Hometown crowd flown for Pacquiao fight

EACH time Manny Pacquiao fights now, he sticks to a Filipino diet. He ushers in visitors to his hotel suite to a dining table brimming with Filipino fare including inventive homemade goods and other enticing treats.

If he can take home cooking with him to places like Macau where he faces Chris Algieri with his WBO welterweight belt at stake today, why not bring the hometown crowd for good measure?

That’s exactly what the Pacman has done and this time around, his entourage has swollen.

The clique has grown from his usual employees from Los Angeles whose livelihood depends on his whimsy, lucky hangers-on, including a few deadbeat media persons, his personal and political confidants and fellow congressmen who make up the cheering gallery for the gentleman from Sarangani province.

For his second bout in Macau away from the bright lights of Las Vegas— the fight capital that’s been the locale of 12 of his last 16 bouts—PH’s good-hearted boxing royalty brought a coterie of more than 300.

For this match, Team Pacquiao has enough people to match the population of one of the shantytowns of Pacquiao’s home city of General Santos in South Cotabato.

It took two Airbus planes to wing Pacquiao and his cadre from GenSan to Macau for free. They will come home after the fight also gratis aboard the same planes, courtesy of a marketing deal the boxing icon inked with AirAsia honcho Tony Fernandes.

Upon arrival at the Macau airport, four buses stood by to bring  members of Pacquiao’s party  to the Venetian, site of today’s bout where they were billeted, reportedly courtesy of their patron.

“That’s how generous Manny Pacquiao is,” the boxer’s Canadian adviser Mike Koncz told the ring press.

Realizing that his boss loves companionship and seems to draw strength in numbers, Koncz has turned around from his previous stance.

Koncz, a lightning rod for conflict with Pacquiao’ pack, once told a reporter that someday, the downfall of Manny “will be his kindness and generosity.”

Pacquiao appears to like fighting in Macau because he avoids paying US taxes on his purse. Besides, the gambling enclave known as the Las Vegas of Asia is only a 90-minute flight from Manila.

This probably explains why more people with the boxer’s blessing have joined his coterie since they are closer and can travel to Macau without visas.

Not that the Chinese special administrative region is lacking in Filipino fans for the bout between the Pacman (56-5-2, 38 knockouts) and Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs).

The fighting congressman himself has told the Los Angeles Times that the last time he fought in Macau against American Brandon Rios on Nov. 24, 2013, 70 to 80 percent  of the fans were Filipino.

After all, the former Portuguese colony is only 60 kilometers over the sea from Hong Kong, home of thousands of Filipino workers and the favorite destination of a multitude of tourists from home.