THIS young man Carlo Paalam—one of the country’s four medalists at last year’s Tokyo Olympics—knows not only when and where to land a solid punch or bob his head and sway his body to avoid getting a solid blow.
A scavenger when he was a kid, Paalam knows pretty well where he’ll invest the millions he raked in after clinching a boxing silver medal in Tokyo—he’s now the proud owner of a two-storey commercial building that sits on a 200-square meter lot in Zone 10 Upper Carmen in his hometown of Cagayan de Oro City.
“It’s one of the fruits of my hard labor as an athlete since I competed in the 2018 Asian Games,” said the 23-year-old Paalam, whose men’s flyweight bronze medal in Jakarta earned him P950,000.
“I saved my money from my tournament successes since 2018 until the Tokyo Olympics,” he said. “I’m really inspired to train and work harder for the next Olympics in Paris to achieve more.”
Counting his gold at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games which went up to P850,000 and the millions, yes P24.5 million in total cash from multiple sources he banked from his Olympic silver medal in Tokyo, Paalam is now a living a life that’s a far cry from his pre-teens when he and his siblings collected scrap in Cagayan de Oro which they could sell only to put food on the dinner table.
“I first bought a 200-square-meter lot in 2018 after the Asian Games but construction began after the 2019 SEA Games,” he said. “It took me years to complete it because I don’t have enough budget. So after the Olympics when I got enough money, I finished the work immediately.”
The commercial building includes his own mini-grocery he aptly named Paalam Store and complete with the Olympic rings on its signage. It also has nine rooms that could be rented out as residential pads on the second floor and commercial spaces for lease with an adequate parking space on the first floor.
“I asked my parents to take care of our business, store and apartment while I’m away,” he said.
His eldest sister Charmilyn will manage the store and supervise the completion of the whole establishment.
Paalam is now with his national teammates in the Association of Boxing Alliances at the Philippine Sports Commission training facility inside the Teachers’ Camp in Baguio City.
Besides the cash incentives, Paalam has his own house-and-lot—just like fellow Olympics medalists Nesthy Petecio (silver, boxing), Eumir Felix Marcial (bronze, boxing) and, of course, Hidilyn Diaz (gold, weightlifting)—in Tagaytay City courtesy of Philippine Olympic Committee President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino and Senator Francis “Tol” Tolentino.
Each of the medalists also has another house from the National Housing Authority in their hometowns.
Besides the commercial building, Paalam also plans to go into the livestock business like breeding cows, poultry and goats—all he intends to put up in and around Cagayan de Oro.
“My heart belongs to Mindanao,” he said.