WILL PACLAND CAMPAIGN AGAINST MANNY? WILL PACLAND SHUTDOWN? PACLAND ADMIN RESPONDS!
By Dong Secuya
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 16 Feb 2007
I would like to make this statement to address the recent rumblings that is happening in Pacland due to Manny Pacquiao's leaning to run for a political office in the coming Philippine election.
There are a couple of concerns that I would like to specifically address. One is the call to put up a banner in the front page to voice out Pacland's opposition to Pacquiao's running for a political office. There have been numerous threads as well as private e-mails sent to me requesting this. The other is the call to shutdown Pacland itself.
First, why not put a banner in the front page opposing Pacquiao's political plan? My answer: I wouldn't do it. Either for or against, I wouldn't do it for the following reasons:
Pacland, more specifically MannyPacquiao.ph, was created to pay tribute to Manny Pacquiao for his exploits inside the ring as well as to chronicle news reports about him and to give his followers a platform where they can interact among themselves. It was not created in any way to try to influence what Manny Pacquiao will do with his life or to actively sway his personal decisions one way or another. We do have polls that show the sentiments of his fans on many issues -- but that's about it.
Personally, I am with the majority who didn't like Manny Pacquiao's recent decisions but at the same time I do respect Manny as a person who can decide for himself and for his future.
Just a comment for those who are deeply against Pacquiao's political plans -- being seemingly alone by himself and against the world and against all odds, this is familiar territory for Manny. He had been there many times before. Fighting against Sasakul, Ledwaba, Barrera, Marquez and Morales -- most experts had given him little chance to win against these heavyweights of his division. But he always came out victorious in the end and proved all his detractors wrong.
You might say that the political arena is a totally different kind of ring to which Manny Pacquiao is familiar with. But wasn't it that Pacquiao himself had already conquered life itself by rising from the depths of poverty and oblivion to become the Philippines' richest athlete and the most recognizable Filipino in the world?
For this reason alone -- and he had a good batting average in rising against the odds -- I will give him the benefit of the doubt.
The second area of concern is the call to shutdown Pacland to protest Manny Pacquiao's actions. My answer: No way! Those who make the call may not be very familiar about the history of Pacland and its progressive development or may have just recently jumped into the Pacman bandwagon thinking that the end of Pacquiao's boxing career also signals the end of Pacland's existence.
Pacland is here to stay whether Pacquiao's boxing career will end today or in 5 years. You see, Pacland has evolved into something much greater than it was originally conceived:
1. Pacland has evolved into a worldwide community of boxing followers who support the boxing careers of not just Manny Pacquiao but the other Filipino fighters as well.
2. Pacland has been transformed into a closely-knit worldwide community of friends who regularly meet among themselves in their area of residence and in one occasion had successfully raised funds to help the victims of the Bicol landslides. These kind of activities are seen to be repeated many times in the future.
3. As a growing community composed different individuals, the Pacland forum has evolved and will continue to evolve to cover discussions not just in boxing and other sports but other areas of interest as well.
With the above reasons, I foresee that Pacland will continue to evolve in the future and the name 'Pacland' may finally detached itself from its original domain 'MannyPacquiao.ph' and may be renamed into something else. In a sense 'Pacland' is the community or group of people that originally joined the Pacquiao bandwagon but has now been transformed into something else.
The website MannyPacquiao.ph however will continue to exist as a tribute to Manny Pacquiao and may become active or inactive depending on the twists and turns of Manny's life. It may no longer be named Pacland -- but we shall see.
If you notice our forum's URL, which originally reside at http://mannypacquiao.ph/forum, is now at http://forum.philboxing.com. The transfer of the Pacland Forum from mannypacquiao.ph to philboxing.com was the first step taken to separate Pacland from its original domain. This had been done in anticipation to the demise of mannypacquiao.ph long before anyone made a howl that Pacquiao's boxing career is going to end.
In the very near future, PhilBoxing.com will become the flagship website of Philippine boxing and hopefully our up and coming boxers will be able to give us honors as much as Manny Pacquiao had given us so much pride in the years that he was active in boxing.
So unless the world ends tomorrow or the more than 10,000 daily visitors simultaneously stop visiting this website or suddenly we could no longer pay for the site's upkeep, Pacland (or whatever its name in the future will be) is here to stay.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Dong Secuya.
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