FROM PUNCHING BAG TO SLOT MACHINES

Homesickness wears down  ex-OPBF champ Santillan

By ALEX P. VIDAL / PNS
May 30, 2006

ILOILO CITY  –  “Kasubo man gyud di kaayo. Gina agwanta ko lang (I feel so sad here but I’m trying to overcome my homesickness).”

This was the terse remark in mixed Cebuano and Ilonggo made by former Oriental boxing champion Rev “Gentle Giant” Santillan in a long distance call to this writer at around 7:30 in the evening May 25 from his apartment in Osaka, Japan where he now works as “Panchinko” slot machine cash collector in hotels and casinos.

“I missed the punching bag and jogging every morning,” averred the 28-year-old southpaw from Tacas, Jaro, Iloilo City, in vernacular. “I’m still in the period of adjustment and I share a room with a male Filipino worker who handles the room master key.”

He admitted his new task and environment have slightly affected his conditioning as a boxer even as he insisted he has not yet retired from the ring.

Resume training

Santillan (22-3-1, 16 KOs),  vowed to resume his training for a possible rematch with his conqueror Hiroshi Yamaguchi who will tackle his first defense before facing the Cebu-trained boxer in a rubber match before the year ends.

Manager Rex “Wakee” Salud said he approved of Santillan’s stay in Osaka to work “so he can earn for a living while we are contemplating his future as a prizefighter.” Salud has not confirmed whether he was closing the curtains down for the Ilonggo ex-champion whom he considers as one of the most talented among his wards.

After Santillan’s controversial split decision defeat to the 27-year old Yamaguchi in an OPBF title defense in Tokyo last April 20, Salud, 53, hinted of convincing Santillan to retire “in order to protect his eyes” which have been blinking fast and bothering him in his last four fights.

Santillan left the country last May 16 to sign up a “renewable” six-month contract with a company arranged by his 56-year-old millionaire admirer Toshiaki Kobayashi. Before he left, his spiritual adviser Jack Hall, a retired US contractor now living in Cebu, exhorted him to “work for the Lord, not for men.”

Big salary

His salary is a whooping 260,000 Japanese yen or an equivalent of more or less P93,000 a month, excluding his over time and extra pays, twice higher than the salary of a bank executive in the Philippines.

Under the term with his employer, Santillan, a bachelor, will remit P40,000 a month to his mother in the Philippines while the employer will retain the remaining amount until the contract has been completed.

This is to make sure that he brings a lump sum when he comes back to the Philippines, said Kobayashi’s Filipino wife, Linda of Leyte.

Santillan said although he doesn’t speak and understand the Japanese language, he was entrusted to carry large sums of Japanese yen that runs to millions he regularly collects from slot machines.

Kobayashi, who had promised to give the boxer a brand new Toyota car if he toppled Yamaguchi in their recent duel, said Santillan was supposed to work in a manufacturing factory but decided to assign him a “safer” task “to protect his arms and fists.”

“Nalooy gyud si Kobayashi nia (Kobayashi pitied him),” said Salud who traced Santillan’s eye ailment to have started on January 26, 2001, the day he wrested the OPBF belt from a durable Korean champion in a bloody, tension-filled 12-round split decision in Cebu City.