By Joel B. Belinan
It has been two weeks since Manny Pacquiao lost to that unknown Cuban boxer. But instead of being tamed by that defeat the former eight division World Title holder seems to be showing that he is really serious in his plan for the highest position of this country. Just this week he and the faction supporting him at the PDP Laban party expelled Pres. Duterte from the party. Interestingly, he was expelled two months ago by the Duterte group while he was in the thick of his training at the Wild Card Gym in California. Do unto others what others do unto you seems to be Manny’s message here.
Looking at how people react to these two incidents, I mean his loss to Ugas and his political moves are quite contradictory. The aftermath of his loss saw people, not only Filipinos but even foreigners, who have stayed with him even during what might be the lowest point of his boxing career. His fans’ sympathy poured, more so when he openly accepted his defeat. Of course, there are still those so-called keyboard boxers who instantly became boxing analysts throwing all kinds of nonsense comments against Pacquiao as if they were qualified to speak about boxing. To borrow the words of one disgusted observer, “These commentators instantly became boxing experts even if they never donned a boxing glove in the ring, even once in their lifetime”.
In contrast, people’s reactions are very divided whenever Pacquiao is in the news relative to politics especially his interest to run for President in 2022. What caught my attention was that those who are opposed to his running for the highest elected position of this country are those in combat sports. As early as two months ago when the senator made those high-profile allegations of corruption against the Duterte government it had been very obvious that many of those ridiculing him were people from the combat sports (crab mentality of sorts) and, of course, the Diehard Duterte Supporters. Never mind that what Pacquiao uttered were those already known to the public. People opposed because they knew he was making those announcements as a prelude to advance his political ambition that would hurt the Duterte interest regardless of whether it will be Sara for president or not.
Those opposing his intent to run have various reasons. Most prominent among the common people is his alleged lack of academic credentials, others do not want him to run as this will prejudice their groups’ political interests, while still others just don’t want an ordinary guy who rose to become rich and famous to become president. Nonetheless, by the looks of things according to my friend Gerry Adlaw who is a publisher of a local paper in the hometown of Pacman (Gen. Santos City), “the more people look down at him, the more he is determined to go against the odds and prove himself. That is what he had developed as his character throughout his life. He has been fighting all his life, in the ring and outside the ring.”
What was very obvious during Sen. Pacquiao’s loss was that those well-known Filipino politicians who have been surrounding him for more than 30 fights making hundreds of millions betting for him were nowhere to be seen, except for those people in his People’s Champ team and those from the Wildcard Gym led by his trainer Coach Freddie Roach, they nearly looked pitiful. Indeed, one would know who his real friends are at a time when he is down on his knees. Observing the reactions of people on that scene, there were still people who stuck with him regardless of the result. They appeared not to have been influenced by the great number of foreigners, especially Americans, who kept on cheering for him despite the loss and especially after his humble acceptance of the judges’ verdict. Connecting this with the current situation, it appears that instead of the loss deterring him from his political ambition as those against him were hoping, it appears that it did not. Instead, he is even more determined now.
What appears now with the current political names being floated is that Sara Duterte will not run, instead the President will run for vice president and his possible presidential tandem would be Sen. Bong Go. Then we have the Lacson-Sotto tandem, and the possibility of Isko Moreno, VP Robredo, and Bongbong Marcos giving the presidency a try. With such a scenario, definitely Pacquiao will have a chance.
But with the kind of politics we have, there may still be changes come October when candidates troop to the COMELEC to file their certificates of candidacy. And as Gerry Adlaw said, what the Pacquiao camp had been observing is the possibility of Sara running for President, and that may be decided on the last hour of filing at the COMELEC.**
