A total of 150 professional boxers in the Philippines have been banned for falsifying brain scan results aimed at detecting serious head injuries in the sport, regulators said yesterday.
The Philippine government has been imposing strict medical testing procedures following the deaths of several Filipino boxers from injuries sustained in professional fights in previous years.
“The welfare and safety of our boxers is part of our mandate. We do not want any more boxing deaths,” Philippine Games and Amusements Board chairman Abraham Kahlil Mitra told reporters.
The ban means one in seven of the nation’s 1,054 professional boxers are not allowed to step on the ring, the sports regulator said.
The board found 150 boxers had submitted “fake” CT scan results this year, apparently because they could not afford an actual test, the board’s medical officer Radentor Viernes told reporters.
About half of those blacklisted have since submitted the required medical examinations and the ban against them will be reviewed, Mitra said.
The board is also investigating the involvement of other parties in the CT scan fraud, he said.
In 2012, undefeated flyweight Karlo Maquinto, aged 21, collapsed and later died from a brain injury after only his ninth pro fight, having rallied from two early knockdowns to salvage a majority draw.
Two other professional boxers also died from ring injuries in 2005 and 2008, Mitra said.
Apart from the boxing deaths, Viernes said the board had also refused to renew the licenses of five other boxers due to brain injuries or fluid build-up.
Four of them had been diagnosed with “minute haemorrhage” from blood vessels in the brain, believed to have been sustained in previous fights, while the fifth had brain oedema, Viernes said.
The Philipines is a boxing hotbed that has produced the likes of legendary Manny Pacquiao, winner of world titles in an unprecedented eight different weight divisions.
For many in the nation, Pacquiao is an icon and role model and prizefighting offers one of the shortest tickets to fame and fortune for young males.
However, Mitra said that many success-starved fighters were earning puny prizes and could not afford CT scans that the Philippine Ministry of Health says cost at least 6,000 pesos (US$170) or the more expensive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans costing almost three times as much.
“We’ve been criticized for being too strict, but still that’s our job and we maintain it that way,” he said.
Ohilippine Secretary of Health Paulyn Ubial told reporters that the government had no plans to outlaw boxing, only to “regulate” it.
To help cash-strapped boxers and prevent more boxing deaths, Mitra and Ubial said that government hospitals would offer free medical tests to locals applying for professional boxing licenses.
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