Pacquiao’s Next Rematch

by Andres Romay

Most of us can agree that Manny Pacquiao is one of the worlds best pound for pound fighters.  He proved it again a few weeks ago when he took on and beat Joshua Cottley taking his record to an impressive 51-3-2.  Now he is going to take on a challenge that has defeated him before.  Congress.

In early 2007, Pacquiao ran for the Liberal Party for a seat in the House of Representatives in his native Phillipines.  He was ultimately defeated by  incumbent Rep. Darlene Antonino-Custodio, who apparently wasn’t surprised that she defeated the boxing icon.  She commented “More than anything, I think, people weren’t prepared to lose him as their boxing icon.”  Three years later Pacquiao is gearing up to take on the challenge again.

A few nights ago, Pacquiao appeared in his black Hummer at an open air basketball court, while “Eye of the Tiger” was playing in the background.  He addressed the crowd, while wearing jeans and a blue vest showing his new political affiliation, The People’s Champ Movement.  “I could just sit back and relax and not have anything to do with politics. I could just travel around and enjoy my life with my family,” Pacquiao told the crowd “But I came from a very poor family, and I cannot turn my back on the poor.”

He spoke of how he familiar he was with poverty, how he used to sleep on cardboard in the streets, how because of a lack of money his family was forced to eat coconuts and bananas. He is trying to shake things up a bit in his native Phillipines, saying “The reason why so many people are poor is that politicians think of nothing except how to recover the money they spent during the elections.”  His plan, as he describes it is very simple, very basic.  Help people.  Give small boats to fisherman, some financial assistance to neighborhood stores to allow people to support their family and build some sort of livelihood, not to mention work on giving free education, medicine and medical care to the poor.

On May 10^th, we will see if this man can take on another opponent and defeat it.  As a man, he quit school to help support his family, only to eventually get his high school equivalency in 2007.  As a boxer he has trained hard and retained world championships in seven weight classes.  And as a politician, he has been defeated before, but he is hoping that his personal knowledge of poverty will liken him to enough of the populace to gain their vote and allow him to try to implement change.