PEACE-MAKER
Jose de Venecia Jr.
Former Speaker of the House
Indeed, Senator Manny Pacquiao may have lost the battle, but he has won the war. He may not have brought home the belt but he remains and will always be the “People’s Champ.”
News reports said that Manny Pacquiao will be awarded the “Champion for Life” by the World Boxing Association (WBA), an honor that the legendary boxer rightfully deserves. After all, he holds the rare distinction of being the first and only eight-time world boxing champion.
With his great achievements, Manny Pacquiao has demonstrated to the Filipino people and the peoples around the world the indomitability of the human spirit; and the triumph of will and determination.
He not only brought pride and honor to our country, he has also provided hope and inspiration to our fellow Filipinos, especially the poor and underprivileged.
A foreign leader once told this columnist that Manny Pacquiao must have been favored by the gods who lifted him from obscurity and poverty to become one of the most renowned people who have ever lived.
Truly, Manny Pacquiao not only captivated the hearts of the Filipinos but the admiration of several world leaders.
In our previous column, we mentioned that the governing Justice and Development Party, or AK Parti, of Turkey, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, graciously offered to host our much earlier planned 20th founding anniversary and 11th general assembly of ICAPP, the International Conference of Asian Political Parties, to be held in the historic city of Istanbul this October, for which we in ICAPP are most thankful.
However, with the recent spike in the COVID-19 cases (especially with the so-called Delta and Lambda variants which medical experts say are more contagious) in the Philippines, in Asia, and throughout the world, we in ICAPP decided to postpone our meeting to next year, depending on the pandemic situation.
As founding chairman of ICAPP and chairman of its standing committee (SC), we explained to our 39-member SC members and to the AK Parti that we could not take for granted the risks, difficulties, and inconveniences involved in traveling abroad in the midst of the raging plague.
Istanbul would have been our first foreign trip since the onslaught of COVID-19 early last year. We last visited Turkey more than 10 years ago, when we were Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Turkey is the most prominent of the nations that emerged from the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I. It is a nation created by a heroic people led by a visionary warrior and statesman Mustafa Kemal, on whom his people bestowed the surname Ataturk, which means “Father of the Turks.”
Under Ataturk’s leadership (he was president of the Republic from 1923 until 1938), Turkey became the first Muslim country to develop a sense of national identity. Together with Meiji Japan, Turkey also became the early model of modernization for the colonial countries.
Ataturk separated temporal and spiritual powers in Turkey by abolishing, first, the Ottoman sultanate, and then the caliphate, establishing in place a secular, nationalist democracy. Notably, Ataturk gave women the right to share fully in the public culture of the Turkish nation.
Within a generation, Ataturk’s transitional authoritarianism gave way to multi-party politics. The first opposition party came peacefully to power in 1950. Since then, successive governments have worked to strengthen Turkey’s democracy and economy.
Now thoroughly modern politically, economically and culturally, Turkey makes a good spokesman for West Asia in global councils.
Turkey, which is geographically poised between East and West, also bridges the cultural and geopolitical gaps between Europe and Asia. Perhaps, God created this region of the Turks in this strategic land to connect Asia and Europe.