Manny, a Nobel Laureate?

A leading BC-Filipino community activist is pushing for boxing sensation Manny Pacquiao as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Tom Avendano, hailed the 31-year-old boxer for “helping reduce crime rate every time he fights in the ring”, according to MP Boxing website.
Avendano, the president of Multicultural Helping House Society in Vancouver, said that “no Filipino has done what Manny Pacquiao has done” in terms of uniting warring factions in politics and insurgency in the Philippines.
“Everytime Pacquiao has a fight, Filipinos all over the world are united,” added Avendano, a supporter of Reyfort Media Group Chairman Reynaldo Fortaleza in setting up plans for a possible visit here by Pacquiao next year.
“For several times now, crime rate was zero in the Philippines, there was ceasefire between rebels and government forces and nobody was arguing or fighting [whenever Pacquiao takes to the ring]. Everyone is united. No Filipino has done that, and no one can do what he has been doing,” he said.
Amado Mercado, an active community event organizer, said it took a bloody revolution during Spanish colonization in the 19th century before Jose Rizal became a national hero and united Filipinos, and it cost opposition leader Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. his life before he captured the imagination of the people.
When Pacquiao, dubbed the The Pac-Man also a congressman representing Sarangani province in southern Mindanao, unites the Filipino nation, there is neither casualty nor violence and Filipinos living around the world stand up as one.
Before sending the legendary Oscar De La Hoya into retirement with a spectacular eighth round stoppage in December 2008, Pacquiao was the cover story of Time magazine, which paid him a tribute for his humanitarian activities outside the ring.
Pacquiao has also exhibited true sportsmanship by not engaging in name-calling and trash-talking against his opponents whom he mostly befriended after conquering them in the ring.
The government is also thinking of tapping Pacquiao as negotiator in a peace panel with leftist rebels.
The Filipino boxing icon is the first man to win eight world boxing titles in as many weight divisions.
The Aquino government is negotiating peace on two fronts -- with the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
The New People’s Army is the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and has been in existence for more than 30 years.
The group, based on the island of Mindanao, has an estimated 10,000 members according to a presidential adviser on the peace process, according to a BBC report on the conflict.
Peace talks between the CPP and the Philippine Government stalled in June 2001, after the NPA admitted killing a Filipino congressman.
The CPP/NPA was added to Washington’sand Ottawa’s  list of foreign “terrorist” organisations in August 2002.
Pacquiao’s rise from poverty to the top of world boxing has been one of the few enduring success stories in the Philippines over recent years, as society has struggled with grinding poverty, corruption and natural disasters.
The 31-year-old’s sporting success helped him launch a successful political career and he was elected a congressman of the desperately poor southern province of Sarangani in national elections in May.
As has become tradition in the Philippines, soldiers fighting a long-running Muslim insurgency in the south put down their weapons on Sunday to watch their idol and expressed fleeting hopes of reconciliation.
“During the fight itself, the soldiers and the whole Filipino nation regardless of ideology, will be one, cheering for our Filipino hero,” military spokesman Brigadier General Jose Mabanta told AFP before the bout.
“We can probably say that at least during that time, we will be united.”
“He is really somebody that we can look up to and can be proud of. Every time he has a fight everybody unites,” said Ben Articulo, 52, a barbecue stand operator in Manila.
As with past Pacquiao bouts, the crime rate dropped to practically zero as criminals were also busy watching the fight, said police spokesman Senior Superintendent Agrimero Cruz in a statement.
Government radio reported that even Philippine President Benigno Aquino, who was attending an Asia-Pacific leaders’ summit in Japan, managed to catch the fight.
As the meeting ended, Aquino rushed to his hotel to see the bout in a special operations center set up by his security detail, where he cheered and applauded beside them, government radio said.
“We congratulate our nation’s fist, Manny Pacquiao. Our president joins in commending his victory,” Aquino spokesman Sonny Coloma said afterwards.
Now Many Filipinos are desperate to see Pacquiao fight American Floyd Mayweather Jr. to decide once and for all who is the pound-for-pound king of boxing.