55. SALOMA BROTHERS: The Slugging Brothers of the Boxing Ring

On August 9, 1970, three boxers debuted together at the Araneta Coliseum and created a buzz with their awesome performances in the ring. But more amazing was the fact that the three were real-life brothers: Eduardo (Eddie), Jose Maria (Joe), Ricardo (Colly) Zanadrin Coloma, collectively known as the Saloma Brothers.

The Saloma Brothers came from a large family of 10 children from Iloilo City. Bantamweight Eddie, the eldest of 7 brothers explained the reason for their shared fraternal interest in pugilism: “Boxing is our first love,” he says, “It’s in the family’s blood. I have an uncle who is in the US Navy who won trophies as an amateur in the United States. If my younger brothers who are still in their knee pants grow up, they too, will become boxers.”

 24 years old in 1970, he remembers being only 16 when he started boxing professionally in Iloilo, Davao, and Cotabato. He never stopped schooling even while he boxed, and became a bookkeeper in Iloilo after finishing his Commerce degree. A southpaw,  he has already fought 30 times and lost twice and drew one. He won most of his fights by T.K.O. and his last 3 fights in Manila (before he fought in the recent bout) were won by T.K.O.

However, in his Araneta Coliseum outing against the sly Tom Rico, another toprated bantamweight contender,  lost in a questionable decision that was roundly booed by the crowd. But Eddie took it all in stride simply saying that boxing should not be fought the way Tom Rico did, in which he kept shoving Eddie with against the ropes, putting him  (Eddie) at a disadvantage. One aficionado even remarked that the next time Eddie fights Tom Rico he would “win without a fuss.”

Younger brother, Joe, 20, an Electrical Engineering student at the Western Visayas College of Science and Technology and University of San Agustin, was a featherweight and was known for his powerful “atomic punch,” which gave him a record of 28 wins, 1 loss, at his peak.

Hoping to make a name in bigtime boxing, he was matched against Fil del Mundo, a rated featherweight from Laguna, and a favorite to win the bout. True enough, he dealt Joe telling blows that caused his brow to bleed profusely. The two exchanged blows amid the pandemonium in the stadium, each boxer neither giving nor asking for any quarter. Then it happened. Barely 2 minutes before the round ended, Fil del Mundo, for all his ruggedness and ring know-how, hit the deck in the twinkling of an eye, caused by flashy Joe’s killer “atomic punch,”

In his Araneta Coliseum duel with the more experienced Arturo Eracho, Joe sustained another injury that threatened his bid. But Joe came back from the 5^th round to the last to beat Eracho, dealing him with series of “very clean punches”,  as described by Manila Times day editor, O.O. Sta. Romana. The more gleaming and potent  ”clean punches” that the newsman spoke of turned the face of Eracho into a bloody mess, and Joe won the bloody fight by unanimous decision.

Meanwhile, Colly (Ricardo) is a high school graduate and has had 22 fights in his credit prior to his last one at the Araneta Coliseum in which he knocked out Jun Martin in a dramatic fashion on the fourth round. He never lost in any fight and last February won the amateur flyweight championship of the Philippines “Class C”. He turned pro at the age of 16. Ambition: to be a world champ and a lawyer.

The young boxers are managed by Mamerto Besa, businessman and sports promoter, whose craving desire is to produce a world champion from among his wards “before I retire.” Some of his successful boxers which he developed were Bert Somodio, former lightweight king of the Philippines, Randolf Masala and Tiny Palacio,

Besa says he has every reason to look forward to the day when the Saloma brothers would grab a world title. “First,” he says, “they are dedicated boxers—they take interest in their profession with whole heart; second, they are well-discipline for they behave properly and don’t indulge in any vices; and third, they are efficiently trained and managed. I, myself devote my full attention to their welfare…”

Such a set of high standards that characterize the pugilistic ventures of the Saloma Brothers would therefore make one expect that their best is yet to come. Through the 70s, the Salomas were names to be reckoned with, fighting in Guam, Korea, and the U.S. Joe had his last bout in 1973, while Eddie and Colly continued their international quests until 1977.

 (This article was condensed from P.A. Zapanta’s “Up and Coming: Slugging Salomas”, published in The Sunday Times Magazine, Pictures by Dominador Suba. 11 October 1970, p. 35-37.

WHERE ARE THE SALOMA BROTHERS NOW?

A surprise e-mail to this writer was received from Joe Saloma in 18 May 2017 who managed to read a short article I have written  about the slugging brothers for the popular website, FilipiKnow, included in my list of “Sports Legends Who Proved Filipinos Are Kickass Athletes.”

