Fair Play: Pacquiao's biggest loser

I STUMBLED upon a channel showing The Biggest Loser one lazy Sunday night. And the reality TV show got my interest.

Unlike other reality TV shows, where constestants scheme to screw each other—literally and figuratively—this one is all about people losing weight.

Hence the name.

It’s quite effective also. One guy lost 185 pounds in one season! While another shed 165, and a lady dropped from 227 to 132.

I’m not about to become a reality TV analyst, if there is such an individual. I’m mentioning this because Manny Pacquiao is doing a mini Biggest Loser of his own for the second time.

According to a report in Philboxing.com, Pacquiao challenged the members of his team to shed at least 10 percent of their weight. They were weighed last March 31 and have until April 26 to shed the excess fat.

Sixty people (there are 60 people in Team Pacquiao? Wow!) took the challenge and Manny promised that each guy or gal, who makes the 10-percent loss, will earn $3,000 or roughly P140,000—or more should the peso fluctuate anew.

And if all 60 folks will accomplish their goal, Manny will also shed $180,000 off his pockets, which is not that far from the $250,000 top prize of the Biggest Loser show.

For boxers like Pacquiao, losing weight is routine. Heck, Erik Morales was estimated to weigh 180 pounds just four months before his third fight with Pacquiao at the 130-pound division.

But for his crew? Hmmm, I wonder what those 60 folks do for the team.

The HBO crew filming the 24/7 reality show must be grinning wide. They get a reality show, within a reality show.

CCSC’S LAST HURRAH. The Cebu City Sports Center rubber oval is set to get a Vicky Belo of a makeover and by the time it is finished, every square inch of the surface will be young and new.

But before that, the 15-year-old oval will get its final dance and what a dance it will be.

CCSC will host the Milo Little Olympics National Finals.

It was built to host the Palarong Pambansa, a competition for the country’s promising youngsters. Now, it will host yet
another tournament of the country’s best.

Cebu got the job, not because of the CCSC, but because of how it organized the Milo Little Olympics for the Visayas.

Now that local organizers got the job, I hope Ricky Ballesteros and his staff will also teach the Department of Education a thing or two about hosting national events.

When I covered the Palaro in 2007, I was elated when I heard DepED has finally joined the IT age and has put up a website for the event. The site promised up-to-date results and schedules.

It was never updated.

In Milo events, reporters have to wait for the latest results and medal tally since these are updated twice a day.

In DepEd events, reporters are lucky if they’d get yesterday’s results and medal tally, today.

It’s not only reporters who wait for the results, but the players, coaches and parents who want to know how the competition is doing.

I hope in the Milo National Finals, Ballesteros will invite whoever is in charge of the results in DepEd meets to observe how they are able to get updates without hiring an army of staff members.

Still, the Milo Little Olympics is not without its faults.

In my experience, there are two negative points that both the Milo Olympics and DepEd events share—officials and the schedule.

In football, Milo and DepEd have never recognized the authority of the Cebu Football Association and the Philippine Football Federation. That’s why you have teams playing twice in a day and referees who also double as coaches.

And that’s not a good thing.

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