A not so Lapid Response
By Percy Della

CAREER MISCUES AND PROFLIGACY notwithstanding, former World Boxing Council junior lightweight champion Rolando Navarrete probably deserves a balato (token share of winnings) from Manny Pacquiao, his more illustrious townmate.

Despite his wayward ways, Lando, the “Bad Boy of Dadiangas” once brought honor to flag and country when he won the WBC junior lightweight crown from Cornellius Boza Edwards in 1981.

After all, Manny has been more than generous to mere hangers in Los Angeles. The LA Boys, as colleague Recah Trinidad calls them, is a motley group serving as Pacquiao’s “informal staff”– drivers, cooks, errand boys, cordon sanitaire, etc. whenever their hero hits LA.

According to the boxing website Seconds out.com, one of the boys, camp aide and interpreter Joe Ramos recieved $50,000–more than a windfall from Pacquiao’s net earnings of $313,000 and change out a guaranteed minimum purse of $2 million from the Morales rematch.

During Manny’s victory celebration at the Wynn Las Vegas, Sen. Tito Lapid turned up the heat on erring boxing managers, promoters and the like.

Finally.

The chair of the Senate’s committee on games,, amusements and sports wants Senate hearings on why former world champion Luisito Espinosa has not been paid his championsip purse from nine years ago.

While whopping it up with a blue-ribbon gang of Pacquiao supporters, Lapid told Espinosa’s erstwhile manager Hermie Rivera now is just as good as any to remedy many of the oppressive and unethical business practices which have cheated professional boxers like Luisito.

Lapid wants to hold the hearings in aid of legislation against people who thumbed their nose at sports authorities by refusing to honor their commitment to boxers.

Luisito, now 38, has been temporarily stripped of his license by the athletic commission in California recently. Several savage losses to upstarts are too much for the commission’s sympathetic chair to bear.

Abandoned by his wife and still awaiting his unpaid prize of $150,000, the two-time world champion lives in his manager’s household in Fairfield, west of San Francisco.

Recently granted a green card by te United States, Luisito is ironically past his prime as a boxer. Luisito probably will come home in no time, if and when he gets the money due him from ex-South Cotabato governor Larry de Pedro, manager Rod Nazario and matchmaker Lito Mondejar.
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Sports note: While taping an interview with Rivera after Manny’s victory, Dyan Castillejo of ABS-CBN had her derriere dinged by a Filipino fan in a fit of drunken frenzy. With camera rolling Dyan stopped her sound bite search to confront the lascivious lad who had touched her lovely behind. Oh well, all in a day’s work for the industrious interviewer, according to Rivera.

Luisito Revisited…….by VEEGEE Manuel

TWO-TIME WORLD CHAMPION LUISITO ESPINOSA was a trusting victim in the defense of his World Boxing Council featherweight crown against Carlos Rios of Argentina.

No, Espinosa did not lose that battle in Koronadal, South Cotabato.

He battered Rios black, purple and blue, sending the game Argentine to the canvass for the count.

But Espinosa in a sense also suffered a knockout.

The promoters welshed on his 150,000 dollar purse according to his long- time mentor Hermie
Rivera.

“Now, how was Espinosa to think the promoters would con him” Rivera asked?

The irony of it all was that Rios flew home with his 60,000 dollar purse intact but his physical demeanor which was stitched by the ardous pummeling administered by the champ they call Earthquake caused untold physical hardship.

“That’s crash discrimination against a fellow Filipino in his own home especially one idolized all over the land after emerging as its best fighter since the slammin’ days of Pancho Villa and Gabriel ‘Flash’ Elorde, Rivera stressed.

Co-accused in Luisito’s collection case are Rod Nazario and Lito Mondejar — both busy making their pile after their short-lived dalliance with the GenSan sensation Manny Pacquiao.

Another trusting victimi by the latest entrants in the roster of boxing’s hall of shame?

As the ubiquitous promoters go about amassing more lucre and the judge taking her own sweet time scrutinizing the collection case, Louie struggles to provide food, clothing and roof to his three children.

He may be down on his luck but not on his back.

“He’ll beat the count like he previously did during his historied time” Rivera concluded.