Hater is one of the most overused words in boxing. Part of its overuse is due to a lack of imagination, when it?s not simply parroting whatever word or catchphrase happens to be commonplace at the moment.
WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (60-7-2, 39 KOs), the future Hall-of-Famer from General Santos City, Cotabato del Sur, Philippines, is not a hater, per se. But he admitted during the first episode of ?All Access: Pacquiao vs. Broner? that he hates politics, and frankly who can blame him.
But Pacquiao, who is a senator and will someday be President of the Philippines, is a man on a mission, and that mission, in addition to his continuing to fight at 40 years of age, is to challenge the poverty of his countrymen, poverty which he himself experienced and remembers all too well.
?From the beginning, it?s not my plan to enter politics,? he said, ?because I hate politics? [But] I want to help more people. It?s about giving. It?s about doing your job. It?s about solving the problems.
?God put me in this situation to serve honestly, stop corruption, to help the people. That?s my goal for being a boxer and being a politician.?
Wanting to help the people is a noble desire and long overdue. But stopping corruption in politics, where money flows like blood from a severed artery, may prove more difficult than Manny imagines.
