So maybe giving Manny Pacquiao a position as a government spy wasn't such a bad idea. Philippine Sports Commission Chairman Harry Angping on Friday announced plans for the government, including the Philippine Army (where Pacquiao is a reservist) and the Philippine National Police, to engage the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front in a boxing tournament.



(Quick tangent: it was pretty hard to come up with an appropriate image on the Internet for a group whose abbreviated name reads 'MILF'. Try doing that on Google Image Search with SafeSearch off sometime.)

On the surface, it is a good idea; all over the world, sports has been used as a vehicle to thaw icy relations and to give people a breather from the ravages of war. Israelis and Palestinians have co-existed on the basketball court, football has served as a common language from refugees all over the world, and pingpong was famously instrumental in paving the way for Richard Nixon's visit to Communist China.

But then again, consider the guy behind the idea. Angping, a former Manila congressman, was appointed to his post back in January, and immediately got into different quarrels with members of the Philippine Olympic Committee. Things got so bad that by March, POC President Peping Cojuangco asked President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to remove Angping. Angping battled back with support from Malacanang and from NSAs currently embroiled in feuds with POC leadership. Now, the whole Philippine sports scene is in total disarray, with various national sports associations taking sides between Angping and Cojuangco.

So we've got a politician proposing to use sports as a tool for peace and understanding, even as that same politician cannot even promote peace and understanding in the local sporting community. I wonder if Harry Angping ever read Shakespeare, because then he can drink up the sweet irony of it all.