In it, he wrote: “It's an honor to be part of the FilipiKnow Greatest Filipino Athletes. It's been over four decades when we were in the peak of our boxing career. Thank you for believing in us. God is so good for giving us a wonderful life after ending our boxing career in the Philippines.  Because of our hard work and determination, we were blessed with good life, family, and successful careers.”

Joe provided updates about himself and his acclaimed brothers,  Eddie and Colly who are now U.S.-based. while he lives in Guam.

Joe is currently a resident of Agana, Guam.  He retired from the U.S. military with over 22 years of active service and presently working with the Guam Department of Corrections.

Eddie studied at NW Institute of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine. He is now a Licensed Acupuncturist and Physical Therapist at the Oriental Acupuncture & Therapy Clinic, Inc., practicing in El Paso, Texas,

Colly is a resident of Virginia and also retired from the U.S. military with over 20 years of active service.

CREDITS:

MANY THANKS to Mr. Joe Saloma for the e-mail and the updated info about him and his brothers.

Photos by Mr. Domonador Suba, STM

FB pages of Jose Marie Saloma, Eduardo Saloma and Colly Saloma.

54. Olympic Weightlifter PEDRO LANDERO, Asia's Senior Strongman (1950-1956)

At the Weightlifting finals in the bantamweight division at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, a stocky Filipino—balding, short in stature, almost 39 years old, considered  rather advanced in age for the sports—stunned the audience when he placed 6^th overall after all his lifts were totaled. PEDRO LANDERO, born on 19 Oct. 1913, was the oldest among the competitors who placed in the Top 12, most of whom were just in their 20s and early 30s. So to barge into the Top 6 was no mean feat, but a  small victory in itself, for in so doing,  he also set a new bantamweight record lift  that would endure for years.

There is scant information about Landero’s beginnings but we do know he was trained under Prof. Candido Bartolome, considered the father of Physical Education of the Philippines. The American-schooled professor established the Department of Physical Education at the University of the Philippines and acted as head of the country’s delegation to the Olympics. He taught Landero and classmates Reynaldo Perez, Ruperto Villamor, Jose Chen and Esmeraldo Eco how to do gymnastic stunts for events and socials. They once entertained 700 guests at a rooftop garden party hosted by the  U.P. President Bienvenido Gonzales on 24 June 1939, which received much praises.

Weightlifting was not Landero’s first sport---it was wrestling. He joined the Ben Gallegos Club (BGC), which was a gym club that trained its members and fielded them to various competitions—from weightlifting, physical culture contests, to wrestling. He participated in  wrestling tournaments  and began winning most matches.

At the 1948 National Wrestling Championship, he represented his club and won the Bantamweight division title, by decisioning AFPs’ Lt. J. Carreon after 15 minutes of strenuous wrestling. The next year, at the 1949 Wrestling Championship, he would retain that title by default—when his opponent did not show up. That’s when he realized perhaps, that wrestling was a sport that held little to Filipinos. Fewer contestants signed up for the tournament this year and that the same old names—Landero, Luna, Bernabe and Florendo—keep dominating the events, due to the absence of competition.

 In 1950, Landero made a major career shift and decided to join the 1950 National Weightlifting Championships—he had been lifting heavy weights at Javier Brothers Gym for some time now,  as part of his wrestling training, so it wouldn’t hurt if he tried another sport that called for a show of lifting strength. On April 16, he joined 32 lifters from schools and clubs at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum to test how far he could go in this new endeavor.

With a body weight of 136 pounds, he qualified for the Lightweight Division, ten went on to surprise himself with a 3^rd place finish, lifting a combined total (press, snatch, jerk) of 600 lbs. The unattached lifter, Luis Dumag won the Gold with his 625 lbs. effort, followed by Gervacio Canlas of BGC with a 620 lbs. lift.

Thus began an unexpected journey to the sport of weightlifting. He made so muchprogress that in a year, he was handpicked, along with Rodrigo del Rosario, to compete in the inaugural multi-sports continental games--the 1^st Asian Games in New Delhi, India. His lucky streak continued as he bagged his first international weightlifting medal—a Bronze—in the bantamweight class (56 kg.) . Gold and Silver went to Mahmoud Namjoo and Ali Mirzaei, both Iranians, whom he would meet again in the premiere sporting event of all—the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.

 In Finland, Landero had to yield the spotlight to the biggest star of the Philippine weightlifting stage, Rodrigo del Rosario, who held multiple current national records.  There, at the Messuhalli  Exhibition Hall, del Rosario shone his brightest, placing fourth  in the featherweight class, his best Olympic finish, setting a world record in the military press portion, in the process.  

