Early Life
The Philippine presidential candidate Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao Sr. is known to most Filipinos and the world of boxing fans as “Manny Pacquiao” or the “PacMan.” He was born on December 17, 1978 in General Santos city.
His was a classic rags-to-riches story. He was born into poverty, grew up in the fish ports of Gen. Santos City and stowed away to come to Manila to find work. He was taken in by a boxing club and given a place to stay. He trained and won several local matches before going professional.
Highest Paid Athlete in the Philippines
As of 2015, he was reported to be the second highest-paid athlete. He was also reported to have earned an estimated $1.2 billion in revenue from boxing alone. This net worth does not include his earnings from his businesses, his real property holdings, his earnings from other sporting endeavors (basketball) or earnings from his salaries in government service.
He rose to prominence and gained a following through his feats in the boxing ring. He is the only eight-division world champion in the history of boxing. He won 12 major world titles and the first boxer to win the lineal championship in five weight classes. He has since been dubbed by the Philippine press as “the people’s champion.” In this presidential election, he has used this nickname as a call to arms.
Military Reservist
Paquiao is also a military reservist. He entered the reserve forces in 2006 and held the rank of sergeant. While he was a member of Congress, he held the rank of lieutenant colonel. And since he became a Senator of the Republic, he has been bestowed the honorary rank of colonel in the Philippine Army.
Educational Attainment
There is no record of his having finished high school or its equivalent. In 2007-2008, in between training and fights, he enrolled at the Notre Dame of Dadiangas University to take a course in business administration with a major in marketing management. He did not finish this course.
First Steps into Politics
He first ran and lost his bid for the loan seat of South Cotabato’s first district. In 2010, he was elected to the House of Representative as a congressman from Sarangani province. He held this post for two terms or six years and ran unopposed on his second term.
Winning a Senate Seat
In 2016, he ran and was elected to the Senate. He garnered 16 million of the total votes cast and ranked 7th among the 12 new members of the Senate. While senator, Pacquiao graduated from the University of Makati with a bachelor’s degree in political science major in local government. He completed this degree through the expanded education equivalency and accreditation that allows qualified Filipinos to complete a college-level education through an informal education system.
Family Life
Manny Paquiao is a husband and family man. His wife Jinkee also held several local government positions in Sarangani. His four children all study in Brent School Manila. He was born and raised Catholic, but he has since converted and has become a preacher with an evangelical protestant leaning.
Ruffling the Feathers of the LGBT community
He has often declared that he is family-oriented and that he believes in maintaining the strength of the family which he believes to be under moral seige. His personal religious beliefs and convictions have put him at odds with the LGBTQ community in the Philippines. He was quoted in an interview saying that the practice of homosexuality made a person “masahol pa sa hayop” or worse than an animal.
No to Divorce, Same-Sex Marriage Stance?
This election, no question has been put forward to him about his stand on divorce or family planning but he has stoutly declared as early as December 2021 that he will vote against any proposed bill in the Senate that will allow divorce. He has also declared that if elected, he will veto any enacted bill on divorce.
Largesse? Patronage? Charity?
Manny Pacquiao has been known and he has been reported to dole out “balato” or a share in his boxing winnings with people in his province. Long queues of people waiting by his mansion gates are a common sight every time he comes home after a successful boxing bout. He has also been active in disaster relief drives and has launched a pabahay (housing) project in his province of Sarangani.
He reportedly purchased a 1.5-hectare subdivided land in the town of Malungon and gave it away to 97 poor families in the area. The housing project is next to the 1-hectare lot donated also by Pacquiao for the new barangay hall in the same town.
His Edge in the Presidential Race
If name recall and positive media stories were the only factors that indicated a presidential candidate’s palatability to voters, Manny Pacquiao could win the presidency in 2022. He has all the values that Filipinos prize: diligence that helped him rise from poverty to the peak of success, a positive can-do attitude that pulls him through struggle. These are cultivated images meant to endear politicians to the Filipino voting public.
His having come from poverty is thought to make him empathize with people who are living in poverty. His having been an underdog and his lack of education is thought to make him an ally of the common Filipino who has no claim to membership in a high socioeconomic class.
Manny Pacquiao is generous, willing and able to help and while his practice of giving away money even at Christmas has been decried as electioneering, a violation of election laws, it is a paradox that common Filipino voters seek out candidates who are “maaasahan sa oras ng pangangailangan” (dependable in times of need) and “malalapitan” (accessible and approachable) and yet decry the corruption of politicians who are caught helping their families out from public funds.
In a lot of ways, Manny Pacquiao’s desire to help people fuels his political ambition and he has succeeded so far. However, most intelligent voters see in Pacquiao the traditional politician who thrives on patronage.
Tax Evasion Charges
There was a time during the administration of Benigno Aquino III that Manny Pacquiao was audited and charged with tax evasion for his earnings from fights in Nevada. He claimed to have paid income taxes on those earnings in the United States and because of a tax treaty between the United States and the Philippines, he did not need to be taxed again for those same earnings in the Philippines. Those tax evasion cases have since been settled.
Political Naivete
Another criticism of Manny Pacquiao is his naivete about politics and governance. He has not yet acclimatized to doing things through law and government agencies and has instead acted and moved on his own initiative and largely funded projects from his own pockets. This, according to critics and academicians are practices that hark back to the time of the Roman Republic when senators gave favors, and supported voters by giving them dole-outs in exchange for their votes.
Difficulties in Communication
Pacquiao is largely poorly educated despite his university degree. He finds it difficult to communicate or debate with ease either in Pilipino or English. He finds it difficult to navigate through intricacies of public issues such as divorce or LGBTQ rights and often comes away from such conversations as dogmatic and inflexible in his perspective.
For instance, critics have said that while his being a family man can be respected, and his choice as to the number of children to have can be supported by his income, the same cannot be said for ordinary and poor Filipinos who need to have access to birth control (which Pacquiao opposes).
Political Views Dictated by Religious Conviction
Manny Paquiao opposes divorce in all its forms without thinking that not all Filipinos enjoy the same loving family relationship he enjoys. Women who are victims of domestic violence who may want to be divorced from their abusive spouses certainly need to be divorced from their abusive spouses if they are to start life anew. Wives whose husbands have left them for other relationships who refuse to support their children remain married on paper to their husbands even when their husbands have abandoned them. To these groups of people, Manny Pacquiao’s stance on divorce are unaccommodating and hard-hearted.
Chronic Absenteeism in Congress
Manny Paquiao may be full of sipag and tiyaga when it comes to his own boxing career, but his record as a congressman shows that he was the number 1 absentee representative having attended 10 sessions or less. His supporters claim, however, despite his busy career, he has co-authored and sponsored 6 notable bills that have since been passed in to law while holding office in the Senate.
Lackluster Legislative Work
His critics, however, point out the bills sponsored or co-authored by Pacquiao have been largely local in scope as the laws created an office of the Land Transportation Office in Sarangani, declared a new holiday in North Cotabato. He has sponsored a bill that expanded the incentives granted to national athletes and coaches and another bill that promoted entrepreneurship and financial literacy among the Filipino youth.
Poor Showing in Surveys
Manny Paquiao has consistently ranked third in presidential surveys. He is unfazed by this believing that people will embrace him for all the benefit they perceive Paquiao will bring to them. He believes that the presidential race is like any other boxing match he has ever fought in. He trains hard, steels himself for the fight and punches his way until the last round. Whether he can accomplish all that he has set out to accomplish is yet to be seen.