CHICAGO - Irish Magno ruffled the boxing ropes last Tuesday when she posted an Instagram story lamenting the delayed release of allowances due her as a national athlete.
Magno is in Thailand right now preparing for the Tokyo Olympics. She has no use for the money out there but her family in Janiuay, Iloilo does.
Desperately.
The Magnos are good people. The salt of the earth type. Hard-working, self sufficient.
The father Rodrigo Jr., does some carpentry work while the mother, Eva, earns her keep doing other people's laundry and helping out at the barangay health center.
But when the pandemic dried up those jobs it became a struggle to take care of three of the six children that still live at home. And that's when Irish turned from fighter to breadwinner, her allowance the much-needed life raft.
So when her stipend got repeatedly delayed, she did something that was more painful than taking a punch. She swallowed her pride.
"Halos wala ng makain," (They have barely anything to eat), she relayed her family's fate via an Instagram post, adding that it's hard to focus on training when her mind drifts and worries about her loved ones.
When I saw our colleague Kate Reyes post Magno's story last Tuesday night, I called a dear friend who lives in Iloilo the following morning and asked him if he could help. Within minutes, P10,000 cash was sent directly to Irish's bank account.
Several others, including a very famous PBA player, have since sent their assistance and the Magnos are forever grateful.
"Maraming salamat po talaga sa inyo at sa mga nakaintindi po sa akin" she told me.
Irish wants to make it clear that she did not intend for her post to appear like she was asking for money for her family. She just didn't know that the world, broken and seemingly irredeemable, is still teeming with kind-hearted souls.
But the story shouldn't just end here.
"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime," said an old proverb.
HOW MANY IRISH MAGNOS OUT THERE ARE SUFFERING IN SILENCE?
And can our collective generosity save them all?
Perhaps, but that's not the appropriate solution here. What is needed is a better, more efficient system where athletes' allowances are delivered on time.
If our Senate can expedite a naturalization bill to allow a foreigner to play for Gilas, can't it not pen a resolution that could fast-track the release of funds for thousands of our national athletes?
Can we get the same enthusiasm on this endeavor from basketball-loving Senators Bong Go, Joel Villanueva and Sonny Angara?
I understand that hiccups are inevitable given the pandemic and the government red tape that have tied so many great intentions. But I disagree with the PSC on one thing.
Two months is not a "slight delay."
And while I'm on a rant here, what's up with that $30 a day allowance we are giving to our boxers?
Didn't we allocate P6 billion to host the 2019 SEAG which featured a stupid P55 million cauldron?.
We don't always treat our athletes right and we keep wondering what' went wrong every time the Olympic gold eludes us.
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