A changing chamber comes first for Pacquiao
Manny Pacquiao’s focus on his lawmaking chores is crystal clear.
A flurry of theories has him facing Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a rematch soon, or squaring off with either Vasyl Lomachenko or Terence Crawford—pleasing stars with rising stock and momentum.
But Pacquiao is determined that his next bout will again have to fit his time table as a senator.
The “Pacman” would like to make sure everybody in his team gets the memo, particularly promoter Bob Arum, who is working on the future of Hall of Famer’s next ring session in May or April.
Dictated by Manny’s legislative duties, Arum was forced to schedule the politician’s successful challenge of Jessie Vargas for the WBO featherweight crown in Las Vegas last Nov. 5.
That date was deemed unpalatable by HBO, forcing the giant cable network to pass on Pacquiao’s first fight after a brief retirement because it was too close to another HBO pay-per-view production—the Sergey Kovalev-Andrei Ward matchup won by Ward on Nov. 19.
Without HBO, Arum distributed the PPV himself and got a less than desirable outcome.
Boxing’s only senator and eight division champion wants to lead a new life as an elected official. But he cannot bury the disgrace of being an absentee solon from Saranggani during his days at the House of Representatives. Neither can he erase that blemish from congressional record books.
It is said that Filipinos tend to have a short memory, often plunging into “historical amnesia.” As senator of the realm, keeping his nose to the grindstone leaves the ring icon an opening to speed up that emotional process in his favor.
In any case, Pacquiao is feeling comfortable as a senator and appears to enjoy his job immensely.
As chair of the chamber’s committee on sports, he is quarterbacking hearings in aid of legislation on issues that ail Philippine sports and to look at unliquidated government money disbursed to National Sports Associations under the Philippine Olympic Committee.
Pacquiao typifies the mutable character of the 24-member Senate. Because of term limits, senators can only serve two consecutive terms of six years each, with half of them elected every three years to guarantee that the body functions continuously on a staggered basis.
And so, junior senators like Pacquiao possess little institutional memory and don’t appear dialed in to the accepted norms of political behavior in the Senate under constantly changing leaders.
