The entire Philippinedom was silenced by Manny Pacquiao’s unceremonious and
crushing defeat last Sunday. It came all too suddenly, like a stone being
thrown at us from nowhere. His defeat in the hands of a perennial nemesis has
spawned many a discussion in the tri-media and social networking channels. What
I find very disturbing about this whole thing is that Manny’s new faith is
being dragged into the picture. Manny’s religious conversion now figures quite prominently
in any discussion or debate about his infamous fall from grace.
An extremist reflection is that Manny’s
abandonment of his former religion cost him his last two fights, with the most
emphasis on the very recent one. Manny’s mother, a devout Catholic, is the most
vocal about such observation. Wittingly or unwittingly, many people have
established a correlation between his new faith and his recent loss. It was
also pointed out that Manny’s former religion was responsible for all his
victories. Is religion a variable that contributed to his lackluster
performance last Sunday? Is his new religious affiliation the culprit behind?
I personally believe that Manny’s new faith
has nothing to do with his two recent defeats, and that his former faith has
nothing to do as well with his victories. Philosophically speaking, God does
not interfere or meddle in human affairs. Doing so is a negation of his gift of
free will to us. In other words, God allows things to happen in accordance to
the autonomous choices made by man, and the eventual consequences of such
choices. If any boxer will train well, then that will increase his chances of
winning. But if the opposite transpires, and he allows himself to be distracted
by a lot of things along his periphery, then that diminishes his chances of
claiming victory. Additionally, there will always be a winner and a loser in
any game. We cannot expect Manny to be winning all the time, or his opponents
to be losing to him all the time. Manny is only human. He is not invincible.
Manny’s recent failures at this time that he is spiritually nurturing himself
under a different religious veil are mere coincidences, nothing more, and
nothing less.
To conclude, one of God’s most defining
qualities is his omnibenevolence. Thus, being vengeful does not have any place
whatsoever in his Godly nature and character. What happened last Sunday to
Manny that stunned all of us was not a divine punishment for him - for setting
aside his former religion in favor of a new one. Thus, Religion did not have
anything to do with whatever happened to our hero and icon on that fateful day. Also, no individual
has the right to proclaim the superiority of his or her religion over another.
Let
us respect each other’s religious beliefs.
No comments:
Post a Comment