With only Rp 5,000 (35 US cents) in his pocket in 2011, Ongen Saknosiwi dared himself to take a leap of faith, leaving his home island in Maluku for Tangerang in Banten for the first time to pursue a boxing career.

He was 17 years old at that time and chose not to tell his parents about his departure.

The Tangerang trip was not Ongen’s first travel experience. His first was when he left his family, which resides on Buru Island — a 30-minute flight from Maluku’s capital Ambon — to enroll in SMA 4 state high school in Ambon in 2008.

As soon as Ongen finished school, he received an opportunity from a boxing talent scout, the late Wiem Sapulette, to go to Tangerang for a career. He accepted the opportunity, but he did not immediately tell his parents about the plan as he was concerned they would be too worried to allow him to go.

However, Ongen said the only thing in his mind was that he had to do something to improve the quality of his family’s life and that something was boxing.

Off he went with the former national boxer Wiem, who owned a boxing camp in Banten.

“I went to Jakarta with Pak Wiem. I told my parents that as a man I had to be brave to leave my home town,” said Ongen, now an Indonesian Air Force officer, adding that he revealed his trip and plans to his parents once he reached Banten.

Ongen’s talent for boxing was discovered while he was at school in Ambon when he started practicing the sport in his senior year in 2011. Three months later, he represented his school in the region’s Pattimura Cup boxing tournament and won his first event, which led him to a scholarship for his studies.

“Looking back on my past journey, it was quite tough. Before boxing, I worked as a construction laborer — mixing cement and painting people’s houses,” Ongen said in a recent interview with the press in Jakarta.

“I used the money [from the construction job] to pay for my tuition and support myself. I lived far from my parents. The only way to contact them was by mail and I usually asked my relative, who was based in Ambon, to bring the letters to my parents when he went to the island.

“I received about Rp 500,000 [US$35.60] from winning the Pattimura Cup and I used the prize money to pay for my debts as I had borrowed from some people to meet my daily needs,” he said.

It was his father who introduced Ongen to boxing. Ongen’s father was familiar with the sport from watching the bouts of his favorites, American Mike Tyson and the Philippines’ Manny Pacquiao, on television. However, Ongen could not immediately box as there was no boxing camp on Buru Island.

“When I started practicing, many doubted my choice to take up boxing, saying that I would not have a future in the sport. My mother was also quite reluctant [to support my decision] as she could not bear seeing me being beaten up,” said Ongen.

The boxer, however, overcame the doubts by making achievements.

Ongen entered the amateur level by boxing for the Banten chapter of the Indonesian Amateurs Boxing Association (Pertina).

“I feel like boxing is my way of life. I want to be the world champion,” said Ongen, who idolizes Cuban boxer Yuriorkis Gamboa for his counter-attack style.

In 2016, he started his professional debut with a promising performance as he won by a technical knockout (TKO) against compatriot Imanuel Hutagalung.

Ongen maintained his winning streak with five TKOs and one knockout (KO) from 2016 to 2019. One of the wins was a featherweight title in September’s World Boxing Council’s (WBC) Asian Boxing Council Continental tournament against Thailand’s Nanthawat Maolichat in Singapore, which was Ongen’s international debut.

The Singapore victory handed Ongen a promotion in his military career, which he began in 2014. First private Ongen, who is in service in the security and code office of the Air Force, is to be promoted to chief private in April 2020 because of the Singapore victory.

Ongen is now scheduled to fight against the Philippines’ Marco Demecillo for a world featherweight title under the International Boxing Association (IBA) in Batu, Malang, East Java on Nov. 17.

The Batu match is part of the Mahkota Boxing Series, promoted by Indonesia’s Mahkota Promotions.

Ongen and Demecillo’s bout is to precede the main contest, which features top Indonesian boxer Daud Yordan against South Africa’s Michael Mokoena. Daud and Mokoena are to fight for the World Boxing Organization’s super lightweight belt.

Ahead of the matches, both Ongen and Daud have been training under coach Pino Bahari since early October in Bali. Pino was a national boxer with achievements that include a 1990 Asian Games gold medal in men’s 75-kilogram weight class.

Pino said he believed his boxers would reach their peak during the Batu bouts, adding that they needed to focus on increasing their endurance ahead of the fights.

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