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Sports

Sorry, business closed today

- Joey Villar -
Work, life and everything else stopped for millions of Filipinos who watched the Manny Pacquiao-Erik Morales fight.

For a street somewhere in Rizal that usually go abuzz with almost everything on a weekend, life just came screeching to a halt.

"Usually, you would hear the noise of tricycle engines a lot on a Sunday, but today (yesterday), it was just peculiarly quiet," said Johnny, who has a small vulcanizing shop right beside a busy street in a town of San Mateo, in Filipino.

Johnny, who is a father of three including a newly born girl, even closed his small shop realizing that no one in his right mind would miss the Pacquiao-Morales tiff.

"I usually get busy during this day but there was just no one who wants their tires vulcanized," he recalled.

"I realized even if I had a customer, I couldn’t do it because I would miss the fight." Even the players–who usually play a skittle of chess in front of the shop every second and minute of the day–were gone, leaving empty seats and a table around.

With the doors closed and the television ready, Johnny perched himself on a wooden chair ready to watch, root and cheer wildly for the Filipino.

Someone knocked though and Johnny readily opened the door knowing it was a customer. A couple of bucks are a couple of bucks.

It turned out that it was just his buddy Roger with a bottle of gin in one hand and pulutan on the other.

"They have no television, so he watched the fight with us," said Johnny.

A basketball court near Johnny’s place was also deserted. "I was really excited to play, because I haven’t played for months," said Ben, a baker who stopped playing after injuring a leg two months go, in Filipino.

"I guess, I’ll just shoot hoops in the afternoon," he added.

The market place was also surprisingly quiet. "There were really few customers, it was really surprising because it’s Sunday today," said Aling Mercy, who sent four of his children to college selling fish.

But minutes after Pacquiao knocked downed Morales in 10 rounds to avenge his earlier loss to the Mexican less than 10 months ago, everything just came back to normal.

The tricycles are back. Flat tires came aplenty for Johnny. Ben finally got to shoot hoops with his best friends. And Aling Nena sold her fishes before night time.

CAME

EVEN

JOHNNY

MANNY PACQUIAO-ERIK MORALES

NENA

PACQUIAO

PACQUIAO-MORALES

RIZAL

SAN MATEO

USUALLY

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