FILIPINO-CANADIAN FANS EXPRESS CONCERN FOR MANNY PACQUIAO
By Alex P. Vidal
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 08 Aug 2008
VANCOUVER, Canada ? Several Filipino-Canadian fans of World Boxing Council (WBC) lightweight champion Manny Pacquiao have openly expressed their opposition for the Filipino boxing icon to trade mitts with Oscar De La Hoya reportedly on December 6 in the United States.
Franciso ?Iking? Villarete, husband of a registered nurse in a children and women?s hospital here, said he and his fellow Filipino-Canadian fight fans would love to see Pacquiao fight here in the future ?but we don?t want to see a Manny Pacquiao who has already been destroyed.?
?We want to watch Manny Pacquiao?s fight here in Vancouver but we would prefer that he is still unmarked and intact and was not destroyed by De La Hoya,? said Villarete, 54, of 37th Street here.
Villarete, originally of Guagua, Pampanga in the Philippines, said if Pacquiao will tangle with De La Hoya, lone gold medalist of Team USA in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, in December this year and gets beaten, ?we won?t settle for the crumbs.?
Villarete said Pacquiao should ditch the De La Hoya deal and face either Humberto Soto or Edwin Valero in his next fight in November or December. ?If he wins (either against Soto or Valero), the Filipino community in Vancouver will definitely rejoice even more and go all out to support his next fight here next year.?
Villarete said he agreed with Dionisia, the boxer?s mother, who rejected the idea of her son brawling with De La Hoya. ?A mother knows what is best for his son. They should obey her,? he said.
Negotiations for Pacquiao to fight in this British Columbia city in 2009 have been made even before his reported matchup with the Golden Boy came out in the media.
Ruperto Pampliega, 48, an engineer from Leyte in the Philippines, said he does not care who will Pacquiao face in his next fight this year ?but he should come here with his name intact so that we will be even more proude to invite our friends to watch his fight.?
Pampliega said he will nevertheless watch Pacquiao?s fight ?together with my whole family? if ever it will be held anywhere in Canada.
Carlos Bela-ong, 58, hospital security shift supervisor, said some of the fight fans who regularly follow Pacquiao?s career ?are very much concerned? that his handlers are pitting him against a junior middleweight champion. ?Masyadong malaki na si De La Hoya. Why are they allowing this fight to happen,? asked Bela-ong, a former boxing manager. ?But as a Filipino, I will still root for Manny Pacquiao as we all idolize him here.?
Danilo ?Dan-Dan? Arpon, a part-time electrician who just migrated here after working in Saudi Arabia, confirmed that newspapers here have been reporting first about Pacquiao?s concert to be held here this month and next his fight against a still unnamed opponent tentatively next year.
He was shocked when informed that the reported negotiations in Las Vegas, Nevada for the Pacquiao versus De La Hoya setto were for real. ?Ha? Totoo ba talaga ?yun? (Is it really for real?),? quipped Arpon, who collects all the DVD tapes of Pacquiao?s championship fights.
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