In the literal sense, a punching bag is a bag filled with material or air, hung from a frame or attached to a stand and used by martial artists and boxers like Gennadiy “GGG” Golovkin and Saul “Canelo” Álvarez. The two fighters, a Kazakhstani and a Mexican, will be squaring it off for the third time on Sunday, September 18, 2022 (Philippine time), at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Since I am a boxing enthusiast, I will eagerly pray that my place is past the worst from brownout on the day of the most exciting fight of the year. Canelo will put his undisputed Super-Middleweight crown on the line against GGG.
The two rivals shared 24 electrifying rounds in 2017 and 2018, with Canelo prevailing via majority decision in the rematch after their initial match was a draw. Also, sometime in that period, the largest power provider in the province came into existence, replacing the supposed green energy source. It is supposedly geothermal.
The decades-long electricity deluge in Occidental Mindoro started even before GGG and Canelo hit the punching bag and helped them with their precision, defense and conditioning. That was even before the Cantarell oil field was established in the Gulf of Mexico and the mammoth protest Dos Kushim staged against the Russians in Kazakhstan. That’s how long the agony of the consumers in our electric power-forsaken province is.
If the GGG-Canelo III is dubbed "The Trilogy", the Occidental Mindoro electric power history can be called "The Tragedy".
While oil fuels electricity, protests are a natural consequence of its absence. According to the only biggest power generator in Western Mindoro, the present intermittent brownout is due to a lack of sufficient fuel because their finances could no longer afford its entire purchase. Over social media, the netizens protested. Without rational processes, though figuratively, they delivered the most brutal blows, wayward punches, and vicious kicks on their favorite punching bag: the OMECO.
Attacks even aimed only at the punching bag and not in an actual fight necessitate brain or education. Boxing is not just about power and speed. It also involves critical, informed, and rational action. Read about Pythagoras, the philosopher. He was also a boxer.
Netizens lambasted OMECO to no end, for they instantly believed it had a massive debt to the power producer, which is untrue. These people over the net didn’t bother to study and verify whether it was a fact. To set the record straight, our EC has no debt to the leading power producer. This is just a figment in the imagination of irresponsible social media personalities and users and the enablers of that corporation.
Instead of blaming OMECO for this debacle, we should have called for retracting the unjustified penalty imposed by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for the alleged bidding failure. How could there be a failure of bidding if the price is low and favorable to the MCOs?
We should have stood by OMECO by not passing the burden of payment to the consumers and we should have been pressuring the ERC to clarify its order at the soonest possible time.
Do your homework, and don’t punch the wrong bag!
But like the literal punching bag, OMECO is also fixed to something more powerful above. Laws, entities, personalities, bureaucracies, corruptions, politics, etc. But admittedly, it has its own internal little problems too.
In boxing, there is a “tale of the tape.” It refers to objectively comparing two fighters, where they are measured and weighed before a fight. The word “tape” here suggests that reach or height was the first measurement being referred to. Over time, the phrase has expanded, including weight and other semi-objective measurements like a fighter’s previous record, what championship belts they possess, and biographical information like where they are from. In this context, it combines making an objective comparison with simply describing the fighter.
Here is the Tale of the Tape in the GGG v. Canelo III:
ALVAREZ
Age: 32
Fights: 61
Wins:
57
Losses:
2
Draws:
2
Knock
Out Wins: 39
Height:
5’8”
Weight:
168 lbs.
Stance: Orthodox
GOLOVKIN
Age:
40
Fights:
44
Wins:
42
Loss:
1
Draw:
1
Knock
Out Wins: 37
Height:
5’10”
Stance: Orthodox
From “tale of the tape,” let us go to “red tape.” As we all know, red tape is an idiom referring to regulations or conformity to formal rules or standards claimed to be excessive, rigid, or redundant or to bureaucracy claimed to hinder or prevent action or decision-making.
There was a dialogue initiated by the Municipal Council of San Jose last September 12, 2022, and was exhaustively presided by Hon. Mercy Alvaran, we are informed that the bidding delay was caused not by OMECO but by power entities at the national level and its power provider itself. The lady lawmaker told this scribe that at least now, the municipal legislative board could craft resolutions in support of all those in the local power sector regarding brownout.
Dr. Eleanor Sy-Costibolo, MD., the feisty president of the OMECO BOD, reiterated that the delay in the bidding was not their fault and what they did was following the law, blatantly declared: “This is all red tape!”.
"To summarize, the fund is the main problem from all sides of the fence. It's the poor consumers that are caught in the middle of this scarcity of money," laments Alvaran. But for me, the scarcity of understanding tops them all. And I would not care if I get the ire and being laughed at by simpletons upon posting this.
GGG is always seeking his opponent’s shutdown. Canelo loves to counter, but they are heavy punchers, and if a fist landed in your mouth, a total blackout would eat your all being with a full tank of fuel. When this two clash for the third time, the night’s most intelligent boxer will win.
Attacking OMECO generally, at least at this particular juncture, is like boxing our own face.
It’s GGG by stoppage. Round 8.
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(Photo: Pinterest)
