MANILA: Chito Narvasa, the Philippine Basketball Association commissioner, and Manny Pacquiao, the eight-division world boxing champion who has dipped his hand in the play-for-pay league, shot off their mouths recently and are being bashed by the public for it.
Narvasa, barely into his second conference in calling the shots for Asia’s pioneering pro league, came up with a first as far as all the commissioners before him are concerned, banning Tropang TNT import Ivan Johnson for life after reportedly being cursed by Johnson.
The infraction happened just late in the second quarter two Saturdays ago, when Johnson was thrown out of the court because of a second technical foul.
On the way back to the dugout, other league officials said that Johnson hurdled expletives at the commissioner – which is something that has also never done before in front of the public.
Narvasa wasted no time in banning Johnson for life, not giving the TNT import the chance to air his side. The game wasn’t even finished when the league’s media arm texted a statement declaring the ban and a P250,000 fine that went with it.
There was never a commissioner before him who acted as swiftly and with a heavy penalty that could forever change a player’s life.
To say that Johnson deserves it is totally out of the question, but even rapists, arsonists, murderers, bank robbers, serial killers and the petty purse snatcher get their respective days in court.
Johnson didn’t have one when the anvil dropped.
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TNT management appealed the case and Narvasa heard Johnson three days after the incident.
Johnson appeared with his wife and two children and the meeting, according to league sources, went so well that it ended with the good commissioner even kidding around with Johnson’s kids.
The ‘hearing’ lasted for close to two hours, and the league released photos of the two chatting with smiles on their faces.
It was all’s well that ended well, in a sense, as Narvasa got to hear the side of Johnson before releasing the following day a relaxed penalty: a suspension for the rest of the season aside from P100,000 being chopped off the original fine.
Narvasa did a good thing there, giving Johnson back some sense of still belonging to the league and keeping doors open for possible stints in other pro leagues overseas.
He did his humanitarian work by reducing the original penalty.
It took guts for him to lighten the penalties he initially handed out. It was a commendable act as he kept the welfare of Johnson’s family in mind and let what was a disrespectful action against him slide past.
Narvasa deserves credit for that, from where I sit. The problem is, not everyone sees it that way.
Local websites are on fire calling for Narvasa to step down for two reasons: first was because he was very quick in handing down the first penalty and then, second, reducing it and making the league look like a sucker.
Narvasa should know by now that he can’t please everyone. It was also a learning experience for him, and this will help the league in the long run.
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Pacquiao, who has an upcoming fight — supposedly the last of a glorious career — against Timothy Bradley in April — also has a mouth as quick as his hands and is being crucified for statements about same-sex marriage.
Pacquiao was interviewed on television a couple of days ago on the subject of same-sex marriages and went on to blast the third sex altogether.
The man listed as playing-coach of the Mahindra squad, who is running for a seat in the Senate in the coming polls, likened gays and lesbians to animals during the interview, a statement that reverberated all over the globe which recognizes him as one of the finest fighters of all time.
Interviewed again after a huge sector of the nation went up in arms and blasted him in arenas wherever possible, Pacquiao has retracted his statement and said that he is “humbled” by the experience and is asking for forgiveness.
Nike, the leading sports brand in the world, dropped him like a hot potato, estranging ties with the former pound-for-pound king as quickly as when the issue first came out.
In another interview with one of the leading news channels here, Pacquiao said that Nike has actually stopped sponsoring him since 2014, and that the giant apparel brand is just giving him items he uses for his training and fights.
Pacquiao even went on to say that his management team is actually in the midst of negotiations with another sports brand that he will endorse.
Like when he rattled off his first statement that got him in trouble in the first place, Pacquiao doesn’t seem to realize that very few would like to touch him at this point, not when the issue is as hot as can be and not when every gay/lesbian celebrity is taking shots at him in their television/radio programs.
Does he think that another apparel brand, one which is surely chasing Nike in the market, would still take a risk on him now that he has bashed the gay/lesbian community?
He can spend the next few years apologizing for what he said; he can continue to argue that he is just a human being, hence imperfect; and he can keep fighting forever if he chooses to but the damage has already been done and he has discriminated a huge part of the society that supported him every time he took the right to fight.
This could be the biggest fight of Pacquiao’s career, and he is listed as the terrible underdog in this one.
The coming national elections will say how this country feels after his remarks.
If only he didn’t shoot his mouth off with the same speed of his hands.
