More than anything else, boxing as a sport is a matter of skill. Take note that we said skill, not expertise. What that means is that a boxer must know how to box, even if he may not be great at it.
After skill, boxing is also a matter of choice. There are many people who possess boxing skills but never got around to making a career out of boxing. By the same token, there are those who chose boxing even if they had better skills cooking.
In other words, boxing, like any other sport, will never pay for everybody. It is not a job openly available to everyone. To think it can be peddled like peanuts at some street corner is to be out of synch with reality.
But that is precisely what party-list Rep. Catalina Bagasina must have been thinking when she filed House Bill 5505, which calls for the establishment of boxing gyms in every town in the country so that jobless Filipinos can train and make a living out of boxing.
Apparently not knowing any better, party-list Rep. Raymond Palatino shared her thinking, calling her bill the “Manny Pacquiao Act” as if a boxer of Manny Pacquiao’s prowess is a matter that can be legislated.
If the idea never occurred to Pacquiao himself, it is because he knows that boxing is not for everyone. Sure, anybody can try out boxing. But to make it a means of livelihood is not as simple as providing venues for training.
Nobody in the country today probably knows boxing better than Pacquiao. And Pacquiao is a legislator. If Pacquiao the boxer and legislator did not see it worthwhile to put up boxing gyms in every town and city in the country, it must be because he has seen its folly.
What a waste of government funds — the Bagasina bill actually seeks to provide the money to build boxing gyms in each and every town and city in the Philippines — that could have been spend for more practical and beneficial uses this foolhardy measure is.
Instead of enticing people to earn a living by means of boxing, perhaps the government can use the money Bagasina wants to allocate to set up nationwide boxing gyms to construct more classrooms. In case Bagasina needs to be reminded, education is still the best life option.