Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

THE pound-for-pound king graces this month’s cover of TIME Magazine.

Manny Pacquiao, the People’s Champ truly lives up to his name.

As succinctly put by TIME Magazine’s Howard Chua-Eoan and Ishaan Tharoor in their lengthy piece "The Meaning and Mythos of Manny Pacquiao," "You can pun on Pacquiao with pakyaw – a verb, pronounced the same way, that means ‘to monopolize, to corner the market, to take everything at wholesale in order to maximize profit."

And when Manny reigns, it really pours.

After beating WBO Welterweight champ Miguel Cotto to a pulp on November 14 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, claiming his seventh victory and rising through a seemingly endless stepladder of weight divisions -- an opportunity to grace the cover of TIME Magazine is perhaps, the most natural thing for a boxer who has, in his own right, earned a place among the ranks in boxing history.

And while Manny is humbly enjoying the fruits of his labor, basking in glory and in the untiring and undivided attention of his kababayans back home in the Philippines, Pinoys from across the globe are chanting his name and waving the nation’s flag proudly as they become witnesses to this "timely achievement" of the Pambansang Kamao.

In a nutshell, the piece describes Manny’s journey -- from his humble beginnings as an impoverished youth, his ardent love for "unrestrained fistfighting" which started at the tender age of 8, to his 1995 pro debut on a boxing show, to the "Cinderella-like twist" which brought him in 2001 to the shores of the United States, in the sweltering heat of the desert in Las Vegas, Nevada as the last-minute replacement that won him the IBF super-bantamweight title by TKO, to his fated meeting with Wild Card Gym owner Freddie Roach. The rest, as they say, is history.

"Roach makes a powerful impression when you meet him, because something is clearly wrong. His movements are a beat or two off-sync; the occasional phrase or sentence is interrupted by an abrupt pause, then a slurring. Roach, who is not yet 50, has Parkinson’s disease, most likely the result of his own boxing career. But it has not stopped him from taking Pacquiao’s energy and giving it strategy. Their partnership has created one of the most riveting fighters in boxing history. Roach seems prouder of Pacquiao than of almost any of his other famous trainees. He sometimes talks as if the fighter has already reached his peak. Manny, he says, "has nothing more to prove." He predicts a first-round knockout of Cotto but, even as people are already talking about the fight after that (Floyd Mayweather Jr. is the dream matchup), Roach says Pacquiao may have just two more fights in him and then ought to call it quits," wrote Chua-Eoan and Tharoor.

The following are excerpts from the article as they appeared in the November issue of TIME Magazine:

"Manny Pacquiao, now 30, is the latest savior of boxing, a fighter with enough charisma, intelligence and backstory to help rescue a sport lost in the labyrinth of pay-per-view. Global brands like Nike want him in their ads. He made the TIME 100 list this year. West Coast baseball teams invite him to throw out the first pitch in order to attract the Filipino-American community. He has even become an object of desire: ESPN the Magazine has his naked torso in its Body Issue, which explores the engineering of several athletic physiques.

In the Philippines, Pacquiao is a demigod. The claim goes that when his fights are broadcast live, the crime rate plummets because everyone in the country is glued to a screen. His private life as well as the ins and outs and ups and downs of his training regimen are tabloid fodder; his much brooded political ambitions are a dilemma many Filipinos feel as existentially as Hamlet’s soliloquy: To be or not to be ... a Congressman?

Pacquiao has a myth of origin equal to that of any Greek or Roman hero. Abandoned by his father and brought up by a tough-as-nails mother, the poor boy who loves to box is rejected by a local squad but then journeys many islands away, to the country’s metropolis, Manila, to make it big. Then he leaves the Philippines to make it even bigger, conquering the world again and again to bring back riches to share with his family and friends. Now, in his hometown of General Santos City on the island of Mindanao, he and his family own commercial buildings, a convenience store, cafés and a souvenir shop that sells everything from DVDs of his fights to T-shirts to bobblehead dolls. In Manila, his children attend one of the most exclusive and expensive private schools. He is generous to a fault, spending thousands of dollars a day feeding and entertaining guests. For his last fight, he distributed $800,000 in tickets to friends.