Here we are: the first Filipino athlete to appear on a postage stamp. And we say “we” because this victory belongs to all of us. Like when we look at our little brown kids and we ask, what do you want to be when you grow up? Now they don’t just say ‘nurse’ or ‘teacher’ or ‘auto-mechanic’ but some of them say boxer. Some of them say Pacquaio! And they give you the old one-two with their fists to your belly.

Here we are: the first Filipino Olympic non-participant flag bearer at the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing. Beijing was a place of fried crickets and warm beer and we had a contract with Nike so we were feeling good then too.

Oh, but this, this is the best, because we used to all go to bed hugging our pillows after our prayers, wishing we’d wake up looking like Larry Bird. We really thought that maybe if we stretched ourselves—tied our ankles to our bedposts and our wrists to the other end—we could be tall and blonde. And some of us dyed our hair blonde. But still we weren’t Larry Bird but look—here—here we are becoming an honorary member of the Boston Celtics. That’s right: on March 10, 2010 Manny Pacquiao became an honorary member of the Celtics! A four-leaf clover jersey number one. Unbelievable. You pray, and you pray, and you become one of them.

Here we are back at the Palazzo Complex, a condominium in Los Angeles. Los Angeles. Los Angels. The Angels. The lights. Twinkling. Say it. Los Angeles. Let the slight whisper of it curl around your tongue. It sounded like a cupcake. Like a cherry on top. We came here. We came here with images of celebrities dancing in our heads. Tap dancing on ceilings. The hum of Singer sewing machines at our fingertips. There was a train here once. The worlds’ best, fastest, most efficient.

It’s all palm trees, and valet parking and Kanye West style. Here we are May 12, 2012, denouncing same-sex marriage.

“God’s words first…obey God’s law first before considering the laws of man,” says Pacquiao, addressing Obama’s pronoucement on legalizing same-sex marriage during an exclusive interview Friday night with the National Conservative Examiner in his residence at the Palazzo Complex in Los Angeles here in California.

Who cares that the reporter misspelled pronouncement? Here is our hero. Our man. Our pac-man. Saying it is not the law of god.

Here is the reporter. The guy that is also one of us, from our island, from our land, adding insult to injury. Putting extras on it. Saying “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

And then we picture it. Blood on their own heads. It’s a cruel thing to picture blood spilled over love.

Here we are getting banned from the mall connected to our Condo.

“Based on news reports of statements made by Mr. Pacquiao, we have made it be known that he is not welcome at the Grove and will not be interviewed here now or in the future. The Grove is a gathering place for all Angelenos and not a place for intolerance,” the mall said.

Here we are feeling separate again. Ashamed. Alone.

Here we are alone on our side of the world.

Wearing dresses or playing basketball or playing nurse and having that distant look in our eyes like too much glue. Sure we wanted all those things, to be famous, and fierce, and rich, and to become Celtics, and suddenly people knew us for good things. For being the Best. For being Champs, but really truly when it comes down to it when people ask us what we want to do when we grow up we say, get married.