Tabije: Over-dramatization

Sunday, May 8, 2011

ONE book about Manny Pacquiao was written by Gary Andrew Poole, who used to write for the New York Times. It is entitled, "PacMan: Behind the scenes with Manny Pacquiao, the greatest pound-for-pound fighter in the world."

It's relatively well written but it has an unfortunate tendency to over dramatize the difficult circumstances of Manny's growing up to the point of inaccuracy that is bad for the image of the Philippines as a whole. Read a description of General Santos City, the "City of Dust", as he titled the chapter:

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"The province, the place where Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao was born on December 17, 1978, is the fourth poorest in the Philippines, where boys risk their lives to climb coconut trees (to make 50 centavos per coconut), play basketball on dirt courts, ride four to a motorcycle, get addicted to shabu (a combination of meth and caffeine), and live in endless crap, with roosters, goats, stray dogs, and no running water."

I don't know the quality of Poole's research but, c'mon, GenSan as the fourth poorest in the Philippines? City of dust? I think the guy must have visited another place altogether.

Sure, there are boys who climb coconut trees there, play basketball on dirt courts, ride four to a motorcycle (six even!), get addicted to shabu, places with no running water, etc. But to describe it in such a manner as if it is the general description of the city is to write carelessly and inaccurately for the sake of drama.

How many percent of the boys in GenSan climb coconut trees for a living? How many percent of them are addicted to shabu? How many households have no running water? A very tiny percentage, I'm willing to bet.

GenSan is generally a beautiful city, mind you-wide concrete-paved roads, beautiful beach resorts, progressive economy, peaceful, clean and more.

Sure, there are squalid squatter areas here and there, as in most cities in the world. And, yes, Manny used to live in such an area. But Poole should not have generalized it in such a way that it sounded like to the whole GenSan was one big squalid squatter area.

I wonder if the people of GenSan are happy with Poole's insult. In fact, to me, the insult is to the whole Philippines. Imagine, the book is sold worldwide, and I'm not all surprised if the foreigners who have not been here will start imagining that the whole Philippines is a squalid country inhabited by "shabu addicts who live in endless crap." Tsk tsk.

Poole's tendency for over-dramatization was again very evident when he described Manny's boxing gym in Manila: "L & M was considered the planet's worst-smelling boxing establishment." I could believe it was not the best-smelling camp but to call it the planet's worst? C'mon, Poole, be fair.

I am a full-fledged Manny fan when it comes to boxing. I have absolutely nothing against selling him and his great life story to the world. He's every Filipino's source of pride. But please, don't try to make him look beautiful to the world by making the Philippines look bad. That's not the right way to do it.

The Philippine government is trying its mighty best to sell the country to the world as a tourism and investment destination. The book's portrayal of the Philippines is certainly a pull in the opposite direction. Bad.

Visit the writer's website: www.bestmanagementarticles.com. Email reactions to: idtabije@gmail.com