MY column was ready to be e-mailed to the Philippine Daily Inquirer sports desk Saturday afternoon when I received late-breaking news that Manny Pacquiao – after announcing over national television that he was transferring the coverage of his fights from Solar, with whom he had a live contract up to 2011, to ABS-CBN – had retracted his pronouncement.

This development nullified the contents of the original column I had written where I laid out the possible scenarios had Manny insisted on switching channels.

Actually, if the concern of his millions of adoring fans all over the country was only to watch his May 2 fight with Briton Ricky Hatton, Solar’s vice-president for sales and marketing Jude Turcuato assured us that no matter what, the Las Vegas fight (and all succeeding Pacquiao fights until year 2011) would still be beamed by Solar to the Philippines,

But we could have expected court injunctions, TROs and messy cases to be the order of the day had Pacquiao ignored his legal commitments.

Jude said we won’t know for sure how Pacquiao was convinced to change his mind to transfer to ABS-CBN until after Solar’s William Tieng and Peter Chan Liong, who flew to Los Angeles last Friday night to talk to Manny, return home.

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Frankly, I was expecting the worst, especially after Manny had demanded that Solar present its financial records to him for inspection.

How could he ignore a legal commitment, I wondered. Has his head grown so big he feels he is above the law?

People are now asking, how Manny Pacquiao can be a congressman, a lawmaker, when he himself cannot uphold the law.

Manny’s fans must have been disappointed to discover this flaw in his character.

There are speculations that Manny may be thinking of running for a seat in the Senate instead of Congress.

Otherwise, why would he need the support of a giant television network if he had his eyes set only on a small area such as Saranggani?

I suppose we’ll all find out in due time.

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According to reports, it was 1 a.m when the talks between Solar and the Pacquiao camp concluded.

Everyone was drained of energy after the discussions that lasted for several hours.

Peter and William must have been more exhausted than the others considering that they had motored straight from the Los Angeles airport to Pacquiao’s apartment.

I was told that the Pacman had signed another contract with Solar.

What contract could that be?

A contract confirming that he (Pacquiao) will honor the previous contract he had inked with Solar?

Incidentally, my colleagues are talking about a lady who they suspect to have brokered the aborted Pacquiao-ABS-CBN deal.

No romantic insinuations here, they swore. Purely business.