“Ref admits cheating TWICE for Manny Pacquiao in WBC interview” (World Boxing News)
“The Bob Dylan signature scandal could destroy his
legacy forever” (INews UK)
The two headlines above have something in common: two awful
stories about “oldies” but not so “goldies.”
The first headline tells us of our fellow Filipino, 88-year-old boxing
referee Hall of Famer Carlos Padilla Jr., who helped Manny Pacquiao cheat his
way to victory in 2000. I excerpt below what Padilla revealed in an
interview with the World Boxing Council.
“So, you know the opponent, Hussein, or whatever his
name was. He is taller, younger, stronger, and [a] dirty fighter, managed by
Jeff Fenech.
“So in the seventh round [it was the fourth], I think
Manny got knocked down. I thought he was going to get up, but his eyes were
cross-eyed.
“I’m Filipino, and everybody watching the fight is
Filipino, so I prolonged the count. I know how to do it.
“When he got up, I told him, ‘Hey, are you okay?’
Still prolonging the fight. ‘Are you okay? Okay, fight!’
“Then Hussein, because Manny was not like Manny is
now, and he wasn’t trained by Freddie Roach yet, he holds on for his dear life.
The guy throws him, and he goes down again.
“I said to the opponent, ‘Hey, you don’t do this.’ You
know, I was prolonging the fight. ‘You don’t do that. Okay, judges, [point]
deduction [for throwing an elbow.]’
“Because he [Pacquiao] is shorter, he head-butted the
other guy. There is a cut, but I declared it a punch.
“If there is a head-butt, you have to stop the fight
and declare to the judges a point deduction. But I didn’t do that, meaning the
fight could continue.”
Let’s put that first headline aside for a moment and
look into the second one. It tells us of the 81-year-old American rock star Bob
Dylan – the only rock star awarded both a special Pulitzer, the Nobel Prize for
Literature, and the Presidential Medal of Honor. In adorning Dylan, Barack
Obama said, “There is not a bigger giant in the history of American music.”
Dylan is often regarded, according to Wikipedia, as
“one of the greatest songwriters of all time… a major figure in popular
culture… spanning more than 60 years… when [his] songs such as “Blowing in the
Wind” (1963)… became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements.”
His signature scandal refers to his supposedly “hand-signed”
900 special editions of his new book “The Philosophy of Modern Song” with a
price tag of $599 each. In due course, buyers realized their special copies
were autographed instead by a machine.
There and then, Dylan apologized for an “error in
judgment” and put his statement on his FB page as excerpted below:
“I’ve hand-signed each and every art print over the
years, and there’s never been a problem. However, in 2019 I had a bad case of
vertigo and it continued into the pandemic years. It takes a crew of five
working in close quarters with me to help enable these signing sessions, and we
could not find a safe and workable way to complete what I needed to do while
the virus was raging.”
Dylan wound up: “Using a machine was an error in judgment and I want to rectify it immediately.”
Padilla and Dylan are both in their 80s – the final stage in life
according to the eight stages of psychosocial development theorized by Erik
Erikson, the German-American developmental psychologist, and psychoanalyst. To readers, sixty-five years or older, we may be glad to know that Erikson
called such final stage, not only “old age,” but also the “age of integrity or
wisdom.” The other side of the coin is called the “age of despair.”
According to Erikson, success in this stage will lead
to the virtue of wisdom which enables a person to look back on his or her life with
a sense of closure and completeness. On the other hand, if there’s an unsettling
guilt in one's past, he or she becomes dissatisfied with life and develop despair. In the course of his consequential actions, Dylan seems to have possessed
the virtue of wisdom. In contrast, has Padilla been coming to grips with the
ennui of his guilt about the past for having seemingly developed and bespoken
despair?
Hinted at me by a friend is the term "catharsis" -- the process of releasing, thereby providing relief from a repressed emotion. We will hand the scrutiny of such complex subject over to the experts.
The lead sentence of the headline speaks volumes serendipitously:
“Carlos Padilla Jr. is 'in the eye of a storm' after laughing about helping
Manny Pacquiao to cheat his way to victory against Nedal Hussein in 2000.”
“In the eye of a storm” reminds me of this Bible verse: “Anyone who hears these words of mine and does not act accordingly is like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain poured, the rivers flooded, and the wind blew against that house, and it collapsed and the ruin was complete.”
But, I believe in the God of second chances. As a fellow
Pinoy, I hope Padilla will get another chance to redeem himself in whatever way. I shared in my past article about the life of Alfred Nobel who became
rich by inventing dynamite and explosives. A newspaper mistakenly printed his
obituary instead of his brother who had died. Alfred was shocked in reading his
obituary that would leave his legacy of making a fortune out of weapons of mass
destruction. He changed his life before he died by using his fortune in
rewarding endeavors that benefit humanity. Alfred’s legacy is known today as
the Nobel Prize.
Talking of legacy, have we asked ourselves, “What do I need to
do before I die?” Though that seems to be a morbid question, Dr. M. Scott Peck,
author of the Road Less Travelled, suggested:
“If you are suffering from a sense of meaninglessness or ennui,
there is nothing better I can suggest to you than you strike up a serious
relationship with the end of your existence… Because as you struggle with the
mystery of your death, you will discover the meaning of your life.”
Padilla’s disheartening revelation popped up at the
most inopportune time -- following the fiercely divisive presidential
election whose results were met on the world stage with this gut-wrenching
question: “What is wrong with the Philippines?”
Amid such dejecting plight of our nation, we may take
comfort in this diamond-in-the-rough story of another headline:
“Batangas students bag top award in Singapore
engineering contest” (Inquirer)
“Five students from Batangas State University bagged
the championship in the university level of the 2022 Engineering Innovation
Challenge in Singapore with their small-scale aquaponics system using
artificial intelligence (AI) technology,” Inquirer reported. Aquaponics is the
method of growing plants in water used for breeding other aquatic organisms.
Such a low-key but an uncorrupted feat refreshes my memory
of Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities.”
“It was the best of times … it was the age of wisdom…
it was the season of light… it was the spring of hope…”
I keep my fingers crossed that the brighter side of Dickens’ prose will thrive in the lives of our youth today.
Heavily laden, Carlos Padilla Jr., I hope, will cast his burden upon God who will show him the way.
Head still photos courtesy of Sides Imagery & Wendy Wei at pexelsdotcom
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