Torre starts training; Baste sets conditions for bout

MANILA, Philippines — A day after he accepted the challenge of Davao City acting Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte to a fistfight, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Nicolas Torre III started training for a potential charity boxing match with the younger son of former president Rodrigo Duterte at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum in Manila at 9 a.m. on Sunday.

After attending a situation briefing on flooding and other impacts of storms and the enhanced southwest monsoon, presided by President Marcos at Camp Aguinaldo yesterday morning, Torre went to the PNP gymnasium at Camp Crame and began his training regimen.

Acting Mayor Duterte responded to Torre’s dare yesterday, saying he had long wanted to beat up a “monkey.”

“If you are really serious about this, if you want that charity match and you’ve laid some conditions, then let me lay my own conditions. You ask your boss, the President – and let it come out of his mouth – that all elected officials should undergo a hair follicle drug test. Then I’ll call your charity match,” Duterte said in a video message posted on his official Facebook page.

Torre, who called Duterte’s dare to a fistfight, said he initially wanted the match held at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City but got word there was already a scheduled concert at the Big Dome.

“The Rizal Memorial Coliseum is already set. A ring is being set up there for Sunday,” he told reporters in an interview.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a former PNP chief himself, yesterday tweeted that a casino owner is willing to host the charity-boxing match.

“A credible source told me last night, the CEO of a popular resort casino hotel, a well-known philanthropist, is willing to open their ballroom for the ‘charity boxing match’ between Nick Torre and Baste Duterte,” Lacson posted on X.

“For the sake of the many poor flood victims, let’s do it!” he added.

Lacson said that while it was “not so” appropriate for a police chief to accept a fistfight challenge, it was still Torre’s “personal call” to take on the dare after the latter “felt insulted (and challenged) in public” by acting Mayor Duterte.

He added that he was still “not sure” if he would even watch the charity match, “but if the proceeds will definitely go to the recent flood victims, I will buy tickets equivalent to my one month pension as a retired 4-star police general.”

Malacañang had a terse reaction to the looming fistfight.

“We saw that... I don’t know if it will push through... If it does, then good luck,” Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro said in a chance interview yesterday.

Torre, wearing boxing gloves and clad in athletic attire, pounded on a punching bag inside the gymnasium yesterday.

He also did some pushups, hit a speed bag and had a light sparring session for about eight rounds with a boxing trainer.

Torre was all smiles during his training, saying he need to refresh his boxing skills.

“I am older and the trainer said my stamina is weaker and my punches are not that hard,” the 54-year-old Torre said in Filipino.

Even with just two more days to train, Torre hopes Duterte would show up on Sunday for the sake of the typhoon victims who would become beneficiaries to the proceeds.

Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla criticized Duterte for challenging Torre to a fistfight and hurling profanities against the PNP chief.

Being a city mayor, Remulla said Duterte should conduct himself in a better manner, stressing he should set an example to the younger generation of Filipinos.–  Diana Lhyd Suelto, Marc Jayson Cayabyab, Alexis Romero, Edith Regalado