Manny Pacquiao retained his World Boxing Council Super Featherweight title last month in San Antonio, Texas, with an eighth-round knockout of Mexico’s Jorge Solis. At home in the southern Philippines next week, he hopes to deliver a similar defeat to a heavyweight in a whole new sport: politics.
“I want to help the people,” said Pacquiao, 28, whose 44 wins — 35 by knockouts — have made him a national celebrity and hometown hero in South Cotabato province in Mindanao.
Pacquiao may also help President Gloria Arroyo, who’s backing his candidacy in the May 14 mid-term elections, which have turned into a mini-referendum on her six years in office. He is challenging third-generation Congresswoman Darlene Antonino-Custodio, 32, a leader of a failed campaign two years ago to impeach Arroyo for alleged vote rigging.
“Pacquiao is being used to disable an opponent of the president,” said Segundo Romero, an analyst at the Development Academy of the Philippines.
The mid-term elections, in which voters will select a new congress of up to 275 representatives, fill half of the senate’s 24 seats, and elect all local officials, are important to Arroyo: She has survived two impeachment attempts and must retain at least one-third of the house to remain safely in office.
If candidates like Pacquiao manage to increase her KAMPI party’s presence in congress, Arroyo could get closer to her goal of changing the constitution and switching the Philippines from a presidential to a parliamentary government system.
Fighting for Autonomy
In South Cotabato, the fight is between celebrity wattage and a family dynasty, with both sides promising to do better for one of the country’s poorest regions, which is home to a decades-long insurgency by Islamic groups fighting for autonomy.
Pacquiao’s profile and rags-to-riches rise have been celebrated in a biographical movie, a hit single about his feats in the ring and appearances in advertisements for McDonald’s Corp. and San Miguel Corp.
“Manny knows what it’s like to be poor,” said Jose Alvarado Jr., a bank employee from Gensanville, a tiny hamlet off the main road in General Santos City. “He may not have a university education, but he is smart, he appeals to our emotions, he understands our situation.”
“I can balance boxing and politics,” he said in an interview May 4 at a sprawling house he built for his mother in the city, the province’s capital. “I only have three or four more years to box, then it’s politics.”
Glove-Shaped Pool
Outside, campaign workers and bodyguards wait for instructions by the boxing-glove-shaped pool, on gold-tinged rocking chairs or in a gazebo on the well-manicured lawn.
He claims death threats have been leveled against him and doesn’t travel anywhere without his bodyguards.
Pacquiao’s only campaign promise so far is to help the underprivileged, and he has purchased insurance out of his own pocket for the poor in several villages.
No one forced him to stand for office, he said. His campaign was motivated by the fact that the Antoninos “have done nothing for my people in the past 20 years.”
Antonino-Custodio, whose grandfather Gaudencio was first elected in 1961, is running for her third term in congress. She works out of her family home, adjacent to a clinic offering free checkups for the poor.
Voter Giveaways
She has stepped up spending on posters and banners to meet the Pacquiao campaign’s mass distribution of umbrellas, stickers, posters and T-shirts, all bearing the boxer’s picture.
“In the last few years of any administration, not much can be done,” Antonino-Custodio said. “I want to help our people to be self-reliant and not rely on the government all the time.”
Antonino-Custodio said the national government has since 2005 frozen about 60 million pesos ($1.26 million) in development funding meant for her constituents. Arroyo’s government has openly stopped portions of development funding to certain provinces.
Pacquiao “keeps saying the president promises that General Santos will be lucky if Manny wins,” Antonino-Custodio said.
While both candidates say their own surveys have them leading the race, observers predict a victory for the president’s man, and even the opposition admits that if there are post-election allegations of cheating by Pacquiao’s side, they’ll be dismissed by his adoring public.
“It’s really easy to say `How can you expect to defeat Manny Pacquiao?”’ said Romero of the Development Academy.
“Manny Pacquiao is a national treasure,” said senatorial candidate Alan Cayetano, a member of the opposition. And national treasures should stay away from politics, he said. “If I were close to him, I’d say to him that there are many other ways to help your people.”
To contact the reporter on this story: En-Lai Yeoh in Singapore at [email protected]
