THE 'PINOY PRIDE IX' EXPERIENCE -- PART I
By Ed de la Vega, DDS
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 07 Oct 2011
Bacolod City:- ?Team Nietes requested your presence in Donnie?s corner on his fight on October 8th at Bacolod,? said the simple e-mail message to me from Cebu?s boxing guru, Don Antonio Aldeguer.
Without any hesitation, I immediately replied that I was coming to Bacolod. After all, how can I say no to ALA and to Donnie? I was with Donnie in his tough battles in Mexico and helping him in his hometown will certainly be a bigger honor.
Thus started my journey to this beautiful city.
But it was not that simple.
First Brent Estonilo the ALA Promotions travel coordinator had a tough time booking my trip from LA mainly because of the employees strike at PAL. In fact, I didn?t actually get my travel confirmations until a day before I flew out.
I requested Estonilo to fly me from LA to Manila then to Iloilo the next day before travelling onward to Bacolod as I had to do in a seminar in Manila the day I get there and for the Iloilo Dental Society the next day.
My flight from LA to Manila was uneventful. But the PAL service was different from the years past. It has degraded. People had to pay an extra $50 for seats next to the emergency exits and the bulk head where there is more leg room. Bummer!
But the one to Iloilo was something else. I was actually booked and confirmed to fly out at 7:40 am. But when I got to the airport at 6:30 am, I was told that my flight was canceled. After several hours of anxiety, luckily PAL was able to endorse me to Air Philippines and I made it to Iloilo albeit very late for my presentation.
While waiting for the Air Philippines flight at the new NAIA Terminal 3 in Manila, I bumped into Lisa Giampa and Robert Byrd, a judge and the referee respectively for the Nietes-Garcia. They too had a canceled flight and they were booked with another airline to fly to Bacolod.
From Iloilo I took the ?Fast Jet? to Bacolod, a choppy one hour ferry ride across the waters that separated the two islands. But it was nice as I had for company, Dr Gil Octaviano, the Philippine Dental Association VP for Western Visayas who attended my seminar in Iloilo.
ALA Promotions booked me at a fairly nice hotel, Sylvia?s Manor. The room is not 5 stars rated but it is nice and comfortable and has a complimentary internet access. Of course the staff is typically Visayan, very charming and accommodating.
The foreign fighters were all booked in the same hotel so I got to visually assess them as they sat across my table during breakfast.
?Parang di naman siya malaki," said the waiter who kept on refilling my glass with orange juice every time it gets half empty.
The waiter may probably be right but that does not mean that Nietes would be in for an easy fight. But it will be a great fight and I expect Nietes to win his second world title.
Weigh-in is at 1PM this afternoon at the SM Mall. Among others, I hope to see the usual bunch of media people there and once again enjoy their company.
Stay tuned for the weigh in reports and the rest of events as we wait for the explosive Pinoy Pride 9 tomorrow at the De La Salle ? Bacolod.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ed de la Vega, DDS.
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