WORLD featherweight boxing idol Manny Pacquiao said Monday he is disappointed over the bad publicity he is getting from local media over Sunday’s shooting incident that eventually led to the death of radio reporter Jonathan ‘Jun’ Abayon.
Pacquiao brushed aside reports his bodyguards were overprotective of him and acting like goons.
He said that at present he has three security escorts–one member of the AFP and two civilians.
The Filipino world-boxing champion however said he knew his bodyguards so well as they are his close relatives.
It is not true, he insists, that they have highly questionable backgrounds.
The boxing idol expressed his deepest sympathy to the bereaved family of Abayon.
He said he was not aware what really happened as he was already asleep when William Bael shot Abayon Sunday dawn.
Pacquiao said Bael was problematic as the latter’s mother had just reportedly passed away while the wife was confined at one of the hospitals in Davao City due to renal disease.
Pacquiao revealed that he gave Bael money before the latter and Abayon left his house.
“Di ko talaga alam ang nangyari kasi pagkabigay ko ng pera kay Bael ay natulog na ako (I really did not know what happened because I went to sleep after handing the money to Bael),” he said.
Bael shot Abayon at close range after they had a heated argument inside the pick-up truck of Gonzalo ‘Boy’ Lopez moments after they left the residence of Pacquiao.
Abayon was rushed to the General Santos Doctors Hospital but passed away before noon Monday after a surgical operation to remove a slug on his head.
Bael immediately fled after the incident and has gone into hiding.
A manhunt operation has been ordered for his immediate arrest even as the local police here filed murder charges against the suspect.
