YOU can feel it in the air. You can see the signs on social media. The President’s most ardent supporters want Manny Pacquiao to lose against Errol Spence Jr.
They can’t stand having a guy like Pacman get the time in the limelight as a champion. A winner.
So they are all throwing everything at him, with the kitchen sink long thrown beforehand. Manny, the richest athlete ever from the country, accused of pocketing billions from a sports stadium project. Manny, one of the country’s top taxpayers, faces an old accusation of not having paid his taxes. (That it was PNoy’s BIR commissioner who filed that case is, of course, lost on them.)
The troll army has been released with the Pacman as the no. 1 target. They can deny all they want that they don’t have an army, but the proliferation of fake news and attacks against the Pacman — with uniform fonts and all — show that they have.
Pacman has a fight in less than four weeks and is preparing in the US. But so far, it looks like he’s being cornered as he tries to don his other persona, working in Philippine time while in the US.
What was Pacquiao’s crime again?
He spoke up against the President.
He’s punch-drunk. The President said. The same guy who looks drunk in his weekly TV appearances and can’t even finish one coherent sentence.
Of course, one can say that Pacman dug his own grave when he broke a promise that he’d retire once elected as senator. But then again he was just campaigning and we all learned from the master manipulator that they can all lie come campaign season. Jetski, anyone?
I want Pacquiao to win. I may not like his politics nor do I buy his “I fight for the Philippines” but that 12 rounds in the ring, all I see is Manny the Pinoy fighter. That’s why I want him to win.
But I think this is the first time in his career that he has the real possibility of losing and we haven’t even talked about how dangerous the undefeated Spence is. Pacquiao, the boxer in the US, remains too busy acting as a senator operating on Philippine time.
Still, I want him to win. I want to see that Manny of old who punches his mitts whenever he gets cornered. I want to see him end his career on a high note, for all those Sundays a decade ago that he united his country.