“Pac-Man,” a national icon who escaped childhood poverty to win world titles and earn more than $10 million a fight, is promising to improve schools, hospitals and welfare in Sarangani in the southern Philippines. He lost a 2007 bid for a seat in the neighboring province of South Cotabato, where he grew up.
“We have a bigger chance this time because we’re more prepared,” Pacquiao said in an interview in Manila on April 26. “So many people need assistance from government, but they’re being neglected.”
Pacquiao’s failed 2007 campaign underscores the difficulty of dislodging incumbent political dynasties, even for a wealthy champion of the poor, in a country where one in four people live on less than $1.25 a day. Pacquiao is running against Roy Chiongbian, brother of the retiring congressman, who describes his parents as “the father and mother” of the province.
“He has to prove himself,” said Segundo Romero, a visiting political science professor at De La Salle University in Manila. “He has not done anything. The people know you can’t translate competencies in one area to another in skills as different as politics and boxing.”
‘Sincere Politician’
Sarangani was rated in the bottom quarter of Philippine provinces with 45 percent of families classified as living in poverty as of 2006, according to the National Statistical Coordination Board.
“What the province needs is a sincere politician who wants to help and will help,” the 31-year-old Pacquiao said. “There are too many poor.”
Sarangani was established as a province independent from South Cotabato in 1992 under legislation authored by James Chiongbian, according to the local government’s Web site. Pacquiao grew up in the South Cotabato city of General Santos.
“My father created the province,” Roy Chiongbian, whose brother is prevented by term limits from standing for re- election, said by phone from Sarangani. “We’re from here.”
Chiongbian is chief executive officer of his family’s plastics business and helps run a shipping line that transports cars and heavy equipment from Japan to Manila.
“We all have our limitations,” he said of Pacquiao. “Me being a businessman, I can’t be a good boxer. Tiger Woods can’t be a good tennis player. If voters look at him as a good boxer, a champion, I’m okay. If they look at him as a politician, I will have a fight.”
Boxing Hero
As a child, Pacquiao slept on cardboard in the street and sold cigarettes to help his mother, a vendor of fish crackers, feed the family. He often subsisted on one bowl of rice a day.
He said the shared experience of poverty has spurred him to back Senator Manuel Villar in the presidential election, also held on May 10. Villar also rose from humble beginnings to amass a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $530 million.
“The past presidents all came from wealthy families,” Pacquiao said. “None of them experienced poverty. Manny Villar came from a poor family, knew how it was to be poor and what their needs are. I think he’s in the best position to help the poor.”
Villar trails presidential frontrunner Benigno Aquino, the son of a former president, by 12 percentage points, according to a survey in the BusinessWorld newspaper this week. Villar was ousted as Senate leader in 2008 amid allegations he diverted a road to benefit one of his property projects, and has been accused of corruption by Aquino. He denies any impropriety and the Villar camp has condemned “black propaganda” tactics.
Mayweather Fight
Pacquiao said he will accept the election result. “Whoever wins, we will support” them, he said. “We will respect the results, the choice of the people.”
Win or lose in Sarangani, he may not be done with boxing yet. Pacquiao, rated the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter by The Ring magazine, said there’s a “big possibility” he’ll fight No. 2 Floyd Mayweather Jr. in his last bout before retiring.
The public’s desire to see Pacquiao prolong his boxing career may be holding back his political prospects, according to De La Salle’s Romero.
“They are preventing him from destroying himself,” he said. “They know if he becomes a politician, they’ll lose him as a boxing hero.”
--Editor: Matthew Brooker, Lars Klemming.
To contact the reporters on this story: Clarissa Batino at cbatino@bloomberg.net; Francisco Alcuaz Jr. in Manila at falcuaz@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Collins at collinsc@bloomberg.net;
Sources: BusinessWeek
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