Manny Pacquiao’s popularity has spread across Asia as media continues to cover his travel outside the country. In Thailand he was warmly welcomed by the Thai people including government officials who said that his popularity in unrivalled in Asia Manny Pacquiao is not only popular in his own country the Philippines but he is also well known in other countries across Asia.
Of the ASEAN member countries, he is most known in Thailand which he visited last week to promote a brand of beer from the Philippines.
While in Bangkok, Pacquiao expressed his appreciation to the people of Thailand for the very warm reception he was accorded during his brief but memorable visit. The young Prime Minister of Thailand Abhisit Vijajjiba welcomed the Filipino boxing icon and gave him a basketful of fresh fruits from Thailand.
Thai officials led by Vijajjiva praised Pacquiao for his remarkable qualities as a person and as a boxer. They said the Filipino boxing superstar is good role model for the youth of Thailand and other Asian countries because of his exceptional achievements in sports and his visions to help the poor and the needy.
Bangkok Post reports:
When Manny Pacquiao visited Bangkok last week as a presenter for a beer, he was greeted by an army of journalists – many of whom were not sports writers – at a media conference at the Intercontinental Hotel
Pacquiao is familiar with Thailand as he has fought here several times. His last fight in the Kingdom was his third-round knock-out defeat against Medgoen Singsurat to lose the WBC flyweight title.
Pacquiao lost the belt on the scales after failing to make weight in the 1999 bout in Nakhon Si Thammarat, the report added.
In the meantime, the popular Filipino boxer is busy in his home country attending to his new business ventures including the setting up of a huge commercial and industrial complex in his home province in southern Philippines.
Among others, Pacquaio is putting up a medical tourism project in collaboration with an American company, a cancer treatment facility for his existing cancer research foundation, a retirement community, a resort and hotel complex and an information technology park.