Lost in the hoopla of del Rosario’s triumph was the remarkable 6^th place finish of 39 year-old bantamweight Landero in a field of 19 starters,  one of only 2 senior lifters who completed their lifts (2 lifters from Japan and Romania dropped out). The other was Germany’s Josef Schuster, age 46, but he ended a distant 14^th. Gold went to Russian Ivan Udodov (age 28), while Iran’s Namjoo (age 34)  and Mirzaei (age 23) claimed Silver and Bronze.

Though Del Rosario got the lion’s share of sports fans’ attention, Landero’s top 6 finish was, to him, a cherished one. He vowed to train harder, as has already set his sight on the next Olympics, in Melbourne. The 2^nd Asian Games hosted by Manila in 1954 was another chance to chase weightlifting honors, but it was Rodolfo Caparas who battled it out at the bantamweight finals and won a prized Silver. Landero opted to wait for the 1955 National Weightlifting Championships where he moved up to the featherweight class—and clinched the title, along with lightweight Kuan Sun, middleweight Higinio Villar, and middle-heavyweight Manuel Tan.

That win became Landero’s passport to the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the first to be held outside Europe. It is also known for the multi-nation boycotts that marred the Games. But yesteryear’s sports fans remember it for early exit of the now 43 year old Landero who was expected to do well. He opted to start his Press lift at 95 kgs. , but failed not once, but thrice. Thus, Landero could no longer proceed and bowed out of contention. He was declared retired. From 6^th place in Helsinki, he finished last in 16^th place. American Charles Vinci topped the bantamweight division that year. Landero’s   ignominous defeat led to his decision to retire permanently from weightlifting.

After the Olympics, not much was heard about his life, his family, and even his eventual passing. Landero seemed to have gone from a place of renown  to complete obscurity. But certainly, what will not pass into oblivion is Pedro Landero’s  weightlifting legacy, achieved in his maturity and reaching its peak in his seniority, proving to all that in the pursuit of excellence, age is no barrier.

SOURCES:

“U. P. President and Mrs. Gonzalez To Entertain for Faculty “, The Tribune, 22 Jun. 1939, p. 5

“1948 Wrestling Championship”, The Filipino Athlete,, May 1948, p. 11

“1949 Wrestling Championship”, The Filipino Athlete, June 1949, p. 16

“Winners of the 1955 National Weightlifting Championship”, PROGRESS 1955

1951 Asian Games, Wikipedia

1952 Helsinki Oympic Games, Wikipedia

1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, Wikipedia

Photo: Olympedia, Pedro Landero, https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/56489

Udodov, Namjoo,

53. Luger RAYMOND L. OCAMPO JR. and His Long Journey to the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics

When a topnotch Fil-American athlete and lawyer was asked in one job interview which he would prioritize—to handle a major corporate client or to compete in the Olympics, he chose the latter—and got hired anyway. Such is the commitment of RAYMOND L OCAMPO  Jr. to his chosen discipline—luge—a winter sport that is hardly familiar in the U.S., much less in the Philippines where it is virtually unkniwn. But Ocampo did not just want to join the Winter Olympics; he wanted to compete for the Philippines.

Sixteen years have elapsed since the Philippines was represented in a Winter Olympics;  the first time was in the 1972 Sapporo games when cousins Ben Nanasca and Juan Cipriano competed in alpine skiing. The two lads were adopted and lived in Andorra, and took to skiing in the Pyrenees. They became so proficient that the Swiss government recruited them for an alpine skiing group, which paved the way for their Olympic stint under the Philippine flag.

Ocampo’s journey was unlike our pioneer Olympians who had a large support group in New Zealand and the Philippines. Born in Lubao, Pampanga on 10 Feb. 1953, he and his family migrated to Canada when he was 11. The young Ocampo channeled his energies into sports of all kinds—as a high-schooler, he became a member of his school’s basketball team that won the state championship. Even as a political science student at UCLA and later, as a law student,  he was running marathons in between poring over legal tomes.

After passing the bar, Ocampo went into private practice and continued with his love of sports. In 1986, the year he got employed by Oracle Corp., he became fascinated with luge—a fast race on artificial ice tracks using racing sleds that could be maneuvered to reach over 140 kilometer per hour.

What was amazing was that Ocampo learned the sports from scratch. He would watch old video tapes of past winter Olympics editions, but when he reviewed the Sarajevo Olympics of 1984, he was surprised to learn that tropical Puerto Rico was represented by a skier named George Tucker. He seriously began entertaining the thought of representing the country of his birth.

