A group of boxing enthusiasts yesterday made good on their promise to make a donation to Louie Adrielle Perez, the seven-year-old Filipino boy needing a life-saving liver transplant, it can now be revealed.
The nine friends - all expatriates - had paid $5,000 each to watch the July 2 match between Philippine boxing icon Manny Pacquiao and Mexico's Oscar Larios in Quezon City in the Philippines. Pacquaio retained his WBC International super featherweight title.
Last Thursday the Post ran a report on Louie, who had needed at least $300,000 in order to meet a $1 million deposit for the liver transplant at Queen Mary Hospital.
Louie was born with biliary atresia, an absence or closure of ducts that drain bile from the liver. A remedial operation performed when Louie was three months old began failing two years ago.
When the friends read about the boy's plight, one of them donated $100,000 and asked his friends to give as well.
The expatriate, who asked to remain anonymous, said: 'I said to them, 'If you were prepared to pay $5,000 for a boxing match, surely you are prepared to help a dying seven-year-old boy with a severe liver problem'.
