The Pride of the Philippines, Manny Pacquiao, recently defeated Oscar “The Golden Boy” De La Hoya via TKO in the 8th round of their match in Las Vegas, Nevada over the weekend.
So what does this match have to do about the environment? Well I just realized how a Pacquiao match saves the environment so much by the amount of cars that get off the street during the few hours that the fight is on. The whole country is on a virtual stand still as it awaits the outcome of the match.
I myself experienced this during his fight with Morales last November 18, 2006. I was on the road driving across Mindanao while the fight was on and I remarked to the person beside me that I could practically floor the accelerator, let go of the steering wheel and never have to worry about hitting anything because everybody was inside their houses watching the fight.
The a friend also commented that his wife couldn’t find a taxi home because the streets were deserted of any public transportation during the fight, so she had to stay in the Mall a while longer while the match was on.
Then there are the residual effects of the fight. A week later I was in Cebu and my companion and I were amazed with the size of a crowd gathered across the side of the street with a dozen or so taxi’s filling up the curb. Turns out somebody was hawking pirated DVD’s of the short 3 round fight and was playing it on loop by the curb to entice people to buy. And yeah, despite it being just 3 rounds and already old news, we still stood around to watch the fight.
So aside from being a boxing champ and hero of the Philippines, Manny Pacquiao can also proudly claim that he does carbon offsetting for his matches with the amount of traffic that he stops in the Philippines during one of his fights.
Category: Misc, Sports, Carbon Offsetting