First, Ocampo began investing in the sport, spending as much as $20,000 alone for trips and equipment. He started intensive dry-land training on a sled with wheels and joining races. His first big one was at the Empire State Games at Lake Placid in 1986, finishing a creditable 7^th in his over-30 age group. One of those he defeated was Puerto Rican George Tucker! The experience buoyed his confidence and thus began his  personal mission to ski for the Philippines.

But first, he needed the permission of the Philippine Olympic Committee in Manila via the Philippine Consulate in San Francisco. It took awhile to convince sports officials that his application was valid: the International Olympic Committee allows an athlete to represent the country of his birth so long as he has not competed in the same sport  for another country. Besides, as a dual Filipino-American citizen, he was eligible to don the Philippine tri-color.

The national committee however, required him to hold a Philippine passport first—and thus began a series of frustrating passport issues that imperiled his Olympic dream. ''Luging is hard enough,'' he realized, but ''the paper trail was the hardest part.'' A personnel from the consulate volunteered to take his case, and his cache of supporting documents to Manila to discuss his request with the Olympic committee.

But the official’s timing was bad; Corazon Aquino had just ousted Marcos, and a new government was being put in place. It did not help that the official had strong ties with the Marcos administration, so upon landing in Manila, he was withheld, and his papers were confiscated, including Ocampo’s pertinent documents. The disappointed Olympic hopeful had to start all over.

Ocampo personally sent a letter to Vice President Salvador H. Laurel. He sent another letter to Sec. Gen. Francisco Almeda—who had denied his first request. The United States Luge Federation even sent a letter of recommendation to convince the Olympic committee. When still a deluge of letters and telex messages from Ocampo were left unanswered, the weary athlete phoned Almeda directly, finally convincing him how serious he was. It turned out that Pres. Aquino had learned of his plight, so she pressed the sports official to allow him to compete. With that final go-signal, Ocampo gave a big sigh of relief as he mused:  ''It was an exhausting process…more exhausting than lugeing.''

When the 15^th Winter Olympics unfolded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on 13 February 1988, the triumphant Ocampo marched into the McMahon Stadium, proudly  holding the Philippine flag up high. Accompanied by his American coach, he was the lone Filipino among the thousands of international athletes who congregated in Calgary that year to vie for medals in the premiere winter sport games of the world. He was a sort of a novelty athlete coming from a non-winter country, and Ocampo got all the close-ups  in the opening ceremony at McMahon Stadium in Calgary.

Never has there been an athlete who have worked and prepared as hard as Raymond L. Ocampo Jr.—even before the Games had started. ''A medal is not something I'm shooting for,'' the Filipino winter Olympian said. ''But whether I win one or not, it would be nice to bring a focus to the Philippines for something other than the troubles they have been having. That's just the way I feel.''

Ocampo finished in 35^th place, in a field of 36 starters. Finishing ahead of him in 34^th place was George Tucker—yes, the same Puerto Rican luger he beat in 1986, and  a returning  Olympian. He beat out last placer Albertu Carpentier Altin of Netherland Antilles. The Washington Post noted that Ocampo’s next-to-last finish was still a victory for the Philippines.

(POSTSCRIPT:  In 2010, Raymond served as an honorary captain of the U.S. Olympic Luge Team that competed in Vancouver, Canada. After retiring from Oracle Corporation in 2015,  Ocampo became a private investor and served on the boards of companies and nonprofit organizations, like the Asian Pacific Fund, a foundation that he chaired from 2006-2010. Ocampo is the principal founder of the Filipino Bar Association of Northern California (FBANC) and  the President/CEO of Samurai Surfer LLC, a private investment company . His philanthropic work includes annual scholarships and internships he has provided to FBANC since 2000 and National Filipino Lawyers Association (NFALA) Foundation since 2020.)

 SOURCES:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Ocampo

Raymond L. Ocampo Jr. , https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=667210&privcapId=338154

“NEXT-TO-LAST FINISH A VICTORY”, The Washington Post, 16 February 1988.

OLYMPIC PROFILE: RAYMOND OCAMPO; One-Man Luge Team With Tale of 2 Flags, By MICHAEL JANOFSKY, Nov. 29, 1987, https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/29/sports/olympic-profile-raymond-ocampo-one-man-luge-team-with-tale-of-2-flags.html

Pictures: https://www.h5.com/ray-ocampo-jr/, New York Times, Nov. 29, 1987

Screen Grabs:, 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony, youtube