Bicolano boxer in Pacquiao bouts vows to help grandma
By Juan Escandor Jr.
Southern Luzon Bureau
First Posted 02:01:00 03/25/2008
LEGAZPI CITY – A Bicolano boxer has made a name by winning two consecutive undercard events in the last two title bouts of boxing champion Manny Pacquiao.
On March 16, Michael Farenas, 24, defeated Mexican fighter Baudel Cardenas in the third round of an eight-round bout by technical decision.
This gave him the second victory in the opening fight at Mandalay Hotel of the title event of Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez super featherweight championship bout.
The Bicolano fighter had his first world boxing ring victory on Oct. 6 last year during Pacquiao’s fight against Antonio Barrera when he also TKOed Mexican fighter Arturo Valenzuela in the second round. The event was also held in Las Vegas.
Farenas hails from the southeastern Bicol coastal town of Gubat in Sorsogon province.
He embarked on a fulltime boxing career after graduating from the Gubat National High School in 2001.
He won a national open boxing event in Iriga City, which caught the attention of the Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines (Abap), which took him into the Philippine team.
But Farenas felt he had a slim chance of being cast in boxing competitions outside the Philippines while under training at the Abap after several slots in Asian boxing events eluded him.
He met Gerry Peñalosa when the professional boxer was recruiting new boxers in his stable.
Peñalosa-trained and managed by a Japanese promoter, Farenas stepped into the international boxing ring last year, maintained his dominance in the nontitle featherweight this year and scored two wins and zero losses this year.
Reached through his cellphone, the Bicolano fighter said he prayed to achieve new heights in boxing, a career that changed the lives of determined poor boys from the provinces like Pacquiao, who once worked as a laborer in a bakery.
Farenas came from a poor farming family in Carriedo, Gubat. He is second to the eldest in a brood of five girls and four boys.
In their late 40s, his parents Angel and Nimfa recalled their son, at four years old, using a pillow for a punching bag in their two-room house.
Farenas lived with his grandmother when he turned five; the house was about 500 meters from his parents’ home, in the northern interior side of the village amid rice paddies and patches of coconut trees.
Maria E. Farenas, 77, the Bicolano fighter’s grandmother, only had good words for her grandson.
“Michael used to be the one gathering banana leaves to wrap the suman that I cooked, which he sold around the village,” Maria said in the Gubatnon dialect.
She added that when Farenas was studying in high school he cooked and prepared his packed lunch, as he had to stay in town, seven km from their village.
She said Farenas was concerned about the growth of her goiter and told her he would help in her medication, so she prayed for his continuing success.
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