THE bid of Senator Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao to ensure passage of a law creating a Philippine Boxing and Combat Sports Commission hit a snag on Tuesday night after Senator Pia Cayetano questioned the price tag—P150 million—just to set up a separate body that duplicates the Games and Amusements Board (GAB) but will serve only one sector in sports.
Cayetano, an athlete who said she had also taken up boxing to keep fit and fully appreciates Pacquiao’s concern for boxers, said she could not see budget authorities setting aside such a huge amount during a pandemic, when more urgent concerns in the government’s Covid-19 response are all crying for funding.
Cayetano interpellated the boxing legend on his Senate Bill 2077 or the “Philippine Boxing and Combat Sports Commission Act of 2021.”
Pacquiao had been pushing for the legislation, saying it is needed to promote the safety and welfare, not just of Filipino boxers but also other combat sports athletes.
When Cayetano asked him, however, if he could cite instances of grave neglect by the present GAB of the boxers, the world-renowned boxer did not cite any.
GAB currently supervises professional boxers and mixed martial arts participants.
Pacquiao just said, in reply to Cayetano, “many” boxers have suffered chronic ailments partly as a result of their sport, and many have died without any assistance from government despite their once having brought honor to the country.
Pressed to name recent notable cases, Pacquiao produced no list.
He had earlier reminded his peers that the Philippines has produced so many champions in professional boxing and other combat sports, and it was time to give them their due.
He had said earlier the Filipino boxers and combatants’ “superior physical strength, skills and talents,” given adequate State support, “will ensure our promising fighters top ranks in the world boxing and combat sports arena.”
The Philippine Boxing and Combat Sports Commission that Pacquiao wants set up will “be the single agency” focusing on the “skills and talents of the youth towards its proper direction, to provide and implement the necessary welfare incentives and benefits long overdue to all professional boxers and combatants who have brought honor and prestige to our country.”
When Cayetano, who chairs the Senate Ways and Means committee, asked him if he had secured the nod of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for funding support for a new commission, Pacquiao said yes, he had been in discussions with them but offered no written commitment.
However, Cayetano said she had received clear signals from DBM that such a new commission cannot be given priority, given that the government is still scrounging for hundreds of billions to fund the Bayanihan 3, to help sectors pummeled by the Covid-19 pandemic.
She stressed that she appreciated Pacquiao’s generosity in helping all boxers in dire straits, including down-and-out has-beens struggling with hospital bills, but reiterated that it did not make sense to spend P150 million for a body catering to just one sport, while the existing GAB handles all the other sports.
“We need to have evidence that they’re [GAB] not doing their job well,” Cayetano said. “In the time of Covid, this is not the best use of P150 million.”