MANNY Pacquiao admits his current financial mess is due to his gullibility but Ring Magazine’s world featherweight king believes he still has enough time to set things right.
“Pirma lang ako ng pirma noon, pero iba na ako ngayon (I don’t sign contracts without knowing the terms now),” said Pacquiao, who will leave for Los Angeles tomorrow to settle, among other things, his tax liabilities in the United States.
“Lahat ng pinag-uusapan dapat (all agreements should be in) black and white.”
Pacquiao, who hosted a media dinner on Sunday night, is set to file a case against American promoter Murad Muhammad, who took the Filipino’s 40-percent share of the pay-per-view revenues of his losing bout against Mexican Erik Morales recently.
Pacquiao also plans to clarify his financial disagreements — including his local TV rights share from Solar Sports — with long-time manager Rod Nazario, whom he hopes to see in San Francisco.
They took advantage of me,” said Pacquiao in Filipino. “They thought I knew nothing because I didn’t complain. I trusted them. When it became a matter of million dollars, people change.”
Pacquiao, however, said he doesn’t want to further strain his relationship with his former handlers.
“I’m not mad at Nazario or Murad,” said the 26-year-old toast of RP boxing. “I just want to know the truth.”
Aside from losing his PPV share, Pacquiao, now under new American manager Shelly Finkel, found out several days after the Morales fight that his former handlers had not been paying his taxes since he started fighting in the US four years ago.
Pacquiao said he hopes to boost his cause this time through the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, which requires boxing managers to fully disclose all promotional agreements to their fighters.
The former bakery worker from General Santos City, whose international ring status flourished under Nazario, said his financial woes would soon be over.
“I’m not going to play dumb all my life,” he said. “Now I know a lot of things because I’ve been asking questions.
“I have a lot of advisers and I listen to all of them. But I’m the one who’s making all the decisions now, not the people around me.”
