The title of this piece smacks of ludicrous thinking. Hopefully it’s NOT libelous but catches the reader’s interests and a bit elucidating. Writing can be, especially in the Philippines a most dangerous hobby. It is a wee bit precipitous if one writes about million-US-dollars men, but read this first to its last period to see whether the piece is worth the 15,000 little pieces of paper it is printed on. (Sorry Ms. Tess for the temerity to think this piece will see print in your paper.)
Anyway, man and dog are both God’s creation. God’s grand creatures and masterpiece. There are similarities in their anatomy and physiology and with their neurology are actualized in behaviour and misbehaviour. Likewise, in their relations to man, there can be no other domesticated animal as loyal as a dog, as protective, as warm. meek and friendly, as docile and silent in response to man’s anger and yelling. A dictum that can be hardly said about man.
In the not too distant past I heard some people lament that our country have gone to the dogs. Moreover, a Manila unlearned walkabout “grease” man like a dirty “ascal “ may wrongfully or sagely say: “It’s a dog’s life and I just get on and move on.” Those homebound or who have gone or lived abroad know that in some parts of the Philippines dog’s can’t live very long because they are delicacies; these in places where man is NOT a dog’s best friend.
Not so as I have seen in America and more in Canada where certainly Man Is a Dog’s Best Friend and vice versa. In all Seasons in temperatures high and low, in sunshine, in rain or snow, as flowers bloom and later as tree leaves change colors and fall to the forest floors, you see dog leading or by the side of man, see them both walk like organisms of the same species. Like parent and child, like grandson leading grandpa, like two war buddies, like a lady and her close-in security.
If God can speak behind the clouds as in the Old Testament, He would probably admonish His two creatures: “Thou shalt not be touchy if one of you are compared to the other.” Leaving unsaid their aspectual equality.
From cloud nine to again set one’s feet to the here and now, both Chief Justice Renato Corona and pound-for-pound eight World Boxing Titles Champion Manny Pacquiao in the past months or so, were news avalanche burying other news into tidbits of significance. Both have their metaphorical dogfights. CJ Corona had homestretches his impeachment trial. Champion Pacquiao with his word war with Floyd Mayweather, Jr., his coming bout with Bradley and his simmering toe-to-toe slugfest with the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
In his book “What the Dog saw” Malcolm Gladwell did talk a lot about dogs. How we or man sees dogs and how dogs see us. One part I remember that connects to CJ Corona is about how dogs fight other dogs. How they sized up each other first before they tangle in ferocious combat. The fight ends somehow revealing to onlookers the kind of dogs they are as victors or losers.
CJ Corona’s trial had been like a perfect storm calmed down, which brought silence and respite after wreaking havoc to Philippines’ law and politics, to blood relationships, professional reputations and alleged unpatriotic lawyering.
As Gladwell wrote in his book, in a dogfight that has run its course, the loser if he is a good dog and if he still can, lies down on the ground and in genuine submission offers his exposed belly or tummy for his enemy to do whatever. And the victorious dog if he is good dog will just turn his back and walk away like a man.
Conversely it is arguable and debatable to see boxing as a popular man’s sport in just one light. In most countries dogfights like cockfights are banned and illegal. NOT BOXING. For no other reason but for entertainment or for money or both, dogfights and boxing somehow sidestep human values to kick in glaring contradictions. Banning dogfights is about kindness to animals while allowing and passion for boxing is never mind kindness to man.
Try to recall the fights of Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Leonard, and best of all prayer for prayer Pacquiao. An uppercut, a right hook, a straight punch and a head butt as combinations, if one of these connects to the kidney, ear, the nose or the jaw, what follows is No Mercy, Brutal; nothing like being kind to another human being. What follow the blows are statistics number of punches per second that could kill or maim a man for life.
The point of all the above is a conjecture that dogs even in a ferocious fight for dear life can behave better than men while men fighting for sports (este money) can be like merciless pit bulls. But two boxers of yore can belie and throw doubts to the conjecture. No mas (no more) whispered “hands of stone” Roberto Duran as he walked away and Sugar Ray Leonard continue to hit him to eventually wrested from Duran his welterweight crown. Which suggests that in dogfights and as in boxing the end determines its humane or doggish character?
