BOXING MANAGER APPROVES ACTOR SON?S PLAN TO TURN PRO
By Alex P. Vidal
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 06 Aug 2008
VANCOUVER, Canada ? A 16-year-old Filipino-Canadian part time actor will soon fulfill his dream of becoming a professional fighter after getting the nod of his father who is a former licensed boxing manager in the Philippines.
Jeus ?Bookie? Bala-ong has started buying boxing equipment since August 2 ?using my own money? after his father Carlos, 58, a former labor employment office chief of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in Western Visayas, Philippines, approved his plans.
?Papa has been very supportive of my plan to become a boxer,? said Jeus, who finished his elementary at the West Bridge School for Boys in Iloilo City, Philippines. ?Both my father and mother (Jeana) are avid boxing fans and so I don?t have any problem convincing them (for me to join boxing).
Jeus, who is third year high school student at the Sir Charles Tupper High School here, is currently doing a film entitled ?Scooby Doo?, will train in any of the three boxing facilities in Richmond, a city some seven kilometers away from here, said Carlos.
Jeus said he will divide his time to study and practice in the gym if he has no shooting schedules. ?At first, I wanted to learn boxing for self-defense. But after watching the fights of (World Boxing Council lightweight champion) Manny Pacquiao, I realized I also need to fight as a professional,? Jeus stressed.
Jeus and his elder sister Krista, 22, a nursing graduate at St. Paul?s University in Iloilo city, Philippines, had been recruited to do a film by talent scout Nella Castigiano early this year.
Carlos held a license from the Games and Amusement Board (GAB) as boxing manager before he and his family migrated here. The younger sister of his wife Jeana, a registered nurse here since 2003, is the wife of former world flyweight title challenger Jonathan Penalosa (15-4, 7 KOs).
He had been trying to link with former amateur medalist Rey Fortaleza, brother Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines (ABAP) secretary general Roger, who is now a newspaper publisher here.
JEUS BELA-ONG (left) talks to the author in the Vancouver harbor park.
Carlos also said he and Fortaleza, who covered Pacquiao?s fight against David Diaz in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 28, are willing to help Team Pacquiao in case he will fight here next year as reported in several boxing websites.
Carlos said he plans to formalize his tie-up with Fortaleza when the publisher arrives from Australia.
?Unlike other fathers, I am allowing my son to join boxing because among all the contact sports that he had studied and evaluated, he found boxing as the hardest in full contact,? said Carlos, who works as shift supervisor at the children and women hospital on Oak St., here.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Alex P. Vidal.
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