Femme fatale

Sometimes looks are deceiving. A robber found out too late when he tried to steal a mobile phone from a young pretty woman in Rio de Janiero. The mugger was robbing a mixed martial arts fighter Polyana Viana, an Ultimate Fighting Champion (UFC) starweight. 

The robber went down with two punches and a kick unleased by Viana, 27.  Viana said the robber pointed what looked like a toy gun and that she couldn’t take chances. The robber suffered a bloody face and bruises on his neck.  If he could speak Cebuano, he’ll probably say “Di nako mousab kausa na lang”. 

My niece Katrina Uytiepo Armonio looks like a rampmodel with her frail look. But don’t mess with her as she’s a Brazilian Jujitsu world champion winning the title in her age group in Long Beach, California two years ago. When I first came to Cebu in the late Sixties, a punk tried to extort money from me. 

Little did he know that I was already a first dan karate black belt, having trained under red-belt Latino Gonzales, father of Roberto Gonzales (remember him in martial arts movies like (“Haring Karate”?).  Our club was known as the Commando Self-Defense Karate Club.  Members included Johnny Carranza, Tito Aquino and Bernard Belleza.  Well back to that extortionist, I parried his punch while delivering a solid shot of my own to his month, knocking his two front teeth.  The next day, he apologized and I gave him money to see a dentist. The lesson learned “Don’t judge a book by its cover”.

Another one bites the dust

In my last column, I mentioned about the “Killer Sidewalk” beside the ongoing underpass in Mambaling. I almost broke my bones as I slipped in the gutter that was sloping.  I warned the agencies concerned better do something before somebody gets killed. Well, “Wa jud palibak”.  The other day, Balikbayan doctor Helen Cabreros Gonzaga from Orlando, Florida, tripped and fell on the uneven surface of the of the sidewalk, receiving a big bruise on her knees and elbow.  Her husband Dr. Mike Gonzaga said his 75 year-old wife was lucky or it could have been a disastrous vacation.  Dr.Helen said if this happened in the USA, they could sue the City.  As I write this column, some workers placed a slab on the sloping gutter but this is not the solution.  Please level the sidewalk, before “Another one Bites the Dust”.  “Anong say mo Freddie Mercury?”.

Did you know

MARK BEAUMONT on February 15, 2008, pedaled through the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, 194 days and 17 hours after setting off in an attempt to circumnavigate the world.  Mark smashed the Guinness World Record by 81 days. 

He had travelled18, 297 miles solo and unsupported through some of the harshest conditions one man and his bicycle can tolerate, averaging 160 kilometers a day and suffering from constant ailments, hunger and fatigue.  Mark, 36, grew upon the foothills of the Scottish Highlands.  When he was 12, he cycled across Scotland from Dundee to Oban.

JOE LOUIS a boxing legend, was a passionate golfer whose great ambition outside the ring was to win the amateur division of the National and won it in 1951.  After his defeat to German Max Schmeling, his trainer thought that Louis obsession with golf was affecting his fighting, so he impose a limit on the boxer’s  golfing time while he was preparing for a bout.