BAGUIO CITY – Professional boxers and their trainers are appealing to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Silvestre Bello III that they be included in the social amelioration program (SAP) with all fights either canceled or postponed due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
In an open letter to the Secretary sent April 1, Mandaluyong City-based promoter Dante Almario reiterated Games and Amusement Board (GAB) chairman Abraham Mitra’s plea that all licensed professional boxers and trainers be entitled to receive the PHP5,000 to PHP8,000 SAP initiated by President Rodrigo Duterte.
“Please be inform(ed) that although pro boxers and trainers, as well as matchmakers, are not considered daily/monthly earners as laborers, they are seriously affected by the total lockdown imposed by our government and even in other countries due to the Covid-19 pandemic," Almario said.
Almario, the Promoters and Managers Association chairman for the West Pacific Boxing Federation Asia Pacific, added: “all boxing events, promotions, and activities local or abroad has been canceled automatically, affecting and suffering zero income for several months.”
Almario said the boxers and trainers are breadwinners that whatever they get as prize money would go to their families.
“Our boxers and trainers have no source of income if there is no fight here or abroad. We are pleading that you include them in the financial assistance the government is providing to help their suffering families,” Almario said in Filipino.
On April 1, the GAB submitted with DOLE the list of professional boxers and trainers asking that they be included in the government’s SAP.
The GAB letter signed by Mitra and commissioners Eduard Trinidad and Mario Masanguid appealed on the basis of the no work no pay policy of which their members could be categorized.
The GAB leaders have also submitted names of trainers and boxers within the Luzon area who “are unable to exercise their profession and hence are devoid of a source of income.”
The three added that with the SAP, it “will help them survive these hard times in our nation’s history.”
“That is our sentiment now,” said La Trinidad, Benguet promoter Brico Santig of Highland Boxing promotions.
While Santig is capable of feeding his boxers and trainers in La Trinidad and in Manila, what worries him are the families, who await whatever prize money the boxers bring home.
“I have 20 in Benguet and 30 more here and our fights have been postponed since March and our scheduled fights this month are also in danger,” he told PNA.
Santig in March lost a total of 12 international fights slated in Japan, Thailand, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Germany, and Dubai. Six fights scheduled this month are expected to be moved to June.
He is expected to bring Marco John Rementizo on April 25 for the minimum strawweight World Boxing Council championship title fight in California, the United States against the reigning champion Chayapol Moonsri of Thailand.
The Golden Boy Promotions, which handles the event, has canceled last March 17 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Rementizo-Moonsri title fight will be one of the main undercards in the cruiserweight fight between Sergey Kovalev and Sullivan Barrera at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, California. (PNA)
