IN PHOTOS: Injured soldiers cheer for Pacquiao

Bea Cupin

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IN PHOTOS: Injured soldiers cheer for Pacquiao
Senator Manny Pacquiao, world boxing champion, is also a reservist at the Philippine Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel

MANILA, Philippines – With every jab, they cheered. With every hit to his body and face, they hissed and booed.

For around an hour, it almost didn’t matter what injuries they were nursing, where they had been deployed, or what sort of future awaited them after their hospital stay.

On Sunday, July 2, over a hundred injured soldiers had one mission in mind: cheer for Senator Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao, world boxing champion and army reservist.

At the Army General Hospital inside Fort Bonifacio in Taguig, soldiers clad in blue tops, pants, and slippers, went wild in rounds where Pacquiao dominated, and fell silent whenever his opponent, Australian boxer Jeff Horn, showed his might.

In the middle of Filipino fighter Jerwin Ancajas’s bout just before the Pacquiao-Horn card, a nurse clad in white entered, medicine and IV fluid in tow. Her patient, another injured soldier, was seated at the front row.

“I was looking for you in the ward sir. They told me you went here,” said the shy nurse, as she found herself surrounded by the harsh flash of television and still cameras.

But whatever energy was in the room during the Pacquiao-Horn card immediately disappeared the moment the Australian was announced the new WBO Welterweight Champion.

The commentator had barely finished saying Horn’s name when the men and blue rose from their chairs and purposefully walked back to their wards.

A handful stayed behind, listening to the Army reservist with a rank of lieutenant colonel admit defeat while saying he did his best.

Manny pa rin (We still support Manny)” a soldier said, his arm around his buddy who was also a patient in the hospital.

The Pacquiao match – an event that can literally stop both traffic and crime in Metro Manila – comes as soldiers continue to battle local terror groups in Marawi City.

Some of those who watched the boxing match in Fort Bonifacio were among those injured because of the Marawi clashes. Others were injured long before – during earlier operations against the same terror groups the government is fighting in Marawi City. – Rappler.com

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Bea Cupin

Bea is a senior multimedia reporter who covers national politics. She's been a journalist since 2011 and has written about Congress, the national police, and the Liberal Party for Rappler.