buhain stepped in, called for hearings on the complaint filed by Condes and the response of the lawyer of his manager Aljoe Jaro and also tackled what he described as “the big problems caused by the international contracts signed by Jaro, which brought about this confusion.”

When American promoter Bobby Bostick arrived in Manila, along with his lawyer and partner Lee Trevino, they met with the Valencias and Padernal, who served notice of the recession of the promotional contract, citing several valid reasons, including Bostick’s failure to even bid for the rights to the mandatory title defense against Garcia.

While there is no word on what Jaro is considering, he claimed in a recent interview that if the GAB hadn’t interfered, he would have staged a Condes title defense in Manila. The truth is that Rod Nazario was signed up as business manager by Jaro and it was Nazario who was arranging to stage the title defense which was to be a rematch with Rachman.

But when Nazario met with Buhain and learned of the conflicts, claims and counter-claims, he backed off, stating he didn’t wish to get embroiled in any contractual dispute. Condes, in an appearance at the SCOOP session at Kamayan last April 18, revealed that he almost quit boxing because of the controversy hounding his career.

“I said to myself its enough,” said the 28-year-old southpaw.

Condes alleged that Jaro didn’t give him his due especially for the title fight against Rachman, for which he received a pittance of some $3,000. When we saw the piece of paper on which the handwritten computations were made, we were appalled.

Morris East, the supposed trainer who didn’t train Condes for one single second and was not even at the fight, received 10 percent of the purse plus a similar share from the $9,500 hand-carried by Trevino from Bostick. This was added to the measly purse and from which Jaro, co-manager Dante Ortiz, with whom Jaro signed a contract and received $10,000, also siphoned off their share. To be continued.