’Twas a great Sunday for Filipino athletes!

How I wish that Manny Pacquiao had a fight every weekend because it would surely bring down the crime rate in this country. Yes, by noon last Sunday, all the roads and major thoroughfares of Metro Cebu were virtually deserted and empty of vehicles as everyone watched the satellite telecast of the Pacquiao-Morales boxing trilogy and cheered for Pacman to win.

Indeed, no murders or accidents occurred while Manny Pacquiao was fighting Morales in the filled-to-capacity Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas as the Philippines stood still! That Manny Pacquiao clinched the world title all in 175 punches is quite a feat. But even more amazing is that someone would even care to count how many punches Pacman threw against Erik Morales. No doubt Pacquiao’s win is the victory of the Filipino people.

Last Monday, where you went from your neighborhood sari-sari store to your office, the marketplace, shopping malls or coffee houses, you’d hear people still talking about how Pacquiao KO’d Morales in just three rounds. Indeed, just like the EDSA Revolt when the Marcos Dictatorship left Malacañang in a huff, it was a proud moment in our history!

With the money he earned from those three short rounds, Manny Pacquiao can look forward to an early retirement… from boxing. I’m sure that by now, our traditional politicians from both sides of the political fence have already sent Manny feelers to run for the Senate. I just hope that Manny Pacquiao would reject these political offers. He not only made a good name for himself and the Filipino athletes, he just might ruin it when he is a senator.

But if you ask me, there is a vital role that Manny Pacquiao can do for the country… that is to call on all Filipinos who are fighting in the hills for the New People’s Army (NPA) or with the separatist groups in Muslim Mindanao to sit down and talk peace with him. If he does this for our country and succeeds, he would not only be a national sporting hero, but a great Filipino hero who brought peace to our nation.

Meanwhile, still on sports, while he didn’t win the championship of the $2-million Hong Kong Open Golf Championship, 27-year-old Juvic Pagunsan, who only turned pro last January, carded a score of 67-65-66-68 for a total of 266 in four days of grueling golf, winning second place to Jose Manuel Lara of Spain, losing only by a single stroke. He even grabbed the lead with a birdie on the 11th, but was eventually outplayed by the Spaniard.

I watched and cheered Pagunsan’s game live on satellite TV while I waited for the Pacquiao-Morales fight. But his second place win has been drowned out by the euphoria over Manny Pacquiao’s great victory. But just the same, these two Filipino sportsmen have proven to the world that the Filipino can be a world champion in any game, especially on sports where height is not of any advantage. Last Sunday was a great day for Filipinos athletes.

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I got a very nasty letter from one claiming to be Anton Alvarez with this e-mail address, [email protected]. But because he was very insulting, I’m not reprinting his mail. Let me just put out part of his letter which goes, "You should practice tact and keep your malicious thoughts tightly bottled up in your puny brain. Don’t write trash for the sake of having something to say at the expense of hurting people. At least Gringo took a firm stand for his principles — mind you a lot of people do want change."

The problem with Gringo’s fans is they don’t want to hear the real truth about their fallen idol. Yes, I’m saying that Gringo was a lousy senator because there is no other way to describe his stint in the Senate! Sure, I fully agree that Gringo wanted change… but not a democratic one and always at the great expense of the Filipino people, not to mention the failed careers of many young and promising military officers whom he had lured into fighting the very government that he represented as senator! They, too, got hurt!

People ought to know that Filipinos get hurt when Gringo goes on a coup… because the Philippine economy goes on full reverse mode! When we had those coups, foreign direct investors (FDIs) who brought good jobs into the country decided to invest in other ASEAN countries. They are jobs lost forever that Gringo could never hope to replace! It would take years before investors would believe that the Philippines has become a stable nation and only then would they come back… that’s if they haven’t yet put their investments in China.

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This Friday, Nov. 24, the municipality of Carcar will hold its annual Kabkaban Festival 2006 dubbed "The Festival of Lights in Homage to Santa Catalina de Alexandria." Jerry Martin Alfafara, public relations officer of the Carcar Heritage Conservation Society (CHCS), says that this year’s Kabkaban Festival is an entirely new concept, totally different from past festivals held in Carcar. This year, they will celebrate the declaration of St. Catherine of Alexandria Church as a diocesan shrine of the Archdiocese of Cebu, as declared by his Eminence Ricardo J. Cardinal Vidal.

We can expect a parade of 216 dancers from nine school dance contingents wearing specially designed lantern headgear and carrying pairs of hand lights that would illuminate Sta. Catalina, Carcar’s "heritage street" where tourists can see the town’s largest, oldest and most famous heritage houses, where houses during the Spanish era are mixed with houses made during the American Commonwealth years.

The town of Carcar is especially close to my family… after all, the Avila family originated from Carcar. We still have the properties of my grandfather there. The St. Catherine of Alexandria Church also holds a special place in our family as this church was finished during the time of Fr. Manuel Rubio Fernandez, who was rumored to be the father of my grandfather, Don Jose Avila.

How did I get to know this? In the mid-70s, my late father, Atty. Jesus S. Avila, brought me to the San Agustin Church in Intramuros and showed me the grave of Fr. Fernandez on the floor of the church and told me, "This is the father of your grandpa Jose Avila!" So I asked him how he knew this? His reply to me was, "Just like what I’m doing to you now, your grandpa also brought me here and told me that this was the grave of his father." Just like Vigan in Ilocos Sur, Carcar is one place in Cebu where time stood still. The Kabkaban Festival is perhaps the only thing that has changed the Carcar of today.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns in The Freeman can also be accessed through The Philippine STAR website (www.philstar.com). He also hosts a weekly talkshow, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable. Bobit’s columns can also be accessed at www.shootinginsidecebu.blogspot.com.