BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
NOW that the line has been drawn to reiterate who among our country’s athletes are amateurs or professionals, a question comes to mind: Where do you classify Eumir Felix Marcial? Marcial, one of four Tokyo Olympics-bound Filipino athletes, signed a professional boxing contract with Sen. Manny Pacquiao’s MP Promotions and is currently in California prepping for his pro debut in the US. Before, upon and after his signing, Marcial stressed the Olympics remain tops in his priorities but at the same time expressed his eagerness to go big time in the pro boxing world.
Come to think of it.
The Joint Resolution 2020- 01 by both the Games and Amusements Board (GAB) and the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) explicitly defines a professional athlete as “any natural person who is paid a sum of money or other equivalent compensation as a salary or prize money for participating either as an individual or member of a team, in a game, bout tournament, or contest of professional sport.”
It was reported that Marcial was rewarded P10 million in goodwill money when he signed the contracts with MP Promotions last September. However, no other details of his contract were revealed.
Neither the GAB nor the PSC could provide a definitive classification for Marcial though.
“He signed a contract with MP Promotions. He should be a pro, but he never went to GAB for his license,” GAB Chairman Abraham Kahlil Mitra told Businessmirror.
Mitra confided to the Businessmirror that an emissary for Marcial promised him thrice to bring the boxer to the GAB offices in Makati City for his license. He never came.
A GAB license is required for any professional athlete—boxer, basketball player, mixed martial artist, cyclist, chess player, among others—to practice his sport. The license, however, applies only for domestic competitions or events and not on foreign land, including the US, according to Mitra.
PSC Executive Director Atty. Guillermo Iroy said that even though Marcial signed up with MP Promotions—and in an event he gets a GAB license—the boxer should remain an amateur because his national sports association, Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (Abap), keeps him in the national team.
“The Abap is not letting go of Marcial,” Iroy said.
Boxing has gone on the path taken by basketball, tennis and golf, among others, after the International Boxing Association or AIBA opened the Olympics and continental and regional games it sanctions for pros and amateurs.
A typical local example is Charly Suarez who already fights professionally but was named to the 30th Southeast Asian Games by the Abap and won a lightweight gold medal. But the Abap no longer kept him in the team and no longer receives allowances from the PSC, unlike Marcial who is classified as a Class A athlete.
The Abap, according to Secretary- General Ed Picson, is keeping Marcial who is a bright hope for a gold medal in Tokyo.
The best of both worlds for Marcial indeed.