An unlikely duet—Pacquiao and Hill

FROM CHICAGO, we flew to Vancouver just in time to enjoy the Victoria Day Weekend in British Columbia with another granddaughter, Gisele, who turned 8 last month. Gisele speaks more French than English as she is currently enrolled in an Early French Immersion School in Richmond.

Victoria Day celebrates Queen Victoria’s birthday on May 24. The only daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, she became Queen at the age of 18 and her reign, which lasted some 6 1/2 decades (1837-1901) was marked by industrial expansion, economic progress, imperialism, women’s rights and greater participatory politics. While at times it was seen as an era of stodginess and puritanism, the Victorian years represented an age of confidence and dynamism that produced many of the great changes that brought about the modern world.

Victoria Day is a public holiday across Canada and is always observed on the Monday before May 25, thus ensuring a long weekend for the public.

It may be worthwhile for us to consider putting in place a similar system of observing some of our national holidays so as to provide three-day weekends instead of breaks in the middle of the working week.

Incidentally, the Chicago Bulls lost to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference championship match of the National Basketball Association. I would have been happy to see the Bulls win but on the other hand, it was good to see Fil-American Miami head coach Erik Spoelstra savoring a hard-fought victory for his team. Spoelstra’s mother is from Laguna and he was recently in the Philippines conducting basketball clinics for some of our young players. We should be back in Manila for the first game of the Miami Heat-Dallas Mavericks NBA championship series.

* * *

We are spending the long weekend in Victoria, which is located on Vancouver Island (not to be confused with Vancouver, the second-largest city in Canada). Victoria is the capital of the province and can be reached by ferry boats from the Lower Mainland.

The famous Butchart Gardens continues to attract millions of tourists from all over the world. One can hear a cacophony of English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Korean and Filipino chatter while enjoying the cool, spring weather and walking among rows and rows of colorful tulips and evergreen topiaries.

The Sunday edition of the Times Colonist newspaper, a local daily, carried the headline “Island Family Wins $35.7 Million Jackpot.” The holder of the winning lotto ticket worked as a logger for many years before joining a steel company as a warehouseman. The story not only carried the name of the winner but also that of his wife and son. The family picture was splashed on the front page of the paper.

Will we ever see the day when Philippine lotto winners will have no fear of having their names and photos published on the front pages of our newspapers?

* * *

“Sometimes when we punch” is the title of an article in Maclean’s, one of Canada’s leading national magazines. Dan Hill, an internationally renowned author and singer-songwriter, describes his love affair with boxing, which turned sour sometime about the Mike Tyson years with his ear-biting shenanigans.

In 2008, however, he came across a piece in the Toronto Star about a phenomenal boxer from the Philippines who had won several titles in different weight divisions.

“Manny Pacquiao’s rise from heart-crushing poverty to the top ranks of his sport was astounding …. then something at the end of the article made me choke on my morning coffee and damn near fall off my chair. After every fight, the article said, the boxer went to sing at a local club: his song of choice was ‘Sometimes When We Touch,’” a song penned by Hill in 1977.

Now friends, Hill and Pacquiao have re-recorded the song not once but several times. They have also filmed a 30-minute documentary tracing Manny’s impoverished beginnings to eventually become the greatest pound-for-pound boxer in the world.

May 7, 2011:

“The Manny I know is gentle, humble, humane. Whenever he greets me, it’s always the same, ‘Hi Danny,’” he whispers bashfully…. “Though I’d been offered front-row seats for the Pacquiao-Mosley fight, I preferred the sanitization of the pressroom’s TV screens. Ringside seats mean you hear the breaking of ribs, the splattered cartilage of what was once the boxer’s nose, the dislocation of the jaw, the horrifying ‘uggh’ that the boxer utters milliseconds after receiving a crushing left hook to the solar plexus, or kidneys, or head.”

Postboxing match concert 2:30 am:

“Manny strolls out of his bathroom, walks straight up to me, shakes my hand, and holds it firmly yet gently as he sings with remarkable purity the first verse of ‘Sometimes When We Touch.’ He’s beaming.”

Sit and chat 3:30 am:

“Manny’s been on stage belting out famous American pop ballads for almost an hour. I’m shocked by his exuberance, his vocal strength and endurance. Giving it all he’s got, he appears to be gaining more energy as he plows through the great American songbook. Manny has informed me that ‘Sometimes’… is No. 8 on his set list.. Manny begins singing the first verse and I’m watching him, waiting for his visual cue as to when I should jump in … I’m immediately taken by the beauty of our vocal blend, our notes phasing off each other as though we’re brothers …. We clasp our hands together and raise them towards the screaming fans. This is bliss.”

Pacquiao-Hill CD Release May 31:

“Sometimes When We Touch: Manny Pacquiao Sings featuring Dan Hill”