Two familiar faces to inspire Pacman on fight night Cebu Daily News
November 14, 2006
Las Vegas - When Manny Pacquiao surveys the crowd at the Thomas and Mack Center here during fight night, he will find two familiar faces at its fringes. Two people who have rendered their services for the Filipino ring icon without asking for anything in return.
One of them is Ed de la Vega, a dentist by profession. The other is Dong Secuya, a web developer.
When one sees Pacquiao smiling on the ring, one gets a peek at de la Vega’s contribution to the boxer. And it’s not just in taking care of Pacquiao’s pearly whites.
De la Vega is the person responsible for crafting his mouthpiece.
“I’ve been doing this for some time now,” de la Vega said.
Pacquiao’s mouthpieces are not the ordinary ones that can be bought at dental clinics or athletic stores. The mouthpieces de la Vega creates are personalized not just in style but also in substance.
“The mouthpieces we make are products of research by our group of sports dentists,” de la Vega explained.
He added that he also pays attention to design, especially when Pacquiao requests a particular style. So far, Pacquiao has worn mouthpieces that sport the national tri-color and one that has his face drawn on it. For his upcoming bout with Mexican Erik Morales, de la Vega has come up with a blue and gold mouthpiece.
“It’s what Manny wanted,” he said.
Secuya, on the other hand, maintains the popular website mannypacquiao.ph. The website was put up on August 23 because, according to the Cebu-based entrepreneur, he wanted a website solely dedicated to Pacquiao. Secuya also owns philboxing.com.
“A lot of Filipinos drop by the website of [Marco Antonio] Barrera and some Mexicans say that Filipinos post in the forum there because we have no boxing website of our own,” Secuya explained. “Now, Filipino fight fans have a site they can call home.”
And get this: They both do it for free.
Two faces at the edge of the crowd. Two reasons at the edge of Pacquiao’s inner circle. Both of them giving their support to the Filipino ring icon. None of them expecting anything in return. /Francis Ochoa of Inquirer
