Pacquiao Running

Immediately after becoming a world boxing legend through an electrifying and quick knockout of British boxer Hatton, Pacquio is in the news again. Yes, he’s running again as a Congress representative or, this time around, a mayor in General Santos City and Saranggani province in the 2010 elections. He’ll be running under a local political party named the People’s Champ Movement, a moniker (the people’s champ) he was given by the House of Representatives earlier on.

Remember that this will be the second time around the Pacman will run in the elections. The last time he ran for a congressional seat in 2007, he was roundly defeated by then incumbent Darlene Antonino-Custodio who chalked up almost double the votes of the Pacman.

What is the problem of Pacquiao running?

Bayan Muna party-list representative Teddy Casiño said Pacquiao should train first for the “rigors of politics”, especially lawmaking. Other politicians have advised him to drop the idea of aspiring for a political seat and concentrate instead on his boxing where he’s really “good at”.

I really don’t think the Pacman will not be up to the so-called rigors of politics. Pacman is not as brainless as other congressmen and senators who could not even get to enact a worthwhile bill in Congress. His boxing records are not merely the efforts of a brawnie in the ring; it has intellectual planning and style that is sometimes likened to Muhammad Ali’s.

The real problem with Pacquiao is his kind of politics. He has allowed himself to be used by the corrupt, greedy and ineffectual trapos lording it over the Malacanang palace, Congress and the local governments. To see Pacquiao almost sheepishly being paraded around by GMA and the First Husband, DENR Secretary Lito Atienza, and the likes, is revolting. What makes it disturbing is that Pacquiao, despite his worldwide acumen, grit and charisma, has allowed himself to become a mere spectacle for the trapos.

Why can’t he be like his champion Muhammad Ali? Ali won the respect and accolade of the people worldwide not only because of his fighting style, but because he represented the underdogs in a society ruled by white imperialist masters. As an Olympics gold medalist in the early 1960s (100 wins, 5 losses), Ali was reported to have thrown away his gold medal in the Ohio river to protest his not being served in a “whites-only restaurant”.

In the late 1960s, Ali refused to be drafted in the US army to fight in Vietnam. His famous statement, which became a slogan for the anti-Vietnam war activists during that time, was “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong…” Ali said they never called him a nigger, and he didn’t see a reason to wipe them out. As a result of this protest act, Ali was stripped of all his boxing titles and his boxing license was suspended. The US courts found him guilty of felony. It was only in 1971 that he was allowed to play again, after the Supreme Court ruled in his favor and reversed the lower courts’ conviction. The decision was made at a time that the Vietnam war was becoming more and more unpopular even among the power circles in the United States.

So the problem is not Pacquiao’s inability to comprehend the role of a legislator or a local official. The problem is on which side of the fence he’s sitting on. With the company he keeps today, with nary a pronouncement on what’s wrong with the present regime and the present system, the Pacman is clearly not championing the cause of the masses. #