By Nick Giongco

Every single day just before sunrise in Libon, Albay, world boxing champion Pedro Taduran gets up from bed and heads outdoors.

The pint-sized fighter, however, isn’t out for a jog at 5 a.m., the preferred time of day favored by many boxers getting ready for a fight.

Instead of lacing on a pair of lightweight sneakers, Dri-Fit pullovers and jogger pants, Taduran slips into rubber sandals, a simple hoodie and working trousers.

Taduran, you see, is temporarily leaving boxing for a new job: Farming.

Unable to return to training owing to the Luzon-wide lockdown, Taduran is tending a family-owned one hectare rice field with his father, Pedro Sr.

After fieldwork, Taduran sometimes joins his old man in making machetes in their makeshift shop at home for sale in the town market.

“Mahirap po dahil hindi natin alam kung kailan babalik ang boksing. Dumadami pa ang kaso ng COVID-19,” said Taduran, the reigning International Boxing Federation minimumweight titlist with a pro record of 14-2-1 with 11 KOs.

Only last February, the southpaw Taduran traveled to Nuevo Leon in Mexico and defended the IBF 105-lb crown for the first time.

Taduran, 23, managed to keep the championship after his fight with crowd-favorite Daniel Valladares was declared a draw following a slugfest.

Before the coronavirus (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic, Taduran was preparing to get back to training camp. His manager Art Monis had revealed about plans of bringing him back to the ring in June.

But it doesn’t look as though the June fight would take place what with all events – sporting and non-sporting – getting postponed or even cancelled one after the other.

With boxing taking a long break, Taduran is likely to get used to getting up early not to work out, but to tend the fields, in the coming weeks or even months, utilizing the very same hands originally intended to inflict cuts and bruises on opponents.